Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals

As a mom of three it’s hard to find time to read, so I tend to listen to most of my books, but I was lucky enough to have a flight right after I received my copy of this book so I had a chunk of time to read, and let me start by saying this is a quick and practical read. True to Rachel Hollis she tells great stories, she’s engaging and she gives you practical tips that you can use in your life today. Are any of the ideas she gives, new or mind blowing, no, but I don’t think that’s what we expect from Rachel, well I don’t. What made me fall in love with her writing and ideas are that she made me feel less alone. I found myself as I read the book, saying out loud to a plane full of strangers, oh my goodness that’s exactly how I feel, or even AMEN (I’m a catholic that converted from the episcopal church, we don’t yell out things like that, we mumble prayers and keep to ourselves) but this really hit home for me.The book is broken into three parts, letting go of excuses, adopting new habits and acquiring new skills.In letting go of excuses she hits you hard, she doesn’t want to hear, but that doesn’t work for me or I’m not that kind of person, she basically tells you to leave your excuses at the door if you want to change. Now did every excuse she wrote about apply to me no, but there were some gems. Some of my favorite excuses were:I don’t have time: I hear that so much in my business and man it makes me crazy. Rachel points out it’s “Not whether or not you have the time, but whether this goal is so compelling, so beautiful, so necessary to your future happiness that you’re willing to trade your current comfort in order to achieve it. You in?” She then goes on to give some great tips about how to reconfigure the time you have to achieve the goal.I’m not enough to succeed: This is where I got all Pentecostal preacher on the plane. I am pretty honest with my experience with therapy and this is something that I have been really working on, not feeling good enough and Rachel hits the nail on the head for me in this chapter. “You are enough. Today. As you are.” Focus on all the things you have done vs dwelling on what you have yet to do!I love when she talks about how for most of us, we hold on to some little nugget, some little lie that we’ve had since childhood. I have a lot of those, in the back of my head, but one that stands out for me is “I’m not a good writer”! But something I’ve realized in the last year is that it’s just not true. Someone told me one day that I wasn’t and I’ve believed it since. Am I an English major nope, do I have great grammatical skills, nope, will you probably find spelling errors or typos in the post, yep! But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad writer. I love telling stories and communicating with people and I’m good at it and what someone once told me shouldn’t stop me from doing something I love!It’s been done before: This is so true in this day and age, I have many times thought why should I start my own business there are a million people doing this, why should I even try. Rachel knocks this one down pretty quickly, I love when she says, ““You can keep talking yourself out of the thing you’re hoping for, or you can decide that your dream is more powerful than your excuse”. She gives some great advice about ho to combine the how with your why to create something unique to you and something epic! I found this to be extremely inspiring!These are just a few of the excuses that stood out to me, but trust me she really hits hard in this section and helps you re-frame how you look at your excuses. That leads us into section two, behaviors to adopt to overcome these excuses!Here is where she really gets into creating new habits to overcome your excuses to move on with your life and to do all the things you hope and dream about . If you want all her tips you are going to have to order the book but I will pick out a couple that I have found to be really helpful and that I’m starting to implement in my life today!Let’s start with the two that jumped out at me, choose one dream and go all in….this could have been written for me. Breanne stop trying to do all the things all at once. You will be burned out and man am I! She says very clearly choose one dream and go all in, “You. Can. Only. Focus. On. One. At. A. Time.” She breaks down her 10, 10, 1 strategy for how to dream big and focus on your goals, want to know what it is?? Well then you have to order her book……see above!The second strategy that spoke to me was learn to say no, and mean it! As a mom with three kids there are so many times I find myself saying YES to things that I don’t really want to do and that don’t bring me much joy in my life. Rachel quotes the amazing Jen Hatmacker and says, if it’s not a HELL YES, then it should be a HELL NO and this is really helping me focus my energy on what brings me joy and what I really want to be doing.The last section of the book is skills to acquire and I think while none of these skills are NEW, they are things that I think a lot of us need to work on. I also love that she doesn’t tell you to go out and change everything in your life at once, see “stop trying to do all the things” but she does talk about how you need to learn new skills to grow and reach your goals. My favorite section was on Planning, she really outlines how she was able to achieve her goals and gives you the steps she took. I thought this section was some of the best advice if you’ve ever felt stuck and not sure how to move forward after you dream these big dreams!!Overall, will this book change your life? No, but I question if any personal development book will change your life. If anyone had the perfect solution they’d be rich and we wouldn’t have to keep reading all these PD books. But what this book will do is shake you up a bit, make you look at how your are currently living your life, and hopefully give you the kick the pants you need to move forward. I have to thank Rachel for speaking to a new audience and making personal development fun and more accessible. What are you waiting for, order your book today and start being the person you dream of being!

