Our greatest blindspot as women: opportunity cost

Today I want to continue on the theme of investing in yourself in my previous post.

My suggestion to you was to evaluate how wise your investment choices were: do you put your resources into things that expand you, fill you up, or give you a short term ego boost?

What did you find?

(If you haven’t yet read it, I suggest that you read that post first and then continue here).

Let’s look at that first category: the things that help you expand. Under this category I would list, for example, support from a coach, a session with a stylist, help around the home, a public speaking course - all things that add measurable gains to your personal power and impact in the world.

The ripple effect from these investments is the greatest because they free up your energy to be the best professional/mother/partner/friend/committee member you can be.

But that’s not all.

What we have not been taught as women is to calculate is the opportunity cost of not fixing the things in our lives that need to be fixed.

• Waiting for your annual review, instead of preparing a well-thought out strategy to improve your chances of a promotion when those decisions are made.

• Dressing for the role you have, instead of the role you want.

• Waiting to build a budget to hire help, but missing out on quality connections with your loved ones through exhaustion.

• Waiting to be assigned a project before improving your presentation skills, instead of becoming the first choice after demonstrating both technical and soft skills.

  
  

That lack of urgency in women is understandable - after all, when we get told we cannot have what we want, we learn to tone down our expectations and ‘wait our turn’.

But this unfortunately only serves to continue that cycle.

And this is where generational gatekeeping can be insidious: when one generation of women expects the next to put with the same things that they did because that’s how it works.

The truth is that change is happening so quickly in society that you and I can no longer afford to wait.

We have to meet this moment with whatever it takes to overcome the obstacles that stand in our way.

Which is why I created my new Aspire & Ascend programme for women who are tired of waiting to uplevel.

They know that this year is ending and they want something different in 2026.

And they want to act fast to leave behind the fears, the self-doubt, the judgements and the limitations that are currently holding them back.

Enrolment opens on Monday, but I want to give you a sneak preview of what’s in store for participants who join Aspire & Ascend here.