Beauty and success don’t go together

I used to be extremely driven, and my career was very important to me.

Oddly, the higher I climbed up the corporate ladder, the more weight I

gained.

During most of my time in the corporate world, I was overweight and pretty successful at my job. I had an overweight body and a pretty face, a little puffy because of the extra weight.

I was pretty good-looking but not great-looking.

When I started losing the weight, I began looking great. My face got a lot slimmer, and my body became slender.

I started dressing more nicely, because I could fit in pretty much anything I wanted. Then, I discovered that in business great-looking or gorgeous women were not always perceived to be the smartest people in this world.

The stereotype I encountered was that a gorgeous woman is not smart or competent. Basically, gorgeous equals dumb. Anyway, in our society, it seems that for many people, there is an assumption that beautiful cannot be combined with smart, and many people have that distorted belief.

If we are beautiful, we will not be perceived as smart, and, therefore, we cannot be successful. (We cannot be successful that is unless our career is based on beauty; for example, modeling or acting.)

Going back to my experience at work, I had to make a very strong effort to be perceived as a smart woman regardless of my new, great looks so that I could continue to be successful.

People who had been working with me for years knew that I was smart, and my new looks did not really matter to them. However, it was more difficult for me with the people I met for the first time. I had to overcome the initial impression I gave that I was not smart and this was not easy because I had the belief that I could not be both: smart and beautiful.

Many women want to succeed so badly that they might be ready to give up their looks and body for their success, just as I did for so many years.

Many of us believe that we cannot have both great looks and success; we cannot wear professional, attractive clothes, and still be smart and successful at our jobs.

Many women give up one for the other, and this is sad. There is no rule out there that says we must choose.

We can be beautiful and smart, and successful at the same time.

Take a look at your life and at your career. Think about whether or not you are choosing your career over your looks.

Have you decided to stay fat so that people will think you are smarter and you can succeed in your career?

It took a lot of inner work for me to let this limiting belief go and to be able to believe: “I’m going to be great-looking and extremely successful. I will not be the fat person that I’ve always been because I thought I had to so that I could be smart and successful.

One has nothing to do with the other; they are not related. I can be both!” And so can you.

If you want to lose weight and feel fit and beautiful at any age, it is important for you to identify and clean up the MESS in your mind and body. MESS stands for Mental, Emotional, Subconscious, and Spiritual blocks that prevent your weight loss.

It does not matter how hard you try to lose weight. If you do not clean up the MESS in your mind and body, you may have a hard time losing weight, or if you lose weight, you may gain it back.