Good morning!
The Playing Big course is my program for any woman who wants to play bigger in her work or her life.
Today, I want to talk about the 12 major topics we cover in the course. In my work coaching women, I came to see that making change in each of these areas was an extremely powerful – and I would say essential – step on the path to playing bigger. The women I was working with simply couldn’t stretch into their full potential – nor could I – if for example, we didn’t have tools to work with fear, or a way to quiet self-doubt, or a mature, consciously-chosen relationship to praise and criticism.
These are the twelve essential steps to playing bigger that we cover in the class:
1. QUIETING THE INNER CRITIC
Just imagine for a moment – really imagine – what you’d be doing if that voice of “I’m not ready yet,” or “I don’t know what I’m talking about here,” wasn’t present. In this module of Playing Big, we talk about the cause of the inner critic, how to distinguish it from realistic thinking, and what the research tells us around gender differences and self-doubt. Most importantly, you learn exactly what to do, in the moments when self-doubt arises, so that it no longer holds you back.
2. DISCOVERING YOUR INNER MENTOR
We’ve all had those remarkable moments when we could find our own voice, our own intuition, our own wise guidance. But for most of us, it’s hard to reliably access those best parts of us. After doing the Inner Mentor work, whenever you are feeling confused, stuck, or overwhelmed, you’ll be able to quickly access an incredibly calm, wise, loving voice within you that can show you the way forward.
3. GETTING WISE ABOUT FEAR
Of course, when we start playing bigger (or contemplate some playing bigger moves), fear comes up. In this module, we talk about what fear really is – from a physiological and psychological perspective. With our powerful model for working with fear, you’ll be able to differentiate between the two kinds of fear that arise when we start playing bigger – knowing which kind of fear to welcome and utilize, and which kind to skillfully steer away from (and how to do that).
4. UNHOOKING FROM PRAISE AND CRITICISM
I’m so proud that my work on women’s relationship to praise and criticism has been featured in venues ranging from TIME to The New York Times. After this module, you’ll be a lot less dependent on praise, and a lot more comfortable with criticism and potential criticism. I believe this topic is so important for women and that “unhooking” frees us to speak up, share our ideas, be controversial when it’s needed, and in doing all that, be our authentic selves and make positive change.
5. UNDERSTANDING YOUR CALLINGS
If you aren’t sure what your callings are, this module will give you a very specific way to figure that out. If you feel like you already know what your current callings are, this module will provide you with tools to fulfill them in even more satisfying and bold ways. With some simple ideas and tools, women can start experiencing the huge joy and fulfillment that our callings bring us.
6. THE END OF HIDING
In my work with women, I started to see some very clear patterns in the ways brilliant women were hiding and stalling on our playing bigger. These hiding strategies weren’t obvious. In fact they often looked, from a distance, like really great career moves. In this module, you’ll discover some of the unconscious ways you are hiding and understand how to start stepping forward instead.
7. TAKING LEAPS: THE ART OF IMPERFECT ACTION
We’ll take a rigorous look at our default good-girl, good-student ways of working and discover a bolder, quicker, more experimental way of working called leaping. Leaping is a very specific kind of action that meets six criteria and that gets us playing much bigger right away.
8. NAVIGATING NEGOTIATIONS AND DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS
If you avoid negotiations, or simply would like to be better at them, this is for you. In Playing Big, we explore negotiations as any conversation in which the parties have differing goals and interests. It’s an everyday skill. You’ll learn a positive, collaborative, step-by-step framework for negotiations. (I use it at least weekly, and it’s allowed me to get more of what I want and enrich my relationships at the same time.)
9. COMMUNICATING WITH POWER
You’ll learn how you can come across as more competent, compelling and confident in your written and spoken communications. You’ll learn about important new research on gender and communication in the workplace, and what it means for you.
10. PLAYING BIG WHILE CAREGIVING
In this module, we’ll look closely (and realistically!) at how you can weave together caregiving and playing big, even during intense caregiving periods. We’ll talk about strategies that have worked for other women. You’ll also get some tools to help you differentiate between old beliefs or assumptions about the caregiving/playing big conflict, and real constraints to respect and/or work around.
11. LETTING IT BE EASY
We’ve all been there: we tried to accomplish something simply out of willpower and self-discipline, failed to do so, and then ended up disappointed in ourselves. This module is about alternatives to self-discipline. I’ll take you through setting up a “success architecture” of supports and routines that allow you to achieve any goal in a sustainable, kind-to-yourself-way.
12. CONCLUSION AND INTEGRATION
In our concluding session, we weave major ideas from the course together, and identify your goals and priorities for the next phase of your playing big journey. We also have lots of fun celebrating our journey together!
After we finish, you get access to great bonus content on my journey and lessons learned, getting media attention for your work, and using the playing big model to support the girls and young women in your life.
If you want to learn more, come on over to visit the information page here. You’ll be able to read details on how the course works, hear from grads in your industry, and much more.
With love,
Tara
Thank you for the inspirational thoughts. One important issue I think is overlooked is the fact that most women do not help each other. I know this sounds like a generalization but it is true. Women compete, criticize and can be very petty. In my experience it has been men that have helped me for the most part- they’ve given the benefit of the doubt, given the break that you need etc. This is what women can learn from men- a sense of loyalty to each other and support. Women need to own their power. All these issues of self esteem are a lot about what women do to each other.I’m a feminist and it’s very distressing to see and experience.