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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Build a successful career with authenticity, confidence, and boldness
The career roadmap every woman has been searching for is finally here!
In Courage, Clarity, and Confidence: Redefine Success and the Way You Work, accomplished Executive Career and Leadership Development Coach Gala Jackson delivers a comprehensive playbook to help women reconnect with, or meet for the very first time, the strongest, boldest, and most courageous version of themselves. In her book, readers will explore their professional and personal journey; utilizing Gala’s ASCEND practice, readers will be able to define authentically aligned success and learn how to pursue it.
The author shares her experiences and anecdotes from clients to demonstrate what is possible for women when they ditch the traditional patriarchal job search and career advancement methodologies that only benefit men. She also provides thought-provoking exercises throughout the book designed to equip you with how to build a future for yourself with courage, clarity, and confidence, even amid the challenging landscape of women and work. The book also includes how to:
- Confidently embody the strongest, boldest, most courageous version of yourself to establish a career with flow and freedom
- Align your professional and personal identities for a new, empowering future without limitations
- Identify the power of your own voice and no longer minimize its value in or outside of the workplace
Create and own your definition of success while leveraging your past and present professional experiences to achieve it Courage, Clarity, and Confidence is the professional guidebook for women searching for a tangible, practical, and action-oriented career roadmap that helps women cultivate their vision and voice and then guides them through how to harness their power to make it an everyday reality.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note from the Author
Introduction
PART I: Courage
1 The Current State of Women and Work
The Rules of Engagement Are Changing
The Way We Are Expected to Work Is Becoming a Public Health Crisis
Knowledge Is Power and an Invitation to Take Action
A Snapshot of the Research
Burnout Is an Invitation to Evolve
Notes
2 Courage + Risk
Taking the Leap
Give Yourself Permission
Note
3 Courage + Curiosity
Pursuing the “American Dream”
Note
PART II: Clarity
4 Clarity Framework
The ASCEND Method
The ASCEND Practice
Note
5 Acknowledge What Is No Longer Working
Dealing with Symptoms and Getting to the Truth
Learning to Honor My Value
6 Study Your Strengths
Discovering Your Strengths
Notes
7 Connect with Your Values
Values as a North Star
Note
8 Explore Your Professional Experiences
The Traditional Job Search Underserves Women
Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should
What's Next?
A Note About the Exercise Ahead
Notes
9 Narrate Your Story
Understanding Your Own Story
Identifying Your Own Voice
How to Change the Narrative
Systemic Narratives
10 Decide to Embody the Strongest, Boldest, Most Courageous Version of Yourself
Don't Abandon Your Truth
Connecting with Strength, Boldness, and Courage
Taking Action All Begins with Your Best Yes
Note
11 Putting the Pieces Together
You Are Your Own Security
Putting the Pieces Together
The Domino Effect
Constructing Your Career Arc
Understanding the Practice of ASCEND
Continuing the Practice of Reflection and Connection
Questions for Integrating Reflection in Your Everyday Life
Notes
PART III: Confidence
12 Confidence Is Knowing Your Worth
How Do I Become More Confident?
13 Confidence Is Resilience
You're in Control
Don't Ignore the Signs
Note
14 Confidence Is a Habit
Daily Affirmations
Weekly Recap
Regular Reflection and Journaling
Commit to Re‐Creation
Engagement with Community
Move Your Body
Notes
15 Redefining Success
Defining Success, a Personal Definition
Reimagining Success
Moving in Alignment with Your Definition of Success
Your Definition of Success in Action: Goal Setting
Moving Forward with Your New Definition of Success
16 The Future of Women + Work
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 5
Table 5.1 Getting to the Root Exercise
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Illustration of the five essentials for workplace mental health a...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Figure 4.2 The ASCEND pyramid
Guide
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note from the Author
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:
Names: Jackson, Gala, author.
Title: Courage, clarity, and confidence : redefining how successful women work / Gala Jackson.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2024] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023043577 (print) | LCCN 2023043578 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119899402 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119899853 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119899419 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Employment. | Women—Vocational guidance. | Career development.
Classification: LCC HD6053 .J335 2024 (print) | LCC HD6053 (ebook) | DDC 331.4—dc23/eng/20231113
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023043577
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023043578
Cover design: Paul McCarthy
Image credits: Courtesy of Marlyncia Pierce. MarMade Design Co.
To my late father, Gregory, your love let me know I could be and do anything
To my mom, Gloria, who taught me the strength of femininity and always knew this book would be written
To my son, Grayson, your example of strength, determination, and perseverance are the reason I finished this book – I love you to the moon and back
A Note from the Author
From the time I opened an email from my editor inquiring about my interest in writing a book to the publication of that book, my life has done a complete 180. In the midst of writing this book, I had to redefine success for myself and it got real!
