I was stuck in good girl syndrome.
I have no idea where it comes from, maybe fear of authority, or maybe I was afraid of being a bad girl, but possibly it was just because “good girl” had become part of my persona.
The problem with good girl syndrome was that you want so badly to be a good girl you don’t stop to consider if you are one.
I reached out to a dear friend with a list of all of the things floating around in my head that I wanted. I didn’t hold back or make myself small, I just took every wish, thought, or idea that was in my head, typed it out and sent it to him asking for help to make sense of it.
He hadn’t asked for it and he didn’t know it was coming. He had encouraged me to apply to do a TED talk and TED was on my list so I just dumped it all out and asked him to help me prioritize.
On that list was that I wanted to be a good person. I switched the language from good girl to good person because it sounded more acceptable as an adult.
I highly recommend this exercise to all of you.
He reformatted my list and sent it back to me. I feel so grateful that he was generous enough to do it. It changed me. He’s a good person.
He divided the list into things I have already accomplished, things that are in the works, and things that were pending.
At the top of the already accomplished list he put “good person”
I already was a good person?
This changed everything and was a defining moment for me.
Moving forward I was finally able to own my good person status and stop chasing it.
Owning who you are makes a huge difference because you act accordingly. Wanting to be a good person held an underlying tone that says you don’t think you are a good person, you just want to be one.
It muddied my thinking. Instead of looking for ways on how I could fine tune, polish, or do better… all of my energy was directed towards the ways I wasn’t meeting the mark. I would punish myself for it with negative self talk.
Over the last year I have really worked towards upping my good person game.
I have looked for what matters, and really tried to lean into those details.
What I didn’t expect was the further I moved along the “good person” spectrum, the less tolerance I have for people who are on the other end of the spectrum. They are far more noticeable now, but they are also helping me to figure out what’s important and why.
I asked a friend to tell me her definition of what it means to be a good person the other day and I think she’s writing me a novel about it. It’s a good question and a surprisingly hard one… but also one that is worth defining.
If you define what it means to you, I hope you also stop to consider all of the ways you are already meeting the mark.
You are a good person too❤️