As an executive coach for women, there are phrases, beliefs, and cultural scripts that give me an ick every time I hear them. Not because the women repeating them are wrong, but because these ideas have been dashed out so often they now pass as truth. They’re not truth; they’re inherited noise shaping the way you think about your career, your confidence, and your worth.
So I want to unpack the ones that come up most often in my coaching work. Consider this a gentle unlearning. You might recognise a few of these. Some might sting. Notice which ones you’ve taken on without questioning them.
THE ICK ABOUT WAITING FOR CONFIDENCE
Confidence is not something you wake up with one morning before you take action. It’s not a personality trait some women are lucky enough to be born with. And it’s certainly not something you can think or rationalise your way into.
Confidence usually comes from taking action, not from being the starting point. You do the thing, sometimes badly at first, and the act of doing and repetition builds the belief. Waiting until you feel ready is one of the most expensive and dangerous habits a woman can have.
The women I coach who move forward fastest are not the ones who feel most confident at the start. They’re the ones willing to act while still navigating the unknown, building the actual confidence muscle. That’s what an executive coach can help you strengthen, and no one can hand it to you fully developed.
If you’ve been waiting to feel confident before applying, speaking up, pivoting, or asking for a promotion, this is your permission to reverse the order: take action first, confidence will follow.
THE ICK ABOUT LEANING IN
Women are often told to lean in without acknowledging what they’re leaning into. Burnout. Caregiving loads. Workplace cultures that were not designed with them in mind. Systems that reward overwork and punish boundaries.
The question isn’t whether you’re willing to work hard. You already are. The question is whether the structure you’re leaning into deserves that much of you, and not about pushing harder inside a structure that’s costing you your health, your private life and your sanity. It’s about making choices that align with your values, even when those choices look different to the scripts approved by society.
Sometimes leaning in is the right move. Sometimes leaning out, sideways, or away is the more powerful choice, and it can create a better outcome in the long run. The point is that you get to decide from a grounded place of inner knowing, not from pressure or cultural influence.
The advice to simply lean in skips the most important question: what are you leaning into, and at what cost?
THE ICK ABOUT MEASURING SUCCESS BY TITLE ALONE
When success is measured only by promotions, titles, or salary, we end up with a very narrow definition of a life which is lived with purpose and joy. And an even narrower definition of a woman who is doing well.
A successful life also includes your health, your sense of purpose and fulfilment, the quality of your relationships and your peace of mind at the end of the day. Do you like the person who you are at work?
None of that fits on a LinkedIn profile, but all of it matters more than the line below your name.
The women I’ve worked with who feel most alive in their careers are rarely the ones with the most impressive titles. They’re the ones who stopped outsourcing the definition of success to someone else, and especially society. They know what a good week looks like for them. They know what drains their energy and what grounds them in their truth. They’ve made peace with the fact that their version of a full life might not be social media perfect (Spoiler alert: social media perfect rarely is perfect).
That kind of clarity doesn’t come from climbing the career ladder faster; it comes from getting clear and honest about what you actually want beyond the conditioning.
THE ICK ABOUT WAITING TO FEEL READY
Many women I coach are quietly holding themselves back until some invisible moment of readiness arrives. Ready to apply for the bigger role, ready to have the honest conversation with their manager, their partner, themselves. Always waiting for the perfect moment or some external sign.
But readiness is rarely a feeling that shows up before the leap. It tends to arrive on the other side of the decision, once you’ve already moved. Waiting to feel ready is often just fear hiding behind waiting to be ready.
The women I’ve watched build lives that actually fit them didn’t wait until the nerves disappeared, they moved while still feeling uncertain and nervous. They let themselves be a beginner, and they trusted that competence would catch up.
If you keep postponing your next chapter until you feel fully prepared, you may be waiting for a version of yourself who only exists after you’ve already begun, and it might be a long and expensive wait.
THE ICK ABOUT ONE UNIVERSAL CAREER PATH
There’s a script that says careers should follow a predictable path. School, entry roles, promotions every two years, senior title by a certain age, family fitted around it neatly. Anyone who zigs and zags is behind.
But there’s no universal timeline for success. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Your journey can look different because you are different; you don’t have to fit into the box. And it works out actually better for you that you don’t. Slower in one season, faster in another, a pivot at forty, a pause at thirty-five, completely new field at fifty. What matters most is that your path is your path and not the path others tell you you should be taking.
Comparing your path to a template that was never designed for your life is one of the fastest ways to feel like you’re failing at something you’re actually doing well. It’s your life, your ride, on your terms and your timeline.
Your career is not a race. It’s a long, textured relationship with your work and your identity. Let it evolve at its own pace with its own path.
THE ICK ABOUT BUSY AS A BADGE OF HONOUR
Being constantly busy has become a status symbol. If your calendar is full, you must be important. If you’re exhausted, you must be committed. If you never stop, you must be succeeding. The truth behind it is often one no one wants to admit: you are following a path which has little to do with your own values, wants and purpose and being busy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re moving in the right direction. It often means you’re moving in every direction at once. That you are reactive to whatever life throws at you and not intentionally designing your life, which might be full, but not fulfilled.
There’s a version of you beyond the busyness that knows what actually matters, what brings you fulfilment, and what career you want. She’s harder to hear though when your days are packed and your nervous system is running on caffeine and adrenaline. There is a solution.
Slowing down is not the opposite of ambition. It’s the practice that makes real ambition sustainable. The women I see doing their most meaningful work tend to have one thing in common: they’ve quietly given themselves permission to protect their time, without needing anyone else to validate that choice.
THE ICK ABOUT STRATEGY BEFORE CLARITY
This one is my favourite, because it sits at the centre of the work I do. People ask, what should I do next, before they’ve asked, what do I actually want? They look for the next strategy, the next framework, the next move, before they’ve got clear about who they are and what they truly want.
Without clarity, even the best strategy feels overwhelming. You’ll second-guess every step and go round and round in circles because something always will feel off. You’ll optimise the wrong things, follow advice that worked for someone else, and wonder why it isn’t working for you. Brutal but honest truth.
With clarity, the next step becomes obvious- not always easy, but obvious. You stop asking and listening to strangers on the internet (or worse, ChatGPT) what to do with your life, because you already know what matters to you.
Clarity first, strategy second, confident action third. That order is not accidental, and it’s how sustainable careers and fulfilling, joyful lives get built.
If you skip clarity, you’ll spend years executing brilliantly on the wrong things. If you start with clarity, everything downstream gets easier, including the confidence part we started with.
We slow down first to speed up later.
Which one resonates with you the most? I’d love to hear your thoughts below.