How to Achieve Bold, Balanced Success by Embracing Your Inner Rebel and Your Good Girl
Photo by: Ruven Afanador
Introduction: The Rebel and The Good Girl
Hey there visionary changemaker.
Yes, that’s you - the one with big dreams involving shaking up the status quo, whether that involves healing lineages, creating art that moves people, or building a business that transforms culture.
I know the tug-of-war you've probably got going on inside you.
I know because it's one of the key dynamics I have to work with inside myself.
It’s a battle playing out in the psyche of SO many women I work with and one I’ve spent years investigating: between the inner rebel and the inner good girl.
Understanding the Rebel: The Bold, Ambitious Visionary
If you're a woman with a change-making vision, you have a strong inner rebel.
She's the one who wants to rip up the rulebook, follow her passion, speak truth to power (and probably eat dessert for breakfast). She whispers, "Why not?" and "What if...?" She's the creative firestarter, the risk-taker, and she has zero respect (read: active disdain) for your colour-coded google calendar.
Meet Your Good Girl: The Disciplined Strategist
Enter your inner good girl. Bless her overachieving heart, she's trying so hard. She's the one who makes sure you get to meetings on time, remembers your mum's birthday, and feels guilty for not finishing that book on your nightstand. She's responsible, she's reliable, and she really wishes the rebel would just fall in line and do as she’s told for once.
Sound familiar?
Why You Need Both: The Power of Integration
Both are essential, especially for changemaking, cycle-breaking, culture-shaping women like us.
But when they're not working together, it's internal chaos.
Cue indecision, frustration, and missed opportunities. If left unchecked, this disharmony can seriously stall your progress and make life downright hard and unpleasant. Ask me how I know.
Signs You're Out of Balance
The conflict between your rebel and your good girl plays out in some pretty familiar ways:
Procrastination: Your rebel resists starting, even on the projects you're excited about - because as soon as they’re on a to-do list they suddenly feel like chores. Meanwhile, your good girl frets over deadlines and adds pressure. The result? You find yourself re-organising your sock drawer instead of changing the world. (Been there, colour-coded that!)
Avoidance: Your rebel wants to speak up and share your bold idea in an important meeting, but your good girl fears rocking the boat or being judged. You end up staying quiet and missing the opportunity.
Burnout: Your good girl forces you to meet every deadline, attend every PTA meeting, and please everyone humanly possible. Meanwhile, your rebel's dying for space to just be, to imagine, to play. The result? You're exhausted, but still feeling the pressure to "keep going."
Imposter Syndrome: Your good girl whispers, "Who are you to lead this project? You'll be exposed as a fraud." Your rebel wants to take charge and do it differently, but doubt creeps in. You end up playing it safe, sticking to familiar territory, and dimming your brilliance.
Resistance to Structure: Your rebel is so sick of external influences that she resists feedback or frameworks that would make your work shine. Your good girl clings to outdated familiar systems, afraid of letting go into the unknown.
It's a stalemate and the internal conflict feels like constantly hitting the accelerator and brake at the same time.
The Cultural Context: Navigating Societal Expectations
At this point, it's important to acknowledge that this internal struggle doesn't happen in a vacuum. As women, we're often caught between societal expectations to be "good" (read: compliant, agreeable, perfect) and the deep-seated desire to challenge norms and express our authentic selves.
This tension is amplified for women in leadership roles, creatives, and entrepreneurs. We're told to "lean in" and be assertive, but not too much or we’re labelled difficult or bossy. To be innovative, but not rock the boat too much. To shine but not out-shine others. It's no wonder our inner rebel and good girl are constantly at odds!
Understanding this cultural context can help us be more compassionate with ourselves as we navigate this integration process. It's not just a personal journey - it's part of a larger shift in how women show up in the world.
The key is learning to turn this tension into a power partnership.
The Demonisation Dilemma: Why Vilifying Either Side Doesn't Work
Without a sense of the bigger picture at play, it's easy to pick sides in this internal battle. We often see our good girl as the limitation police, enforcing outdated rules, stifling our creativity, and nagging us to eat more vegetables.
