I recently read an article about what differentiates a woman from a girl. Ohhh snap!

Those types of articles immediately make me want to do a Willow and whip my hair or just embody Sasha Fierce. I get hype eagerly waiting to hear how much of a woman I am.

But as I read the article, my hair whipping slowed down as I realized in many ways I’ve been acting like a Disney tween, a la Lizzy McGuire.

Expectations vs Standards.

According to the call-out chorus (the article), girls have expectations and women have standards. Eek!

Here’s the backhand slap from the article:

“A woman has standards (what she holds herself to) not expectations (what she projects on to others).”

I wanna be a woman. And I wanna be fierce. More importantly, I wanna whip my hair.

And those things don’t happen being a wimp to expectations. They happen when I become a woman of standards, not impossible ones but the ones I know I’m unwilling to negotiate on.

And it’s okay. It’s okay when you realize that many people can’t or won’t measure up to your standard. Free yourself from the falsehood that your standards have to make everyone comfortable. They don’t. And if they’re appropriate standards, they won’t.

For a long time, I’ve felt uncomfortable about fully being myself, which is a woman of standard. I’ve wanted to accept the lesser things for the sake of ease. But I’m learning that to get what you really want you have to let go of what you don’t want.

(Sounds common sensical but I’ve held on to trash just so my hand wasn’t empty.)

So, yeah it’s hard and tiring, but it’s worth it. At least you can whip your hair in the meantime.

Hope this helps!
Ambini

Here’s the article.