It’s an insidious fear. It preys on many of my clients.  It gets confessed at the mic at my events. Or sometimes with a glass of wine after a mastermind retreat.  

It’s the age-old fear of being called a Bitch.  And it festers no matter how wealthy, successful or strong someone appears.

Of course, some people pride themselves on this label.

I’m friends with someone on Facebook who posts multiple times a week some kind of in-your-face rant about how she’s a bitch, bitch, and she’s okay with that, and if you’re not, you can just get the hell out of her life.  

Okay fine. Whatever.  

But consider this.  

What’s at stake here is Clarity.  And when you run your own business, clarity is non-negotiable.

That means you have to know exactly who your ideal client is – and say no to anyone who is not.

You have to value yourself with premium pricing – and release anyone who gets upset with you for what you charge.

You have to be able to hire only the best person for the position – and let go of the person who doesn’t carry his weight.

In other words, at some point, when you’re clear, someone is going to think you are a bitch.

And here’s the thing.

Clarity doesn’t have a horse in this race.  Clarity has nothing to do with the bitch debate.

So I’m not saying don’t be a bitch.  But I’m not saying be one.  Or that you even are one.

What I’m saying is that your clarity operates in a playing field way outside of labels, judgments and arguments.

Clarity is just clarity.  It’s not a personal affront to anyone. It simply means that there exists this one thing you will say yes to.  And it means that you will have to say no to all the other things that are not that one thing.  

If someone wants to create a story that you’re a bitch, well, that’s their story.  You don’t have to read it. (Clarity doesn’t.)

Most of us have spent our lives dodging the consequences of our clarity.  The biggest consequence being that people might not like us.  And so we’ve trained our brains and ourselves, to make decisions and have responses all in an attempt to manage the impressions other people have of us.  

In order to avoid being a bitch:

• We lie.
• We fake.
• We manipulate.
• We exaggerate.
• We tell stories.
• We pretend we’re interested.
• We take on commitments we don’t want to do.
• We don’t take care of ourselves.
• We play small.
• We don’t celebrate our accomplishments.
• We don’t speak up.
• We eat food we don’t really like.
• We go to events we don’t want to go to.
• We overeat.
• We over-schedule.
• We overwork.

One thing I’ve discovered over and over when clients first start working with me is this:

They are so accustomed to playing games, that they’ve trained themselves out of being clear without even knowing it.  

So when we feel like “bitches,” it’s often because we’ve pushed ourselves to the point where we have to fight people for our own right to clarity.  We’ve forced ourselves into a corner, and into an aggressive stance.

(And make no mistake. We’ve done it to ourselves.)

You don’t have to do that anymore. Step out of the ring. Put down the gloves. Drop the labels. You don’t have to fight for your clarity.  (You don’t have to fight for anything, really.) You don’t have to rant on Facebook. Or pride yourself on being a bitch.  

Just be clear. And then, act on it.  And then do it again. People who crave drama will go away.  And those who remain will be stellar.

The post What To Do When You’re Scared of Being Called a Bitch appeared first on Christine Kane's Blog.