Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [90]
Beware the Good Girl's Favorite Circuit lamer
There are plenty of impediments to intuition, but a good girl often gets sidetracked by one in particular: what everybody else thinks.
Because a good girl likes pleasing people and not causing any controversy, she may allow herself to be talked out of a good idea just to create consensus (or talked into a bad idea for the same reason). She may even talk herself out of a good idea because she doesn't want to fight the tide.
At this point you have to use what I call the Body Heat test. When I was working at family Weekly, a major part of my job was to recommend the celebrities for the cover, so I went regularly to screenings of upcoming films. One night I found myself sitting alone in a dark room watching a new film called Body Heat. It wasn't a perfect movie. The music was overblown, the plot was somewhat convoluted, and everyone seemed to sweat more than they should have, considering that air conditioning had already been invented. But I was mesmerized. There was heart-thumping suspense, very sexy sex, and Kathleen Turner saying things like, “You're not too smart. I like that in a man.” Did I suggest that we immediately do an article on William Hun or Kathleen Turner? No. Because two people from work who had sat in front of me snickered about the movie as they left the theater, making me question my original impression. The film was a huge hit and turned both actors into major stars.
Today, when I have to make a judgment and lots of people have thrown in their two cents. I always give myself the Body Heal test—I try to get back to my very first feeling about the idea before anyone else said a word.
Claire Brinker says that when she thinks about some of the projects she's worked on that haven't been a success, they're generally those that she let other people talk her into, even though she had bad vibes initially.
The other trick, of course, is simply not to ask people. Certainly it can pay off to ask the people who have insight and brilliant judgment, but get over the good-girl tendency to include others just to be polite.
Strip Off All Your Clothes and Run Naked Down the Street
I don't mean that literally What I'm talking about is getting yourself in a certain state of mind—a creative state of mind. You sec, a golden gut isn't only one that tells you that A is a better approach than B. It's also one that's capable of coming up with C, a bold, new approach that no one has considered before. And in order to produce C ideas, you must loosen up, strip away your inhibitions, and let yourself have some fun.
There are lots of wonderful techniques for unleashing your creative instincts, but there are two that are especially helpful to good girls.
First, you have to give yourself time off to relax You take enormous pride in how hard and how long you work. In fact, it may be well over a year since you've even had a vacation. Maybe they really can't live without you, but never giving your brain a rest provides no time for great ideas and revelations to germinate, percolate, or do whatever they do so well at a subconscious level.
Rebecca Matthias makes sure she gets a twenty-minute bath every night and forty-five-minutes of reverie outdoors on a bench every Saturday, just for relaxing and reflecting.
Some of the very best ideas occur when you're in a dreamy state, when you've pushed budget restrictions, cost analysts. R&D reports, sales projections, and organizational tables out of your mind.
Interior designer and author Alexandra Stoddard told me a story once of how she and a team of people from her book publisher had tried fruitlessly for days to come up with a cover concept for her newest book. Finally, she put the project