In our modern society, women work in competitive jobs and earn far more than they used to. With each passing day women are increasingly venturing into business and breaking the proverbial glass ceiling and setting themselves higher standards as entrepreneurs.
Modern women also realize that, unlike those of their grandparents, society is becoming more open to the fact that not all women choose to marry or have children and that some wish to concentrate on working on them alone. There are also the mothers who are go-getters and find a healthy work-life balance. In summary, women today are far more free to do and do what they want.
But sometimes putting so much effort and hard work into wanting to achieve our goals can make us become too competitive and even jealous of other women. And in many cases, we cannot understand why we feel we need to compete or be jealous of other women. So let’s look at a few familiar examples:
● Social media and “beauty”: Do you always look at those really attractive pictures that women post on their social media and then start to feel bad about yourself? Do you want you to have what they have? Do you always work out, diet and doll up but still feel dissatisfied?
● Business: Do you often find yourself wanting to compete with another woman’s business because you want to be better? Have you ever felt the need to want to damage another woman’s business because they may be doing better than you?
● Relationships and family life: Do you find yourself judging other women in their personal relationships and family lives? Do you constantly distract women around you? Do you find that you rarely have something positive to say about another girl’s private life?
Well, the underlying causes behind these examples are purely psychological and have more to do with how we feel about ourselves than we do about others . So what is the biggest factor that affects us internally and stops us from being very happy and supportive towards our fellow women? The answer can be found in low self-esteem and low self-confidence. Ask yourself: How can I appreciate the beauty of another woman if I don’t feel attractive? How can I appreciate another woman’s success in business if I feel I will always fail? How can I be happy about another woman’s relationship and family life if I’ve always been unhappy in my own relationship?
So now that we have identified the problem as internal, we can find ways to improve our perspective by trying the following:
● Balanced self-love: Start looking within and finding things you like about yourself. Eliminate the negatives and focus on the positive attributes and attributes internally and externally. Remind yourself that every “body” or “face” is different. Being unique is what will make you stand out. Learn to love yourself for who you are and not what you think other people want you to be. This is a workout and will not happen overnight so be patient. Flood yourself with positive quotes about self-love and acceptance. When you love yourself, nothing that anyone else has to say about you will affect you.
● Ride yourself from toxicity: Stay away from people who are negative and encourage you to be negative towards other people. If you feed negative energy, you will never be able to be truly happy about yourself, much less about others. Surround yourself with women who truly uplift and support other women. This, in turn, will allow you to be more naturally supportive of your sisters.
● Bombard yourself with good news about other women: While you may feel that you can never be as attractive or successful as some other women, remember that this is just YOU. We all have something different and unique to bring to the table and who knows what another sister finds attractive about you ?! So find and embrace other women’s success stories. After a while, you will find it very difficult to be negative or mean to your fellow woman.
Remember ladies, change takes time and must come from inside first. Once you have identified what is holding you back, you can face it and start to improve in a positive way. Once you boost your self-esteem and self-confidence, learning to appreciate, love and show genuine support for other women will become second nature.
Alicia Roopnaraine is a Psychologist. You can send her questions or comments at [email protected]