Here's To Extraordinary Women

I’ve always had a fondness for extraordinary women.

You know the ones.

The women you meet in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have already lived what seems like several different lives.

Maybe she’s a veteran. A mother. A survivor. An artist. An author.

Maybe she’s a speaker, a business owner, and a trailblazer in her community.

Maybe she’s reinvented herself over and over again—building businesses, pursuing new passions, discovering talents she didn’t know she had, and refusing to believe she has to choose just one thing to be.

I meet women like this and I’m fascinated by them.

I think, Wow.

Look at everything she’s done.

And then I look at myself.

Somehow, I’ve never extended myself the same courtesy.

I’ve been a customer service associate. A secretary. A legal secretary.

But in my mind, those were just jobs.

I opened Weddings & Events by Heather when I lived in Miami.

But I’ve always categorized that as a failure because I closed it about a year later when I needed to take care of my father.

Years later, I started Events With A Twist in Jacksonville. I created unique entertainment experiences, developed concepts, built a brand, planned events, marketed my services, and eventually started gaining clientele.

But I’ve had a hard time allowing myself to call that a success, either.

Because just as the business was beginning to gain traction, my health changed. I couldn’t continue doing the physical work required to run it, and I eventually had to close.

So, in my mind:

Another failure.

And now?

I’m a published author.

I’ve written books. Finished them. Edited them. Published them. Held them in my hands and watched other people hold them in theirs.

But marketing has been difficult. Sales have been slow. I haven’t figured out how to consistently get my books in front of the readers who might love them.

And if I’m not careful, I know exactly what my brain will do with that, too.

It will find a way to diminish it.

Today, though, something shifted.

I started thinking about all those extraordinary women I admire.

I know what they’ve accomplished, but I don’t necessarily know what happened between those accomplishments.

I don’t know which dreams didn’t work out.

I don’t know which businesses struggled.

I don’t know which plans changed.

I don’t know how many times they cried, doubted themselves, lost money, changed direction, started over, or wondered whether they had made a terrible mistake.

I don’t know what they consider their failures.

I only see the beautiful collection of things they were brave enough to try.

And suddenly I wondered:

What if someone could look at my life the same way?

What if I stopped telling my story with all the disclaimers?

I worked in customer service.

I worked as a secretary and a legal secretary.

I started a wedding and event business in Miami.

I stepped away from that business to care for my father.

I moved to a new city and started another business from scratch.

I created experiences that brought people together and made them laugh.

When my health changed and I could no longer do that work, I reinvented myself again.

I became a published author.

Those things don’t stop being accomplishments simply because there’s another sentence after them.

Maybe that’s where I’ve been unfair to myself.

When I look at other women, I see their courage.

When I look at myself, I see the footnotes.

I see why something ended.

Why it didn’t grow bigger.

Why it didn’t last longer.

Why it didn’t make more money.

Why it didn’t become what I once imagined it would become.

But maybe an accomplishment doesn’t become a failure simply because it wasn’t permanent.

Maybe success isn’t only measured by how long we stayed somewhere.

Maybe sometimes it’s measured by the fact that we had the courage to begin.

I built those businesses.

I wrote those books.

I took care of people I loved.

I adapted when life demanded it.

I started over.

More than once.

And when I strip away all those qualifiers I’ve attached to my own story, I realize something that feels strangely uncomfortable to say:

I’ve done a lot.

Maybe I’ve even become one of those women I’ve always admired.

I just never noticed because I knew too much about everything that went wrong along the way.

And I wonder how many of us do this.

How many of us admire other people by their accomplishments while judging ourselves by everything that happened behind the scenes?

We see someone else’s finished painting while remembering every brushstroke we wish we could erase from our own.

So maybe it’s worth asking yourself:

What would your life look like if you described it the way you describe the life of someone you admire?

What accomplishments have you dismissed because they didn’t last forever?

What dreams have you labeled failures simply because they changed?

What have you survived, created, learned, attempted, or become that you rarely give yourself credit for?

Maybe our lives don’t need to change nearly as much as we think they do.

Maybe, sometimes, we just need to change the way we’re looking at them.

I’d love to know if you can relate.

Have you ever realized that you were measuring your own life by a harsher standard than the one you use for everyone else?

And if you took away all the explanations, disappointments, and “yes, buts” for just a moment…

What would you finally allow yourself to be proud of?