I went from being a single city girl to a married woman and bonus mom. I navigated a big move to a totally different community and culture just before my wedding. I had made my career the priority in my life for years, so I welcomed this new season in my personal life wholeheartedly.
In the midst of some of life's incredibly highest highs, I experienced the deepest of the lowest. I lost my father weeks prior to that email, and a few short months later my best friend – both unexpected. My father passed from a rare form of cancer just two weeks after his official diagnosis. My best friend died in a car accident, and when I got the call I found myself screaming in uncontrollable anguish, lying on my bedroom floor. In the midst of it all, I also had to put down my sweet dog of almost 18 years, she was my first baby. It all was unreal. It was all too much. It was traumatic.
I also experienced my first layoff from a company whose mission was personal – it wasn't just a job for me. The news came on my birthday while I was out on vacation. Yep, MY BIRTHDAY.
A week prior to the layoff announcement, I told my boss I was expecting my first child. I was completely shocked by the news and deeply worried about how the layoff was going to affect our family's financial plans.
And if those things weren't hard enough to navigate, I came to understand, in the most intimate way, the power of prayer and faith as I gave birth to my first child via emergency cesarean section before 30 weeks. A bouncing, healthy baby boy who came out breathing on his own, shocking the doctors with his strength and knocking his scores out of the park. After he spent a little over 9 weeks in the NICU, we got to take him home. He is a continuous reminder that miracles still happen every day. He changed my entire life. He unlocked the resilience and mental fortitude I would need to write this book.
The woman I was when I sat down to write this book evolved into a new woman I had not met before. I was equally intrigued and afraid of her in a reverential kind of way. Her strength and femininity were power on full display. My identity expanded and I submitted myself completely to the process and practice of growth. I am still growing.
I started and stopped writing this book more times than I can count. And I mean stopped writing completely. I was paralyzed by fear. I was uncertain of my voice and value. I didn't feel like an expert on anything, but rather a novice at everything.
How could I write about courage, clarity, or confidence when it seemed I had none of those things in that season? I honestly thought on more than one occasion, I will never finish this book. I experienced a full range of emotions in repetitive cycles. I was stripped down to my faith and foundation, which I scrutinized and turned inside out. Grief is unexplainable. So is love. Joy. Motherhood. And purpose. And writing.
The exact same principles I talk about in this book became a lamp to my feet as I reclaimed the essence of who I was and embodied the new woman I had become. I courageously observed, came into awareness, and explored with curiosity. Those observations, awareness, and exploration led me to locate and expand my values and reconnected me to my strengths. My experiences reminded me that I had survived 100% of my worst days and both the good and bad days were my teachers preparing me for the days to come.
Purpose and mission came into view again. Conviction gave way to confidence and there I realized I had something to say to women who, like me, were on the path to connecting with and embodying the strongest, boldest, most courageous version of themselves.
I found myself redefining success, work, and play again in light of how my life changed. Creating more room for something new, for freedom, abundance, and blessings. I learned we are truly on an evolutionary journey of becoming and I hope this book will be a trusted guide for you at every season in which you find yourself redefining – and growing dynamically.
As you read this book and step into my story, both personal and professional, I hope that you'll see yourself, accept the invitation to redefine success, and live out your authentic definition of success out loud so you too can experience what it's like to continuously live in the strongest, boldest, most courageous version of yourself.
May courage, confidence, and clarity be yours!
Introduction
I wrote a book.
I always dreamed it could happen one day, but to actually be here at this moment writing to you is surreal, to say the least. I am writing the book I needed years ago, but I also recognize that in a lot of ways I am writing to who I am now too: still learning to embody my identity, values, vision, mission, and unapologetically be me in every room where I find myself. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that I am writing to the women of the future, the women we collectively and individually aspire to be – I think that's my favorite part – finding connectivity between where I am today and the person I will be in a year or a few years from now. I believe, wholeheartedly, that no experience is ever wasted in life if you are a perpetual student of life. Every experience I have now will serve the woman I will be, and the same is true for you.
Every woman is on an evolutionary journey of becoming the woman she knows she can be. The woman who is far more than the opinions and expectations of others. The woman that we crave to be, one who is strong, bold, courageous, creative, and lives her truth. The woman who has been tucked inside of us all along, patiently waiting for us to introspectively discover how wise, beautiful, delicate, fierce, and powerful she really is. I firmly believe that our adult work is undoing all of the messaging we've been assigned as young women, returning to the true essence of who we are created to be on a soul level. The level where our heart and spirit is completely free to live the life that brings us peace, joy, safety, and comfort – the place where we can truly thrive.
