Playing Big: A Practical Guide for Brilliant Women Like You

by Tara Mohr

Being accurate isn’t the aim of the inner critic; getting you to avoid emotional risk is.

In fact, these women grapple with self-doubt because they are playing big, regularly exposing themselves to criticism and visible failures and expressing their unique ideas and leadership in the world.

When you spend any time arguing with the critic, the critic is “winning” because while you are busy arguing with it, you are not doing your thing, putting your voice out there, risking failure to fulfill your aspirations, nurturing your budding dreams. Plus,

critic; you have to step away from the conversation.

Yirah has three different meanings:

When we are dependent on praise or avoidant of criticism, we can’t share controversial ideas, deal with the resistance that comes up when we are acting as change agents, or pursue our unique paths to personal fulfillment, paths that others might not understand or applaud.

becoming competent = becoming educated = learning and internalizing what men have said about the subject for the past few hundred years.

Hiding Strategy #1: This before That

You aren’t—yet—the person you need to be to do the calling. At