I recently met a very intelligent and competent professional woman who asked me why she was being passed over for promotion at work by less talented and less dedicated male co-workers. After talking with her for about five minutes, I had a hunch. I asked her what she did to get noticed by the organization’s senior executives. She tilted her head to one side and looked at me with a quizzical expression on her face. She asked, “What do you mean?” I gave her examples such as volunteering for high visibility projects to showcase her talents, seeking an influential mentor within the organization, or simply talking about her accomplishments to senior management. She responded, “Well, I think my work speaks for itself.”

As much as we would like to believe that’s true, it unusually isn’t. Ladies, the plain and simple truth is that the people around you aren’t paying that much attention to what you are doing. So, you are going to have to call attention to your wonderfulness for other people to really take notice. Does the idea of that make you uncomfortable? Most women have been socialized to think that talking about their accomplishments is boastful, selfish, egotistical, arrogant, and other such unlady-like adjectives. I know that I somehow got this message. For women to get the recognition we deserve, we have to abandon this way of thinking.

Stop hiding your light. Bring it out into the open and shine it for all the world to see.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is out light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory that is within us. And as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson, author and international lecturer