Every woman needs to learn to trust herself.
In the end, you can be absolutely, positively sure that you will have more confidence and more success if you trust your instincts.
I can tell you that I've gone the other route, trying to listen to everyone else and doubting what my gut told me, so I know of what I speak.
If you'd like an embarrassing example from my repertoire of such things, I'm happy to provide one.
Back in my early university days (you know, the dark ages), I started out as a science major.
Yup, you could find me every evening in the chem lab complete with goggles and little bubbling test tubes.
This was a particularly bizarre niche for me as I have the most sensitive nose in the world and it wrinkles up at the smallest whiff of anything unusual.
Now my mother, convinced that her only daughter was going to be the next Marie Curie, had primed me for this field of study from birth.
She fully admits to whispering scientific career encouragement into my ear as a swaddled infant.
Don't get me wrong, I love to play with bubbling little test tubes full of colourful content, but noxious gasses just weren't my thing - know what I mean? Every time a new experiment was kicked off, I'd take one whiff of those swirling gasses and I'd be off to the little girl's room in a blink.
I missed a lot of lecture time while I was reading for my women's lit class in the bathroom, and my understanding of basic Chemistry principles suffered.
My chem lab partner was a particularly talented young scientist from Germany who'd had academic papers published in high school.
I always followed her lead, nodding my head as she explained what she was doing to the class.
She knew everything, was totally confident of all potential outcomes and didn't seem to even notice the noxious scents from the little test tubes.
It goes without saying that I couldn't stand her.
One day in class, I was conducting an experiment alongside The Perfect Girl, imitating everything she did and thinking that I was doing a pretty darn good job.
The contents of my test tube looked identical to hers, and were clouding up at the bottom in exactly the same manner.
I was watching her with eagle eyes, because this time, I knew "I" was going to be the one who led the class in the victorious post-experiment discussion.
I followed her every movement and mimicked her actions precisely.
Then, suddenly, the little test tube in my left hand felt warm and I looked down at it just in time to watch it bubble over onto my fingers.
Now, I don't know about you, but watching a potentially dangerous, noxious substance wash over me felt somewhat unnerving.
Naturally, I screamed, hurled the test tube as far away from me as I could get it and promptly fainted.
Yep.
I fainted.
Now when I came to, it's no exaggeration to say that the prof wasn't exactly thrilled with me.
Truly, I can understand his point because it turned out that when I tossed the warm test tube across the room, it splashed onto the curtains and the chemical mixture ignited, causing flames.
Fortunately, the fire was suffocated immediately - so there was no need for fire department involvement.
However, I did see his concern.
The Perfect One was called upon to explain what "I" had bungled in my experiment to cause the unexpected heating of the test tube - of course she knew exactly what had caused it - and to discuss a safe method of mixing chemicals.
And I was asked to stay and talk to the professor after class.
That discussion ended with a mutual decision that chemistry really wasn't the right major for me, and I ended up switching to English - which I REALLY loved.
The moral of my story is don't take Chemistry.
Well, really the point is that you're never going to be perfect.
Sooner or later, no matter how hard you're trying, you're going to screw up.
We're all human you know.
Mistakes are an essential part of our learning process.
But you'll screw up a lot less if you go with your gut.
Believe in yourself and what you want.
Know who you are and where you want to go.
And if you do screw up, you'll be making your own learning opportunity - not one for The Perfect Girl who shares your space in chem lab.
Note: More recently, I went with my gut and starting writing a blog.
Look where that got me...
In the end, you can be absolutely, positively sure that you will have more confidence and more success if you trust your instincts.
I can tell you that I've gone the other route, trying to listen to everyone else and doubting what my gut told me, so I know of what I speak.
If you'd like an embarrassing example from my repertoire of such things, I'm happy to provide one.
Back in my early university days (you know, the dark ages), I started out as a science major.
Yup, you could find me every evening in the chem lab complete with goggles and little bubbling test tubes.
This was a particularly bizarre niche for me as I have the most sensitive nose in the world and it wrinkles up at the smallest whiff of anything unusual.
Now my mother, convinced that her only daughter was going to be the next Marie Curie, had primed me for this field of study from birth.
She fully admits to whispering scientific career encouragement into my ear as a swaddled infant.
Don't get me wrong, I love to play with bubbling little test tubes full of colourful content, but noxious gasses just weren't my thing - know what I mean? Every time a new experiment was kicked off, I'd take one whiff of those swirling gasses and I'd be off to the little girl's room in a blink.
I missed a lot of lecture time while I was reading for my women's lit class in the bathroom, and my understanding of basic Chemistry principles suffered.
My chem lab partner was a particularly talented young scientist from Germany who'd had academic papers published in high school.
I always followed her lead, nodding my head as she explained what she was doing to the class.
She knew everything, was totally confident of all potential outcomes and didn't seem to even notice the noxious scents from the little test tubes.
It goes without saying that I couldn't stand her.
One day in class, I was conducting an experiment alongside The Perfect Girl, imitating everything she did and thinking that I was doing a pretty darn good job.
The contents of my test tube looked identical to hers, and were clouding up at the bottom in exactly the same manner.
I was watching her with eagle eyes, because this time, I knew "I" was going to be the one who led the class in the victorious post-experiment discussion.
I followed her every movement and mimicked her actions precisely.
Then, suddenly, the little test tube in my left hand felt warm and I looked down at it just in time to watch it bubble over onto my fingers.
Now, I don't know about you, but watching a potentially dangerous, noxious substance wash over me felt somewhat unnerving.
Naturally, I screamed, hurled the test tube as far away from me as I could get it and promptly fainted.
Yep.
I fainted.
Now when I came to, it's no exaggeration to say that the prof wasn't exactly thrilled with me.
Truly, I can understand his point because it turned out that when I tossed the warm test tube across the room, it splashed onto the curtains and the chemical mixture ignited, causing flames.
Fortunately, the fire was suffocated immediately - so there was no need for fire department involvement.
However, I did see his concern.
The Perfect One was called upon to explain what "I" had bungled in my experiment to cause the unexpected heating of the test tube - of course she knew exactly what had caused it - and to discuss a safe method of mixing chemicals.
And I was asked to stay and talk to the professor after class.
That discussion ended with a mutual decision that chemistry really wasn't the right major for me, and I ended up switching to English - which I REALLY loved.
The moral of my story is don't take Chemistry.
Well, really the point is that you're never going to be perfect.
Sooner or later, no matter how hard you're trying, you're going to screw up.
We're all human you know.
Mistakes are an essential part of our learning process.
But you'll screw up a lot less if you go with your gut.
Believe in yourself and what you want.
Know who you are and where you want to go.
And if you do screw up, you'll be making your own learning opportunity - not one for The Perfect Girl who shares your space in chem lab.
Note: More recently, I went with my gut and starting writing a blog.
Look where that got me...