Playing Big: A Practical Guide for Brilliant Women Like You

by Tara Mohr

Playing Big is about bridging the gap between what we see in you and what you know about yourself.

fame. It’s about you living with a sense of greater freedom to express your voice and pursue your aspirations. It’s playing big according to what playing big truly means to you.

It bothered me, a lot, because I wanted to live in the better, more humane, more enlightened world I knew these women could create.

because women couldn’t use all that new knowledge if the inner foundation for taking risks, overcoming fears, and dealing with self-doubt wasn’t in place.

I call this core your inner mentor, because it’s like having an advisor and supporter inside your own mind—and therefore available to you around the clock.

Playing big doesn’t come from working more, pushing harder, or finding confidence. It comes from listening to the most powerful and secure part of you, not the voice of self-doubt.

First: fear. Whether it’s fear of failure, of standing out from the crowd, of conflict, or of greater visibility, fears hold back most women from sharing their voices and ideas. And yet, not all fear is problematic.

Journaling is a tool for playing bigger because change begins with self-awareness. Writing enables you to figure out what you are really thinking and really feeling.

New truths emerge after three or five or ten minutes of putting pen to paper.

I wrote it because all those expressions of goodness, of insight, of beauty, hang in the balance. I wrote this book because I want our world to be changed by you.

I’ve come to believe that knowing how to work effectively with your own self-doubt is a basic and necessary life skill, an even more basic and necessary life skill than driving or cooking yourself a meal.

It’s as if you’ve got internal departments and the inner critic works for the Risk Aversion Department. The folks over at the Risk Aversion Department don’t coordinate with the folks in the Fulfillment Department. They don’t care if you have a fulfilled or self-actualized day in your life! They’ll be pleased if you feel relatively bored, numbed out, and sad—as long as you stay stuck in the zone of the familiar.