Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [3]
A good girl … A gutsy girt …
1. follows the rules; 1. breaks the rules—or makes her own;
2. tries to do everything; 2. has one clear goal for the future;
3. works her tail off; 3. does only what's essential;
4. wants everybody to like her; 4. doesn't worry whether people like her;
5. keeps a low profile; 5. walks and talks like a winner;
6. waits patiently to get raises and promotions; 6. asks for what she wants;
7. avoids confrontations; 7. faces trouble head-on;
8. worries about other people's opinions; 8. trusts her instincts;
9. never takes risks 9. takes smart risks.
When you bought this book, I don't think it was simply because the phrase good girl in the title hit home. I suspect it's also because the phrase gutsy girl captured your fancy. There's a part of you that's ready for change, that wants much more—and has begun to suspect you need a gutsier approach in order to get it.
But if you've been a good girl all your life, you're probably wondering how you can run against the grain of your nature.
I believe that even though you've followed the good-girl program growing up, it's not necessarily the response that's most natural for you. I believe that inside most good girls, there's still a spirited, adventurous, bubble-blowing, puddle-jumping, hair-scalping girl biding her lime. When your face aches from smiling too much or your stomach hurts after a pathetic raise, it's just a signal of the tension from trying to keep her buried. Let me tell you a little bit about my own evolution.
HOW I WENT TO BED A PUSHOVER AND WOKE UP A GUTSY GIRL
Sometimes I feel I was the original Goody Two-Shoes. As a fourteen-year-old, while many teenagers I knew were entering a defiant period, the only “wild” thing about me was that I set my hair with pink sponge rollers and Dippity-Do, and when combed out it looked like I had a woodchuck sitting on my head.
Oh, I longed to be wild, but I was afraid to break the rules. Here's a perfect example: My parents were fairly protective and they made my brothers and me wear boots in winter even if there were only two patches of snow on the sidewalk. Years later I mentioned to my brother Jim how embarrassed I'd felt trudging along in what seemed like forty pounds of rubber while everyone else had on Keds.
“Didn't it bother you?” I asked.
“Nah,” he replied. “Mike and I always left our boots at Charlie Hagstrand's in the morning and picked them up on the way home.”
It had never, not even once, occurred to me to break the rules that way.
My goody-two-boots tendencies continued all through school, as well as through the early years of my career. Sometimes I'd break out and do something surprisingly daring, and the result would be fabulous. But rather than think that gutsiness had worked in my favor, I'd feel as if I'd managed to get away with something and maybe I shouldn't try it again.
I started my career at Glamour magazine after winning their Top Ten College Women contest. After working at Glamour for six years as an editorial assistant and then a feature writer, I moved to Family Weekly (now USA Today Weekend), as senior editor and eventually executive editor. From there I went to Mademoiselle, where I was the executive editor in charge of the articles department. I was a hard worker, and though my boss considered me fairly spunky. I always minded my p's and q's. That approach. I assumed, was serving me well.
Then, just after I was promoted to the number-two position at Mademoiselle, I had a baby and everything began to change for me. I'd expected that in my case being a working mother would be fairly smooth sailing. My boss, an extremely smart and creative editor-in-chief, had a tendency to go hot and cold on employees, but I'd managed to remain