The Damsel In Distress

(Are you secretly sabotaging your success by waiting for someone to save you?)


We all grew up reading sanitized version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Ones where the princess is rescued by the prince. And most of the time her fate is in the hands of someone other than herself.

The original fairy tales weren’t always like that. But at some point in the 1900’s they changed. (For example, in princess and the frog - the princess threw the creepy frog who wanted to sleep with her against a wall and that broke his spell and he turned back into a prince.)

As a result of hearing this as children, many women took these fairy tales to heart subconsciously. Many of them also grew up in homes where men, they were told, had the power, and women were subservient to that.  Something that doesn’t really work in today’s world of 2 income family. And where many women marry late, not at all, or find themselves divorced or widowed at some point.

And that way of being - waiting for someone else subconsciously to fix it - just doesn’t give great results. 



I’m sharing this with you with absolutely no judgement. Everyone has a journey. However I think that many who are stuck in certain patterns aren’t even aware of why it is they never seem to make not just forward movement, but real changes in their life. And so I wanted to share my thoughts.

If something in this article resonates with you, aggravates you, pisses you off - that’s actually a good thing. Because patterns are more easily broken once recognized.

Whenever I have a mastermind or coaching group, there is almost always a woman in the group who gains attention by being the one with a problem. Her whole identity is wrapped around being the person who is overcoming something. She is like the fairy tale princess, waiting for her prince to come and save her. And never ever overcoming the issues.


She never takes real action to get OVER whatever it is she needs help with.

This is why for many years I didn’t do masterminds. Because the one person - who gets stuck in the struggle - gets attention from being someone constantly overcoming, but never, ever succeeding - they suck sooooo much time and energy from everyone else. 


I'm going to tell you a secret:  The struggle isn't real. It's all just a story. 


Does everyone deal with obstacles? Sure.

The difference between a successful woman and an unsuccessful woman is the successful women doesn't build stories around why she can't or isn’t - she just DOES. (And often creates stories around why she can and why she must be successful in her pursuits.) She also knows that any excuse she has for anything less than success is because of her stories. 


A successful woman's  key differentiator is, she works to get over her stories instead of making her old stories the focus. She often creates new stories about the person she is becoming (outlined as current state), until those stories become her new reality.


If this idea of being a Damsel In Distress brings up some things for you - celebrate that! The solution is to stop being the Damsel In Distress, create a new story, and start taking massive action until your distress is no longer an issue.

If you need help with that - I currently have room for 2 new clients this month. Click here to book a private 45 minute session now.