Rachel Hollis Wants You to Stop Apologizing

Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals
Rachel Hollis. HarperCollins Leadership, $27.99 (240p)

If you’re a goal-digger, or a goal-getter and a woman, Girl, Stop Apologizing was written for you. It’s even more for you if you’re a wife and mom with dreams on the back burner. Did you put them there because making them a priority feels wrong? Well, Hollis wants you to stop apologizing and be all that you are.

I don’t live with my dreams on the back burner anymore. I’m a soon-to-be wed, 41-year-old grandma with a supportive fiance who encourages me to focus on my goals. Even so, I found some great strategies, important reminders, and good stories within the book‘s 240 pages.

Girl, Stop Apologizing is broken down into three phases: letting go of excuses, adopting new practices, and honing new skills. In it, Hollis also shares her 10-10-1 strategy and “five to thrive” practices: hydration, waking up early, giving up one unhealthy food for 30 days, daily movement, and daily gratitude.

Hollis has inspired me to work on hydration. My normal status for most of my life has been dehydrated. I’ve always favored sodas, coffee, and sugary drinks. Hollis insists that a person should drink half of her body weight in ounces of water every day. Yesterday, I managed to drink 68 ounces of water! Close, but not quite to my prescribed goal of 74.

On the other four practices in Girl, Stop Apologizing:

• I wake up early and I own my mornings (no kids are waking up wanting my help with anything).
• I am in a Precision Nutrition (PN) coaching program. In PN, experimentation is encouraged. I just learned in today’s coaching session that dairy is known to cause inflammatory reactions in some people (acne, digestive upset, allergies & asthma, joint pain and thyroid issues). I’ve been having acne flare ups, an upset stomach, joint pain, allergies and asthma for years. Yet, I love mochas, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese. I’m quitting dairy for 30 days.
• I workout every day.
• Formalizing gratitude time is a good idea that I’ll work on fitting into each day.

Have you read the book? Has it inspired you to incorporate any new practices into your day?

10 of My Favorite Girl, Stop Apologizing Quotes:

1. Spoiler alert: most of the things you learned in childhood are still affecting you today.
2. I was living my entire life waiting for a moment to be special enough for me to look, feel, and act my best, and the truth is, you don’t need a special moment, or any reason at all, to do that.
3. Chinese proverb: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
4. OPO, other people’s opinions. You down with it? Because if you are, you’re giving all your power away.
5. I care more about changing the world than I do about its opinion of me.
6. Grown-up women don’t ask permission.
7. Self-respect doesn’t cost anything other than effort.
8. Intensity is not as important as consistency.
9. It’s your job to show up for your own life and fight for your own dreams.
10. Who you are is defined by the next decision you make, not the last one.

Other great Girl, Stop Apologizing take-aways:

• ”Go all in,” Hollis writes. “Take massive action immediately.”
• Fill spaces with reminders of the vision you have for your future life.
• “Replace your to-do list with a results list.” Hollis shares that her daily result list typically has only two, or three items on it.
• Know your finish line and recognize where you’re at today. “…a map only works if you know both your end and your starting point.” Once you figure out those, Hollis recommends establishing three major guideposts, and then adding mile markers along the way. She steps out the process more than I can in this post.

Looking for a couple of great summer reads?

Both of Rachel Hollis’s books are quick reads that may inspire you to get out of the hammock, or off the beach in pursuit of something more. You might want to read them with a pen in hand for underlining ah-ha moments.

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