I was BEYOND excited when HarperCollins Canada sent me a copy of Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals to review. I LOVE Rachel Hollis. She’s one in a million and my inspirational guru – seriously. I DEVOURED Girl, Stop Apologizing because it was/is AMAZING.
Don’t know who Rachel Hollis is?
Google her. Also find her on Instagram – which is where I usually track her down – here. Or over on her site – The Chic Site. Or you could read Girl, Wash Your Face – her predecessor book – it’s also a WONDERFUL inspirational book that’ll spark your will power into something fierce and you get to know Rachel quite ALOT more. Girl, Stop Apologizing is like a companion novel to Girl, Wash Your Face but it’s NOT necessary to read them in order.
{Synopsis from Goodreads}
Rachel Hollis has seen it too often: women not living into their full potential. They feel a tugging on their hearts for something more, but they’re afraid of embarrassment, of falling short of perfection, of not being enough.
In Girl, Stop Apologizing, #1 New York Times bestselling author and founder of a multimillion-dollar media company, Rachel Hollis sounds a wake-up call. She knows that many women have been taught to define themselves in light of other people—whether as wife, mother, daughter, or employee—instead of learning how to own who they are and what they want. With a challenge to women everywhere to stop talking themselves out of their dreams, Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself.
*****
How I review Self – Help
The only way I know to review a self – help book for me is to pull the things that I took away from it while also showing quotes I really enjoyed from it. So, here we go.
This book is written into three parts:
Excuses to let go of
Behaviors to adopt
Skills to acquire
Each part then has many sections within it along with examples of how to work through the pain (ex. excuses) and achieve those dreams!
Part One – Excuses to let go of
Two excuses that Rachel writes about here that I felt really hit me in the gut:
I Don’t Have Time & It’s Been Done Before
I have said I don’t have time soooo many times that it’s almost become my mantra and THAT’S scary. I also have aspirations to write a book which my excuses have been; a) I don’t have time or b) It’s been done before. I get caught in this scary downward spiral of thinking too many books or shows have been written with the same idea that I want to write about. NOT TRUE. Why? Because it’s hasn’t been written from my perspective before and these are SILLY excuses.
Rachel talks about being accountable to yourself and to set the times in your schedule to MAKE IT HAPPEN.
“Girl, the question is never, do you have enough time? The question is, how are you using the time you have?” – excerpt from p.g. 21
Achieving your goals won’t happen by all that Netflix and chillin you’re doing, just sayin. (And that’s something I need to work on !)
Part Two – behaviors to adopt
Okay, so one that really hit me good was : Choose One Dream And Go All In
This section was a good wake-up call. I have been so busy trying to perfect my multi – tasking skills that I’ve kind of just floundered around with where my actual goal went. I need to focus on one goal at a time because then my brain won’t feel like it’s stretched too thin and I can really give it my all.
It also reveals Rachel’s powerful process for achieving goals!
Part Three – Skills to acquire
Two sections that spoke to me were: Planning and Persistence.
Planning had steps for a road map that were super beneficial to me.
Persistence – “It took me six books and five years to finally get a bestseller. It took me eight years to get on the Today Show. It took me four years and thousands of photos on Instagram to get one hundred thousand followers. I could keep listing things out for you one after another of how long it has taken to get from there to here, but the point is this; it never went as fast as I wanted it to, and if I had given up because I hadn’t achieved my goal by a certain date, I wouldn’t have achieved any of the tings you know me for today.” – excerpt from p.g. 183
Touché!
The hardest thing
Sacrifices such as – not binge-ing the next season of Stranger Things right away like everyone else because you’re too busy working on your own goals. Or working on a project for your own timeline while your family is having a board game night in the next room. These are scenarios I struggle with. Because I want to do both.
Rachel talks about writing this book while she’s at one of her son’s games and having other parents give her snooty looks for not paying attention while she’s using the time to write her book. Okay, but when else are you supposed to fit everything that you want to do into the time you have? I want to have fun and join in and make those memories but how much do I want to write a book or achieve those other bucket list goals? The sacrifices I have to be willing to make are some of the things that have been forced under my nose from reading this book and cause me to question what it is I truly want to attain and how am I going to get there.
The Point Is
Girl, Stop Apologizing is gold for giving you that motivation and clarity to FINALLY get moving on the things you want. I love that Rachel gives sooo many examples within each section of real life decisions and sacrifices towards achieving those dreams.
Overall rating
*****/5
Recommend Girl, Stop apologizing?
YES! Hands down. Girl, Stop Apologizing had so many great and wonderful gems of information to jumpstart your brain/body into motion. It’s fantastic. I recommend to anyone and everyone who is needing to feel that push to embrace and achieve their goals!
If you’re interested in picking up a copy through Chapters/Indigo -> click HERE 🙂
If you’re also interested in picking up a copy of Girl, Wash Your Face through Chapters/Indigo -> click HERE 🙂
Happy Reading!
