Women Have Mastered Guilt. Now, Let’s Master Happiness.

By Jessica Herrin

Today is International Women’s Day. What an amazing day to reflect on everything women in the U.S. have accomplished over the past hundred years — earning the right to vote, graduating from college in equal numbers to men, and disrupting the Man Men-era stereotypes of what a woman shouldn’t and can’t do.

Yet, there is much more progress to be made. Many very real gender gaps still exist. I am not only talking about the pay gap, the C-suite gap or the board seat gap. I want to shine a light on a gap that is too often overlooked: the happiness gap. In the last 40+ years, the happiness of women has been on the decline. That’s right — since 1972, the year the U.S. government started collecting this data, women’s happiness has declined. For men, meanwhile, happiness is on the rise. But why?

Why do men report being happier than women? If women are gaining equality and opportunity, shouldn’t happiness for women be on the rise, rather than the decline?

Here’s what I think is happening. Today, women have more choices than ever. We can pursue a broader range of careers than ever before. We can start our own businesses, and an increasing number of us are doing so. We can work at home, outside the home, or a little of both. Some families are fortunate enough to be able to support a family on a single income and can make the choice between pursuing a traditional career and staying home to raise a family.

More choice for women is hands-down a good thing. But as our options increase, so do the ways in which women can imagine failing or coming up short. Women feel a pressure to “have it all” — to pursue work and family with equal fervor at all times. Then, we fear that we are not doing either one well enough, and we worry about the judgements of others. If women fall into the trap of trying to please all the people all the time, or being guilt-ridden by both the choices they are making and the choices they are not making, then happiness is going to keep tanking.

Women have mastered guilt. Instead, we need to master happiness. Being a working mom was so much harder when I was working against myself with a constant feeling of guilt. Giving up that guilt was a critical step in my journey to finding my own definition of success.

My book Find Your Extraordinary aims to inspire people to do just that: to define and achieve their own version of success and happiness, rather than chasing some cookie-cutter version of someone else’s dream. I believe that happiness isn’t a byproduct of success — happiness is success, all by itself.

But how do you even begin a project like that? Well, for starters, don’t try and have it all. Instead, strive to have what matters most to you, and only what you are willing to consistently work for. Only you can define your success. Don’t diminish your joy by longing for the life that other people have chosen but that doesn’t line up with what you truly want.

Second, make a choice to not judge the choices of other women — or your own choices, for that matter. To get happiness on the rise, we need to commit to kicking guilt and judgement to the curb. Only then can happiness bloom — and only then can we work together to close all the gender gaps that still exist.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn. It has been reprinted for Radiate with permission.

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About the author: CEO and Founder of the Stella & Dot Family Brands (Stella & Dot, KEEP Collective and EVER Skincare), and Author of FIND YOUR EXTRAORDINARY (Crown Publishing, May 2016), Jessica Herrin is also a serial entrepreneur who co-founded WeddingChannel.com. She’s been recognized for her accomplishments and her passion on Oprah, in Fortune Magazine, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour Magazine and more. Jessica thrives on the mission of revolutionizing flexible work opportunities for women around the world.

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