Cinderella is a hard-working young woman. She feels that she has few choices in life. She does what she is told to, takes criticism from her family seriously, and believes in her heart that the life she has is all she can expect. Her home life is drudgery and abusive, and if she is lucky enough to find a way out, she can expect no better from the married life of a peasant. After all, in Cinderella’s time, there were only two options. She could be a pauper and live a meager existence or she could be royalty with all the benefits of life in the castle. Unfortunately, if one isn’t lucky enough to be born into royalty, the only way to get there is by marrying into it.
Women today have so many more choices. The world is full of examples of women who, against all odds, in a male-dominated profession, company, society, have beaten the odds to reach the top. Our problem is that we see these women as the exception. They get where they are because they are the token exception or at least in some cases, an exceptional person. They are able to do what they do because they are exceptional.
Then we tell ourselves, “Certainly, little old me could never do or be what those women have done because as good as I am, I somehow am not the exception.” Like Cinderella, we learn to be helpless since it is easier than taking the leap to beat the odds and achieve greatness.
I submit that exceptional people do not do great things because they are exceptional. They are exceptional because they dare to do great things.
Find anyone who has achieved what you consider greatness in your field, in sales, in sports, in life. Except for a few with great arrogance, every one of them will tell you that they didn’t do anything exceptionally great. They just did a lot of little things, one at a time, that others weren’t willing to do. They do things in a smart way, not just to work hard, but to get something out of the work they are doing. It is the things they dared to do, over and over and over again, the risks they took, the ridicule they endured, the extra effort they put in, that made these people exceptional. Had they not done these things, they would be just as ordinary as everyone else. But, because they stepped beyond expectations, they did great things. And in doing great things, they have become exceptional. It is in doing the work that brings greatness. Again, this hard work is so much more successful, if it is done in ways that are time efficient and smart and not just working hard on a never ending hard work treadmill.
The best Cinderella can do is sit in her corner and dream of what life would be like if she weren’t so helpless – until she changes her hard work into smart work by putting in the effort to get to the ball rather than just let the opportunity pass by.
But poor Cinderella is just a chambermaid to her own step-mother and step-sisters. She has little hope of being more than a servant in a modest home, no less becoming a princess and living in the castle with her own band of servants. Through the years, Cinderella has learned to be helpless. Every time she steps out of her prescribed place, her step-sisters and step-mother are there to beat her back into submission. So, her hopes seem impossible.
So day in, day out, Cinderella continues working hard, dreaming of the life that is meant for others, not her. If she stayed there, she would have become her own self-fulfilling prophecy that if there are only 2 choices, poverty or royalty, she has no choice but to remain in poverty.
Then one day, she stopped working hard while daydreaming and started working smart, to find a way to get to the ball to make her dreams come true.
Need some tools to start working smart? Reset your mindset – more to come on this but here is an intro to a tool I love to clear old habits.