On the flip side, we might demonise our inner rebel as chaotic and irresponsible, a threat to all we've worked so hard for - the one who'd have us sell our stuff and join a circus. (Just me?)
But in truth we need both.
You can't make a world-shifting change without a bit of structure and discipline, and you can't make an impact while suppressing your creative fire and ‘crazy’ wisdom.
Finding Balance: Integration, Not Suppression
So if demonising the rebel leaves us stagnant and suppressing the good girl leads to chaos, what's the solution?
Integration. (Cue the confetti cannons!)
Your inner rebel and good girl, when working in harmony, form an unbeatable team.
The rebel brings creativity, vision, and the courage to challenge the status quo. She's the one who dares to dream big, to imagine a world different from the one she sees.
Your good girl, on the other hand, offers reliablity, sensitivity to others, and a deep understanding of how systems work. She knows that sometimes, to change the rules, you need to appear to be following them. She's the master of working within the system to transform it, knowing when to blend in, in order to stand out.
Together, they're a force to be reckoned with: the rebel's innovative ideas are given structure and form by the good girl's practical skills, while the good girl's considered nature is infused with the rebel's passion, daring and creativity.
This power couple can navigate the complexities of change-making with both audacity and savvy, pushing boundaries while building bridges.
They allow you to be both the visionary and the strategist, the dreamer and the doer, creating change that is both radical and sustainable.
When these two work together, it's not a compromise - it's a revolution.
A Real-life Case Study.
Mia, a former marketing exec, ditched corporate life to pursue her passion for holistic nutrition. But after retraining, she found herself paralysed. Her rebel, once so eager for change, now balked at business-building tasks. Her good girl responded by imposing rigid structures, leading to more resistance.
"I felt like I was back in the corporate world, just without the paycheck," Mia said. "I began to wonder if I'd made a huge mistake."
Here's how I helped Mia transformed her business from drudgery to play by aligning the two parts of her behind one shared mission:
Reframed "Work": Shifted from "serious tasks" to "creative play with purpose."
Embraced Experimentation: Approached each task as a fun experiment rather than a do-or-die mission.
Introduced "Productive Play": Set 30-minute timers for energising, fun work sprints.
Gamified Tasks: Created competitive games with rewards for milestones.
Aligned Passion with Structure: Replaced rigid to-dos with "passion projects."
Got Collaborative: Connected with like-minded women and found a playful accountability partner.
The result? "I wake up excited to 'play' with my business," Mia shared. "And I'm actually getting more done than when I was trying to force myself to work."
"My rebel and my good girl aren't fighting anymore," Mia reflected. "They're collaborating. My rebel comes up with wild, creative ideas, and my good girl helps me turn them into reality."
Your Turn: Embracing Your Whole, Messy, Beautiful Self
If you're reading this and thinking, "Oh my god, that's me," - welcome to the club! We meet on Tuesdays and there's cake. (Just kidding, there's no meeting. The cake part is true though. Always.)
Here's a simple exercise to start integrating your rebel and good girl:
Get two sheets of paper. Label one "Rebel" and the other "Good Girl."
Think of a current challenge or decision you're facing.
Write a letter from your rebel to your good girl about this situation on the "Rebel" sheet. Let her express her desires, fears, and ideas freely, as you do so notice how she feels in your body. You might even get up and move as she speaks through you.
Now, switch to the "Good Girl" sheet and respond as your good girl. What are her concerns? What solutions does she see? What does she need? Again feel her in your body.
Continue this dialogue, alternating between the two, for at least 10 minutes.
Finally, on a new sheet, write a response from your whole self, integrating insights from both sides.
This exercise can bring clarity and often reveals surprising solutions that honour both aspects of yourself.
Final thoughts.
Here's what I want you to know: that tension you feel between your rebel and your good girl? It's not a flaw. It's not something to be fixed. Inside that creative tension lives your genius.
My hope is that you embrace it all: the structure and the spontaneity. The responsibility and the wildness. The plan and the plot twist.
Because when we do, we step into the role of Sacred Troublemaker. And the world needs our unique blend of rebellion and responsibility.
Let's go shake things up - powerfully, wholeheartedly and sustainably.
~~~~~
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