Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

by Shonda Rhimes

Believe that the road

continued. Believe that there was more.

Yes to everything that feels out of character.

I might as well say yes to being me.

Don’t sit at home waiting for the magical dream opportunity.

Stand up in front of people. Let them see you. Speak. Be heard.

Because now I knew: I had not failed.

Except doesn’t it feel like everyone else has figured it out?

I’m constantly worrying and wondering and feeling like I am failing because everywhere I look, everyone else seems to be thriving.

it all looks so great on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook . . .

Losing yourself happens one pound at a time.

Meaning, nothing works if you don’t actually decide that you are really and truly ready to do it.

Everything sounds like crap until you are in the right mind-set.

Everything sounds like crap while you

are still busy listing reasons you should get to eat...

Making it through the glass ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints.

“Did you notice not a single woman in this room can handle being told she is awesome? What is wrong with us?!”

It’s like surgery. You can’t close the patient’s chest until you’ve found the wound and operated on it.

I’m going to say YES to accepting any and all acknowledgments of personal fabulous awesomeness with a clear, calm “Thank you” and a confident smile and nothing more.

And what the hell is up with the “I’m just so lucky” line? I’m not merely lucky. No one who succeeds is merely lucky.

Lucky implies I didn’t do anything. Lucky implies something was given to me. Lucky implies that I was handed something I did not earn, that I did not work hard for.

Gentle reader, may you never be lucky. I am not lucky. You know what I am?

I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’...

“It’s not bragging if you can back it up,”

I’m trying to take up as much space as I need to take up. To not make myself smaller in order to make someone else feel better.

I can experience life or I can give up on it.

It’s one of the reasons why people seem to be comfortable asking you for favors they have no business asking you for. They know how hard it is to say no.

I realized a very simple truth: that success, fame, having all my dreams come true would not

fix or improve me, it wasn’t an instant potion for personal growth. Having all my dreams come true only seemed to magnify whatever qualities I already possessed.

Because no matter how hard a conversation is, I know that on the other side of that difficult conversation lies peace.

And the more difficult the conversation, the greater the freedom.

“I can say it or I can eat it.”