If you’ve paid any attention to the personal growth world lately, you’ve probably noticed the name Rachel Hollis and her special best friend brand of making her audience confront their own B.S. Her first book Girl, Wash Your Face is a New York Times Bestseller. She has a sold out personal development conference and a successful company she runs with her husband. But does this new book Girl, Stop Apologizing hold up the hype? Here are six things to consider before buying/reading this book….Girl, listen to your older sister!Rachel Hollis is known for her engaging and straight-talking style. She truly feels like an older, wiser, sister who’s sitting down to dish with a bowl of ice cream or a mimosa at brunch. This makes the writing approachable and fun to read! There were many times I found myself laughing out loud and smiling. This kept me wanting to read more.Girl, do your research!Recently, Hollis has been accused of stealing quotes from others and passing them off as her own on her Instagram. She seems to that in her book as well. If she does reference something that isn’t her own, she says “A wise person once said…” or something like that. Instead of doing the research and actually trying to figure where the quote came from or the context it came from. This comes off as lazy at worst or at best like a 20 somethings “INSPO” board on Pinterest. For as long as Hollis has been creating content, she should know better.Girl, this is good marketing!Rachel Hollis is a New York Times Best Selling author. But does she deserve to be there? This book is published under the Religion & Spirituality category, and on this date is #1 on Amazon in this category. However, this book really doesn’t fit in this category at all. Yes, Hollis is a Christian. But I think there is a pretty big difference between an author who is a Christian versus a Christian author. She refers to God less than a handful of times. She doesn’t specifically reference the Bible. Now, by no means does that make this bad a book. It just seems more like a marketing scheme that they would choose to put her in the Religion & Spirituality category.Girl, don’t repeat yourself.If you have followed Hollis at all in the last six months to a year, most of the content in GSA has appeared across her social in one way or another. Some of the stories she tells in the book are told in her “Made for More” documentary now on Amazon Prime. She has read from the book on both her Rise Podcast and on her daily live Facebook shows. So, in some ways it’s amazing she’s been giving this content away for free. However, at the same time it leaves the reader feeling a little bummed out to read things they’ve already heard a million times before and didn’t have to pay for.Girl, know your audience!A lot of Hollis’ success has to do with her ability to pinpoint her niche and create content that specifically speaks to that audience. If you are not part of this audience, some of the material might be hard to relate to. Primarily, Hollis speaks to the 30-40-year-old, married, white woman, from at least a middle-class background. Women in MLMs follow her in droves, as proven by the companies (Lularoe, DoTerra, ThirtyOne, Beachbody) that have asked her to speak at their conferences. If you don’t have a few kids at home, a business, a husband….this might not be the book for you or you might have a hard time relating.Girl, take the advice!There are a lot of different pieces of advice in this book. But the thing I love about personal development books is how the reader can decide what they take from them. There are parts of this book that really spoke to me because of my life journey. If you read this book, something totally different might resonate with you. That’s not bad! This book offers lots of moments you can add to your own self-improvement toolbox.Girl, should you read it?Do I think Rachel Hollis is the queen-bee of personal development that many of her followers believe she is? No. Do I think the book is worth a read? Yes. If you haven’t read or followed Hollis before most of the information will be new to you, and you’ll probably walk away learning more about yourself. That’s an opportunity no one should walk away from. Girl, get reading!!

Rachel Hollis is my new go to! I love her honesty, humor and every word she writes! I will read her books over and over again.

I love Rachel Hollis and loved this book. There might be some sections that just don't apply to your but you can get something from it! I think this covered a lot of areas in the previous book, Girl, wash your face, but this was better written and more punchy. It sounded more like Rachel. You don't need to read this and girl wash your face. This is more or less the upgraded bad ass version xx I have Girl Stop apologising on audio and I bought . Hard copy for my collection so I can make notes!

A perfect sequel to Girl, Wash Your Face or a How To guidebook for anyone who wants to achieve a goal and has no idea how to start. Rachel’s first book “Girl, Wash Your Face” dispels the lies women believe about themselves and shows you the reasons you are made for more than those lies. This book then gives you a guide on “how” to achieve the goals you know you want or how to take dreams and make them into tangible goals. If you are an avid follower of Rachel Hollis you will recognize some of the stories or ideas but this perfectly puts her ideas into an easy to follow plan that will motivate you and get you on a path to achieve your goals. You can go back and reference the ideas vs search all over social media or podcasts for the various nuggets. You can hear the passion in her woods and it motivates you like a best friend could do.

I have read both of Rachel’s books (‘Girl wash your face ‘and this one) and have been doing her 90 day challenge and Im a HUGE fan! You feel like it’s your friend talking to you. The type of friend who tells you the truth even if you don’t want to hear it, but you know that you need to hear it! Highly recommend both books if your struggling with some aspects of life. Has personally helped me loads 😊

I enjoyed the book. The author has some good points and there is a lot to take away from this book. However, I feel like at times it’s aimed more for mothers. It makes sense since the author is a mother of four, however I just found it hard to relate to certain parts.

0 OUT OF 5 STARS. The moral of her story is, marry rich and you’ll sort of make it. But seriously, this book is really just someone who’s obviously very privileged and materialistic trying to tell you “if I can do it why can’t you”... I really want a refund