Women are told over and over again that we are less confident and that’s who we are. Many believe it’s our personality. Read it in magazines or ask any successful woman for advice and she’ll readily point to having confidence. “Just believe in yourself!”

But how could you believe in yourself when for thousands of years the feminine qualities have been valued less whilst the masculine ways have been celebrated and promoted. Neither is good nor bad, neither is better than the other. They are simply different.

But don’t tell me we are less confident. Our confidence has been knocked because our gifts and brilliance have not been accepted in their full glory. We were celebrated for being nice and getting the golden stars, but not for expressing our true nature.

So don’t tell me it’s our personality trait.

Numerous studies have shown that 80% of women globally suffer from lack of self belief. Most of us have started to believe this is a permanent state for women. Women simply are less confident than men. Believing it’s a similar physiological fact as being smaller than men.

Women lost their self belief a long time ago and it is now time to bring it back, in its full glory.

In the past 6 years building our accountability club for women we’ve met women from many different professions and backgrounds. We met entrepreneurs, hairdressers, bankers, florists, cleaners, women in the C-suite, freelancers, photographers, authors and cyber security specialists. We’ve met christian women, muslim women, hindu women and women with no faith. Black women, white women and asian women. We’ve met heterosexual women and gay women. The youngest women we talked to were in their early twenties and the eldest was 67 years old.

What we see is clear.

Women are still awaiting for a prince to arrive on a white horse.

Most women are still expecting someone to save them. We were robbed of our greatest treasure – our self belief, our brilliance, our inner truth. It happened a very long time ago but we still haven’t found a way home. The culprits are long gone and though patriarchy is still going strong the men we surround ourself with are also conditioned to play the game as they’ve never seen our true brilliance. So how could they know? 

We are like a little girl sitting on a bench waiting for the bad uncle to bring back our lolly pop he stole.

What do you think?  Will he ever come back?  Will he bring back your treasure?

Rather than sitting there and feeling sad for ourselves I have suggestion. How about we embark on a journey to find our treasure? 

We spoke with one of our members recently and she said that DrivenWoman had given her permission to start her journey. “For some reason, I don’t know why, I needed permission.” 

Women are awaiting for permission to embark on that search.

Ladies, we are the ones who have lost the treasure! We’ve lost our brilliance and our self esteem. We’ve lost the belief that our ideas matter. We’ve lost them but it’s our choice if we are to claim them back.

What would you do if you lost your house keys? Would you just sit there? Would you wait for someone to bring them back to you? Or would you blame your neighbour for stealing them? 

If there’s any feeling of lack, an internal longing for something new, something more – you must act now. For centuries we’ve been conditioned to behave a certain way and to want certain things so it’s sometimes hard to see what’s missing. 

We meet too many women who are waiting for that clarity, that confidence they read in magazines. They say that they’ll act when they have all the answers and know exactly what they want. But that day may never come as you may not know what you have lost.

It’s time to call the search party.  It’s time to start the journey.  It’s time to take the first step, even if you don’t know what you want.

Don’t wait for the nice man to return your keys nor the bad uncle to bring back your lollipop. Surround yourself with other women who have embarked on the journey and join DrivenWoman’s FREE Facebook group Doers Tribe now.