Girl, Stop Apologizing: A shame-free plan for embracing and achieving your goals by Rachel Hollis

Stars: *****

Harper Collins (2019)
Self-Help/Motivational & Inspirational
240 pages

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.

Summary: Rachel Hollis has seen it too often: women not living into their full potential. They feel a tugging on their hearts for something more, but they’re afraid of embarrassment, of falling short of perfection, of not being enough.
In Girl, Stop Apologizing, #1 New York Times bestselling author and founder of a multimillion-dollar media company, Rachel Hollis sounds a wake-up call. She knows that many women have been taught to define themselves in light of other people—whether as wife, mother, daughter, or employee—instead of learning how to own who they are and what they want. With a challenge to women everywhere to stop talking themselves out of their dreams, Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself. 

Girl, Stop Apologizing

Rachel’s first book, Girl, Wash Your Face, has made headlines and is a #1 New York Times Bestseller. I have not read the first book so I can’t compare it to this one, but I found the second book, Girl, Stop Apologizing, very good.

Now whether you agree with me or not will depend on your viewpoints. If you are a fervent Christian who believes women should not work outside of the home then you will not like the book. It’s about making goals and following them and not making apologies for having those goals.

If however you have a more feminist viewpoint, you will love the book. If you have a mixture of the two (like me) you will also find the book helpful and although you likely won’t agree with the way Rachel does things in some regards, you will be able to use what you find helpful. So from my viewpoint, it’s a 5 star book. But I understand why some people take offense to the book, based on their views.

So what’s in the book?

First Rachel shares excuses we should let go of if we want to accomplish our goals. These includes things like I don’t have time, I’m terrified of failure or What will they think? Then she goes over behaviours we need to adopt such as stop asking permission and ask for help. Finally she goes over skills you need to acquire (and how) such as confidence, effectiveness and positivity.

If you just read the table of contents you might say, “”well duh, I know all that.” But when you read the book you realize that she has some real insights you might not have thought of and some real ideas for how to make them work. Reading the book inspired me to evaluate my life and decide if I’m living it the way I want to be. While I do think that we need to think of our family more than she states, I do see how so many women are pushed back and their thoughts and goals aren’t taken into consideration. Whether your goal is to start a multi-million dollar company or just to be a better mom at home with your kids, the book has ideas.

Rachel does talk about some controversial items but I love that she puts the ideas out there while stating that she knows they are controversial but she doesn’t care if someone gets offended because that’s about them, and doesn’t affect her. I may be saying this wrong, I don’t mean she doesn’t care about her readers, just that she puts what is important to her first, despite what others may think or say.

Pre-order Girl, Stop Apologizing from Amazon.com and Help Support the Blog