Ep 10: Why Women strive
Episode 10 of the Good Girl Rebellion podcast.
Why Women Strive: How to Stop Chasing and Start Choosing
If you’ve ever found yourself reaching a milestone and immediately moving the goalposts…
If you’ve ever achieved something you wanted and instead of feeling proud thought, right, what’s next…
If you’ve ever looked around at a life that looks good on paper and still wondered whether success was supposed to feel different…
This episode is for you.
This week on the Good Girl Rebellion podcast, I sat down with psychotherapist, mindful compassion coach and retreat leader Ange Cameron to talk about striving.
I thought we were going to talk about ambition but we actually ended up talking about something much bigger.
Enough.
One of the first things Ange said was that striving often comes from the feeling that something isn’t enough and that felt worth saying. I don’t think most women would describe themselves as striving - we’d describe ourselves as responsible, capable and driven. Someone with high standards who likes to get things done and someone who wants to make the most of life.
And none of those things is bad but somewhere in there, I think many of us have absorbed the idea that there is always another thing to improve, achieve, fix or become BEFORE we can finally relax.
That means that success is somewhere ahead of us and fulfilment will come at the next milestone. That rest needs to be earned.
And that thought feels particularly familiar to women.
At one point in the conversation, we started talking about the messages women have inherited.
For generations, women were rewarded for being good.
Good in this case is a shorthand term for useful, caring and making life work for everyone else.
Then women entered the workplace in greater numbers. We built careers and we earned money.
We created opportunities and gained choices that previous generations didn’t always have. And I think that thought feels particularly familiar to women because historically our value wasn’t measured by who we were but by what we contributed.
And that matters.
But I found myself wondering whether somewhere along the line we accidentally translated freedom into pressure.
Whether having it all became doing it all and whether we swapped one set of expectations for another and called it liberation.
Because now, instead of proving ourselves through caring and sacrifice, perhaps some of us are proving ourselves through achievement and productivity.
And I’ll go one step further and say that what we did was just add more to our plate rather than take anything away. We had the pressures or work but the pressures of home life did not diminish.
It all comes back to the same question - am I doing enough?
One of the parts of the conversation that stayed with me most was when Ange talked about the difference between healthy ambition and proving.
From the outside they can look the same.
Two people can build businesses, work hard and set goals.
But one person is doing it because it matters to them.
And another person is doing it because they believe they will finally feel worthy once they get there.
That is the distinction that makes all the difference because proving has no finish line. We never get to feel the sense of accomplishment we’re chasing if we immediately set another target and go after that. We achieve what we set out to and then minimise it. And then rest makes us feel guilty because we’re not there yet, so how can we stop?
And I think many good girls become incredibly skilled at this without realising.
There was another moment I loved where Ange said she finds herself moving away from the word resilience and using the word capability instead.
I love that distinction because resilience can become yet another expectation.
Keep going.
Push through.
Handle more.
Be stronger.
But capability asks a different question:
What do I actually have capacity for?
That feels more human and it leaves room for seasons and recovery. It also leaves room for choosing and changing your mind. We can have the wisdom to know that life cannot operate at full output all year round.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because one of the ideas I come back to often is that businesses happen in seasons.
People do too.
There are seasons for growth, for building, for rest, for visibility, for receiving.
And I think balance isn’t something we create in a day - it’s something we create over time. Sometimes we do need to work flat out to get something done and that is fine when we allow ourselves the grace to pull back and fully rest afterwards.
I finished the conversation by asking Ange:
What becomes possible when women stop striving to become more and start trusting they already are enough?
Her answer was that everything changes because we stop building from fear and start building from choice.
And I think that might be the question underneath this whole episode.
Not:
How do I become enough?
But:
What would change if I believed I already was?
Listen to the episode
The main topics covered in this episode are:
Here are the main topics covered in this episode:
What striving actually is and why it often comes from feeling like something isn’t enough rather than a healthy desire for growth
The difference between striving and ambition: chasing versus choosing
How women internalise expectations around success, achievement and proving
Why “having it all” can morph into “doing it all”
The shift from good wife → career woman → girl boss and whether we’ve swapped one set of expectations for another
Healthy ambition versus proving: how the same actions can come from completely different motivations
Why success can feel like it never arrives and the problem with constantly moving the goalposts
Rest, guilt and why many women struggle to see rest as productive or valuable
Resilience versus capability: moving away from endurance and towards understanding capacity
Building businesses and lives in seasons rather than expecting constant output
The difference between challenge and suffering and how to grow without self-abandonment
Boundaries, burnout and recognising the signs before reaching exhaustion
Internal validation versus external validation and coming back home to yourself
What becomes possible when women stop striving to become more and start trusting they are already enough
Listen to Episode 10 on the links below.
About Ange
For 34 years, Ange Cameron has been helping people navigate life’s challenges with greater courage, self-awareness and compassion.
She’s a psychotherapist, mindful compassion coach, sauna master and retreat leader who works with both individuals and organisations across Scotland and leads wild retreats in Scotland and the Azores, Portugal, where coaching, mindfulness, nature and meaningful connection come together.
Her work is rooted in a simple belief:
We have one life and it’s far too precious to spend disconnected from what matters most.
Away from work, she’s happiest in the sea, on a coastal path, in a sauna, or exploring her fascination with nature, marine life and the wonders of the world around us.