Making Choices, Pt. 2 (for Nice Girls)

At the end of the day, my coaching is about helping women make choices. That's the point of increasing self-awareness, identifying options, and building skills: to make a choice, and implement it.

That's not as easy as it sounds, especially when you're been raised to be a "nice girl."

In their book, Nice Girls Just Don't Get It, Lois P. Frankel PhD and Carol Frohlinger PhD take the nice girls to task for failing to make their own choices. "Nice girls don't proactively make choices for themselves," they write, "because they are unduly influenced by the choices that others have made for them."

It's a challenge to make your own choices when you haven't built the skills and made the trial-and-error mistakes that come from experience. Here's what Frankel and Frohlinger recommend you try:

1. See choices as opportunities to make your life what you want it to be.
2. Don't limit your choices to yes or no.
3. Don't apologize for the choices you make.
4. Unless your choice is irrevocable, give yourself permission to change your mind.

Go ahead, have some fun. Decide to be a profligate choice-maker today. Big, small, see every opportunity to make an intentional choice--with a flourish! Once you get the hang of it, you'll enjoy the power that comes from making your own choices.

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