You're Not Lost: An Inspired Action Plan for Finding Your Own Way - Softcover

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Maxie McCoy is a writer and speaker obsessed with giving women the tools they need to believe in themselves. Committed to the global rise of women, she writes weekly inspiration on maxiemccoy.com, and is the host and executive producer of the live-audience show Let Her Speak. She specializes in creating meaningful offline experiences for top brands and conferences. Her work has been featured on Good Morning America, Bustle, Fortune, TheSkimm, INC, Business Insider, Yahoo, Marie Claire, GlassDoor, The Huffington Post, Women's Health and many others.

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Chapter 1

99 Problems but You Are Not One

Don't compromise yourself.

You are all you've got.

-Janis Joplin

Lost is a feeling. It is not who you are. It does not define you. It's not your identity. And it's sure as hell not a reflection of your worth as a human. Is it a problem? Sure. But you are not your problems.

The sooner you peel away all the layers of what you think you need to change before you're ready to follow your gut, the sooner you'll step into an unobstructed awareness of where you're supposed to be. Peel and shed. Peel and shed. Your path forward will become clearer as you explore and unapologetically accept who you are at your core (according to you and only you). This return to yourself is so deeply tied to where you're headed.

A few years ago, a young woman asked me what my single best piece of career advice is. Only one? Yes, she said. And only my best? Yes, she said again.

At first I gave her a wide-eyed look that said, I don't think I can distill it all down to just one. And then as quickly as I wanted to give up on making a single choice, the answer pushed its way forth from the deepest chambers of my heart.

Ahhhhh, I know it, I said. Because I felt it.

"Work every damn day to be the highest possible expression of yourself,"  I told her. Because when you do, you'll attract all the right people and opportunities to your path in ways that didn't previously seem possible. Being exactly who you are is a powerful energy force. It's a sincerity that people can feel and see, and it opens up the doors to the next step more quickly.

So much of continuing to forge the right path and find the direction that feels so core and true to you is acknowledging the truth of who you are and not letting anyone squash it. No matter how much that expression fits into what other people think you should be or do. You are not to blame for being lost. And you are most definitely not at fault for your feelings of less than because you haven't found your way (yet). There are no fingers to point here. There's only celebration for who you are, as you are.

What do I mean by the "highest possible expression of yourself"? Everything. The way you express yourself is literally everything, from the hobbies you enjoy, the skills you're interested in, and the opinions you have to the hair you keep and the emotions you feel. It's honoring and loving and, most important, expressing what you really feel, are, and desire.

If you want to dye your hair purple and shave half of it off, do it. If you want to begin a company that no one understands, do it. If you've got thoughts on the future of the world that no one agrees with, say 'em and create them. If people think you're too this or too that, eff 'em. Holding onto all those things that flare you up and feel so right is you asking to be recognized from within.

The highest expression of yourself is doing what you want to do how you want to do it-and being as wildly you as possible while you do.

Seven-year-old me dancing naked in front of my floor-to-ceiling bay windows on the second story for all my little neighbor friends to see (because I was clearly feeling myself and just didn't give a damn) is the wildly expressed self I'm always trying to come back to. Not because I'm a now-closeted exhibitionist, but because the essence of that little girl was one that was so highly expressed and unashamed about it.

That person is there in all of us. She hasn't gone away. The young, wildly expressed woman is in there; you just have to let her take the reins. She's your key to feeling amazing in your skin. She's key to feeling unapologetic about your choices. To using your voice in the big moments and the little ones. She's key to pursuing the next step even when you're worried and unsure, and to continuing to do that in the face of doubt, criticism, and uncertainty. You'll see that you never were the problem. And the sooner you believe that (by identifying all the negative sources and cultural messages that led you there), the easier it'll be to move forward.

g

You've Got This

What three things set you apart or make you feel different from most of your peers?

Girls Gone Wild

We can't talk about building self-belief without also talking about all the reasons it can be hard as hell to be who we really are. That young, wildly expressed person living within you can be hard to come back to if you're not aware of why you got away from her in the first place. There's no cheerleading confidence without also acknowledging that we live in a society where being a woman is politicized, where we're consciously and unconsciously made to question ourselves so that our power is tempered. It's a well-oiled and methodical machine meant to keep us small.

The patriarchy is a bitch. It's characterized by being "male dominated, male identified, and male centered." And it's a system that we're born into that we're led to believe can't and shouldn't be changed. We're convinced by that very same system and all those who have internalized it that there are no alternatives. It's the same system that not only ushers us into believing that women should remain in subordinate roles in society but also contributes to other forms of oppression, like racism, homophobia, and sizeism.

And as Gloria Steinem says, oppression wouldn't work unless some of it was internalized. So we start to believe that until we look like X, act like Y, and have the success of Z, we have problems that need to be solved first. The only problem that needs to be solved is trying to fit into the patriarchy's mold.

Keep the TV on for two hours and you're given all the messages of the mold someone wants you in-a laundry list of things you should desire:

Skin that color

Partner that perfect

Clothes like that

Hair that soft

Friendships that cool

Thighs that smooth

Boobs that perky

Bank accounts that full

Attitude that chill

Lips that plump

A career that crushes it

And all the things you shouldn't be:

In charge

Aggressive

Emotional

Opinionated

High achieving

Manipulative

Loud

Assertive

Breadwinning

Angry

These qualities aren't wrong. The only thing wrong is someone or a group of someones making us feel like we need to change in order to begin. And as G. D Anderson wrote, "Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength."

Multiply this completely nondiverse cultural image of success and womanhood by decades and you end up with some seriously good reasons to believe that the highest expression of yourself is one that's not going to be accepted. But a woman tapped into her deepest power becomes a massive threat to the status quo. A woman who knows that she doesn't need anything else to forge her path . . . a woman who knows she already has everything she needs . . . a woman who believes in her right to be here . . . when you're tapped into that, your deepest power, there's literally no stopping you.

When I think about women who do this well, women who don't let anything stop them from saying and doing what...