Acclaimed author Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird states, “Writing is about telling the truth.” That's what I aim to do in this book. Tell the truth of my story through courage, clarity, and confidence, sharing the stories of women I've had the honor of coaching and befriending, in the hopes that you too will find, stand in, and share your truth: allowing yourself to define and embody “success,” “fulfillment”, and “abundance” on your own terms, personally and professionally.
As a career and leadership coach, I've worked with entry‐level to C‐suite‐level professionals as they've navigated the nuances of their career. In that work it is inevitable that the personal life will affect the professional life, and the professional the personal. I've learned that you cannot segment the personal and the professional, even though a consumerist society would aggressively try to convince you otherwise. If we've learned anything over the past couple of years with the pandemic, we are not designed to compartmentalize our lives, shutting off and turning on the core elements of who we are all the time. We are whole beings, fluid, and in desperate need of more harmony and rest in our everyday lives.
Redefining success, living with courage, clarity, and confidence in your career, and by default your life, is messy, nontraditional, complex, and at times can be very challenging. It's not a place where you arrive. It's a process where you continuously evolve. You're learning to ebb and flow in abundance, not scarcity. Understanding the intentional practice of valuing and exercising your vision and voice.
I want you to treat this book as part inspiration, part guidebook, and part workbook to implement the action steps I have found to be fundamental to career success for women. Let this book help you clear the clutter and serve as a road map that helps you redefine success for yourself, then pursue it.
Before you dig into the chapters ahead, you may be wondering why the steps to redefine success are found in courage, clarity, and confidence. Why those three? Why in that particular order? All great questions!
The framework to redefining success is the process I went through on my own journey. Of course, I did not have language to describe my experience while I was in the thick of it, but after lots of journaling, reading, and self‐discovery I was able to pinpoint specific themes. The three that consistently emerged and served as pillars in my pathway to define and pursue success were courage, clarity, and confidence.
I have found that it matters that they go in this order because one builds on top of the other. I've learned firsthand that you cannot have confidence without clarity, and you cannot have clarity without the courage to stop living in the past or future, and come into the present to stand in undeniable awareness. To acknowledge what's not working and audaciously decide to do something about it.
To be more specific, I had to have the courage to stop living my life in what I should do and start living my life in what I must do. I have author Elle Luna to thank for that language from her book, The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion. As a Black woman, perfectionist, and professional people‐pleaser, I had an uphill battle to fight. The shoulds were EVERYWHERE. Societal, cultural, and familial expectations were loud and clear. I wore myself out seeking to meet and exceed those expectations. I smiled in public and struggled in silence. I was so disconnected from my truest self that at times I felt like a robot, just going through the motions every day. There was a period of time where I cried every day. I open up about this in the pages ahead, but it took courage for me, and later my clients, to give ourselves permission to choose the path of what we must do and abandon what everyone else emphatically knew we should be doing with our lives.
Most importantly, stop living to work. We're not waiting for retirement age to enjoy our lives; we're going to excel in our career and lives simultaneously. Not someday, but right now. You do not have to wait to get to a certain place or level in your career or reach a certain income level to have purpose and meaning and fulfillment in your work and life. I know that it sounds contrary to popular belief, but your work can be enjoyable, mission aligned, and you can be compensated well; however, it requires that you drop the expectations and comparison game to embody the boldest, strongest, most courageous version of yourself.
As for clarity – it's one of the most powerful states of being. To be able to articulate who you are, what matters most to you, to know and understand how to leverage your strengths, and live your life in an unapologetic way that is in alignment with your values. To be aware of and own your unique experiences and zone of genius. It's what we all long for in our everyday lives and that absolutely includes our career.
And when you have clarity, there is conviction – a deep, resounding knowing of what matters most to you and how you want to show up in the world – a conviction that will make even the baby hairs on your body stand up in confidence! Confidence is the source of execution. If you are not taking action – struggling with procrastination – it is almost always connected to confidence, linked back to clarity, and a derivative of a lack of courage. A real fear or barrier that is holding you back.
I want to point out that the confidence I am referring to throughout the book is not “fake it till you make it” confidence, or the confidence needed for a specific presentation or meeting at work. The confidence that I am referring to, and which I hope you'll find yourself cultivating as you work through this book, is what I call holistic confidence: confidence that is intrinsic and not predicated on external validation because you know, value, and trust yourself to navigate any room, circumstance, or conversation.
