Week 28: Embracing Your Natural Style – #AlphaFemaleFriday

Week 28: Embracing Your Natural Style – #AlphaFemaleFriday

“ WEEK 28 / 133 – 133 WEEKS TO SUCCESS ”

The original title of this chapter in Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office is entitled “Acting Like a Man”, but I started to think about what it really meant to act like a man in the workplace versus acting like a woman in the workplace. In the same way that feminism challenges more than just the traditional, societal gender binary, we must challenge both others’ and our own expectations and biased perceptions of who we are.

Being one of the youngest people in the office, let alone one of the youngest female minorities, I often found myself asking, “how can I be taken more seriously? How can I show that I’m not just a nice, obedient girl who does what she’s asked?” Eventually I stopped asking myself that question as soon as I realized that people are going to think what they are going to think due to their own natural biases, or from them just not knowing who I am and what I have to offer. Whether pushed to my limits or handling my day-to-day business, I knew that the person who I am is the kind of person who always seeks to respect another person, but takes no crap. I just had to let my actions speak for themselves.

Once I began to understand and embrace who I am, I stopped trying to alter my natural personality. I will always be that person who lets others finish before speaking, unless something is truly urgent or needs to be said in the face of utter nonsense. I am the morning person who gets up at the brink of dawn, has her cup of joe, and tackles the day with 110%. Why try to be a night owl or a chatty Kathy when that goes against my natural programming? As long as we know and embrace our strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, we can begin to highlight our best features and turn our lesser selves into an asset we never would have thought to bring to light otherwise.

Cheers,

Kelly

@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @KellyRGonzales                                                                                

About:

Each week, I take a tip from Lois P. Frankel’s book, Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office, and explore how each of these tips affect myself and other women in similar positions on the road to becoming the women we want to be. There are far and few between who are a few steps behind me, and many more who are far advanced. I found that Lois P. Frankel’s advice applied to novice, intermediates, and experts alike. It helped me see that I was already doing right, served as a reminder to keep on doing what I was doing and how to keep that momentum going. The book also showed me areas where I could improve, and gave realistic tips to jump on board. There are a total of 133 tips, and explore one tip per week in a program I call: 133 Weeks to Success.

Join the movement using the hashtag #133WeeksToSuccess with posts which are posted every #AlphaFemaleFriday.