As you read the pages ahead and grasp the principles within this book, I hope that you are courageously honest, gain clarity on what you must do, and confidently make each decision in your life and career to honor the strongest, boldest, most courageous version of yourself.
PART ICourage
Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.
—Brené Brown
Resistance.
Courage is always preceded by resistance. Often subtle in the beginning, the resistance occurs over time. It manifests itself in different ways in our careers, but some of the most common occurrences are:
Taking two to three times longer to do common, easy tasks for work
Letting emails pile up and ignoring them
Dodging phone calls and Slack messages
Declining nonessential meetings that you would otherwise attend
A significant increase in eye‐rolling during meetings you do attend
Allowing yourself to be easily distracted
Daydreaming
Procrastination
Avoiding work tasks altogether for as long as possible
________________________________ (fill in the blank)
Resistance occurs when something is no longer working. That something is out of alignment. The passion is gone. Can't seem to find the meaning in the work. You're doubting the purpose. There's conflict, an incongruence with your values.
You start to question yourself. Wondering if it's you. But you realize it is in fact the job, the culture, the work, the manager – or all four. Maybe life in general just feels off too. You keep finding yourself resisting at every turn, every day. You're realizing that something needs to change. You refuse to accept or comply with work and life “as is” any more. You've had enough of dragging yourself through each day.
You find yourself daydreaming about more. More purpose and meaning. More fulfillment. More autonomy. More financial freedom. More joy. You hope that there is more. And deep down you know that there is more, but you're afraid.
Courage is defined as “the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.”1
You don't know what is beyond the life you've been living. And you're concerned about what will be required of you to experience more. You wonder, is it really worth it? Should I take the risk for more?
Yes.
Absolutely.
You are worth more.
But the requirement is courage.
Courage to step into awareness, take the risk, and be curious.
The common thread that keeps so many of us in resistance and stuck is the misconception that we are the “first” or the “only” to feel the way that we feel. The absence of examples of everyday women who get unstuck are not as visible and prominent as they should be. So, we continue to appear and be perceived as successful or having it together while in the throes of struggle. We view ourselves as less than, weak even, not realizing that vulnerability is the first act of courage.
The fear of admitting the struggle prevents us from opening up and connecting with a community of women with shared experiences. I want to open up dialogue about what has or is currently happening with women in our careers and its impact on our lives as a whole and offer a pathway forward.
Throughout the pages of this book, I share my story and the stories of other women navigating the resistance and moving through courage and clarity, then landing and living in confidence. There is strength in numbers. There is relief in connection. There is courage in conversation. There is healing in community.
You are not alone.
Note
1.
Merriam‐Webster Dictionary
,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/courage
1The Current State of Women and Work
For a woman in today's current climate, it takes courage to go to work every day.
The glass ceiling with all of its dents and cracks still exists.
A small fraction of the challenges we deal with are:
The gender wage gap, where the maximum we earn is 80 cents to each $1 a man makes.
The Motherhood Penalty,
1
earning just 71 cents to every $1 a father makes.
The fact that we are expected to be primary caregivers and are severely impacted when caregiving needs arise.
The lack of support for us in management.
The failure to promote us into executive leadership roles and how companies ultimately suffer as a result of our absence at the decision‐making table.
We are ignored in meetings at work; worse, we are blatantly undermined and reduced to an “assumed” administrative role.
We experience overt and covert harassment and discrimination, of all kinds, at work.
We walk into toxic work cultures and the obnoxious bro‐culture that unbelievably still exists.
We have to navigate the inequities with work on top of the actual duties of our job, and let's not forget the pressure to deliver on unrealistic goals while we “smile more” and “consider our tone.”
In this chapter I
attempt
to give an overview of the current state of affairs for women and work. I carefully chose the word “attempt.” There are so many instances, circumstances, experiences, perspectives, and stories that there could be an entire catalogue of books on the current state of affairs for women and work. There's no way I or any single person could capture it all. My effort, therefore, is to highlight the commonalities of shared experiences and some of the most prevalent challenges. Having context, shared language, and perspective from the same angle will illuminate the importance of the framework provided in the chapters ahead.
The Rules of Engagement Are Changing
When the pandemic hit, it further exposed, highlighted, and underscored the inequities women face at work and in their day‐to‐day lives, from the massive, forceful exit of women due to caregiving responsibilities to exacerbating the demand for women to deliver peak performance and save companies – all while working from home. It was and continues to be problematic and detrimental, not just to women but to society as a whole.
