9 min read ⌚ 

Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be

Ever felt like your self is constantly struggling against a vision of who you ought to be?

Tired of doing that?

Well, Rachel Hollis says: it’s time to get that dirt of other people’s lies off of you!

And it’s time for a total makeover:

Girl, Wash Your Face!

Who Should Read “Girl, Wash Your Face”? And Why?

The world of today is a merciless place.

Whether you are a single mom or a mother of two, an unmarried successful woman in your forties or a married twenty-year-old with no job – you are bound to be judged by those around you.

Why?

Merely because no one lives up to the standards of what being a happy woman means for the world. (That’s right – It’s the Anna Karenina Principle all over again!)

The only conclusion you can deduce from that: it’s not you, but the standards which don’t work.

And this is the main message Girl, Wash Your Face is trying to communicate.

That’s why it’s a necessary reading for all the women out there who feel as if they are battled to the ground on a daily basis by the perfect figures of beauty and success from the unrealistic movies of today.

If you need some inspiration to dream and an encouragement to turn those dreams into reality – then Rachel Hollis is your girl.

About Rachel Hollis

Rachel Hollis is the founder and recurrent blogger for TheChicSite.com, a motivational speaker, and #1 New York Times bestselling author.

A mother of four, Hollis is widely considered one of the world’s leading motivators for women, something which has earned her not only a place on Inc. Magazine’s “Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30” but also the flattering moniker “Tony Robbins for women.”

“Deeply passionate about empowering women in business,” Hollis is famed for her high-energy style and for her ability to inspire and galvanize female audiences.

She is also the CCO of her own company, the Hollis Company, and the author of Girl, Wash Your Face which spent about more than four months on The New York Times bestseller list.

She is currently working on a sequel: Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals, to be published in March 2019.

“Girl, Wash Your Face PDF Summary”

“Man is the measure of all things,” uttered Protagoras about two and a half millennia ago, “of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not.”

In its bare essence, Girl, Wash Your Face is a tell-it-all mediation upon this famous saying. Or, in other words, it is a book about “one great truth”:

You are in control of your own life. You get one and only one chance to live, and life is passing you by. Stop beating yourself up, and dang it, stop letting others do it too. Stop accepting less than you deserve. Stop buying things you can’t afford to impress people you don’t even really like. Stop eating your feelings instead of working through them. Stop buying your kids’ love with food, or toys, or friendship because it’s easier than parenting. Stop abusing your body and your mind. Stop! Just get off the never-ending track!

Of course, it’s easy to see why you should be in control of your life. The more difficult part is to actually take things in your own hands.

And here’s how you can do it!

Promises and Commitments

The second – and, quite possibly, the best – of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life was to treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

Let’s try that out here, suggests Rachel.

Say you have a friend who you like very much and would love to see her succeed. Let’s call her Pam. Now, Pam has a bizarre habit: she oftentimes makes arrangements with you to only back out of them at the last minute.

And her excuses aren’t that great either.

For example, even though a week ago you two had agreed to go to Paris for the weekend and experience French cuisine at its best, she canceled out on you because she felt that eating ice cream and streaming Netflix shows was much more fun.

The excuse sounds even feebler when you realize that Pam had promised to go on a diet just a month ago. When did she give up on the diet?

If you don’t have that high of an opinion for Pam – join the club: we’re not that impressed with her either.

The twist:

You are Pam.

Because you do to yourself what Pam is doing to you in this hypothetical example on a daily basis. You constantly promise yourself things and make commitments you are unable to keep. “Our words have power,” notes down Rachel, “but our actions shape our lives.”

So, lesson one: keep your promises to yourself the same way you’d keep them if you gave them to someone you really love. Bonus: split them into smaller, more manageable chunks so that the rewarding feeling of accomplishment can encourage you to go onward.

Dreams and Fantasies…

Now, going onward is both lonely and tiring if there isn’t a final destination to your journey, an objective you believe is important enough to reach.

And having an objective, on the other hand, is so essential that sometimes it can spell the difference between life and death.

However, “I want to be the next Oprah” or “I want to marry Matt Damon” are not very good goals.

Take it from Rachel.

It was her fantasy to marry Damon ever since Good Will Hunting. She spent hours and hours dreaming about it, picturing their wedding and their beautiful little kids.

Years later in LA, she happened upon Matt Damon while she was working as an events manager at some Miramax event. He was standing across the room and started approaching her the minute their eyes met.

However, since this is not a romantic comedy, but real life, he didn’t tell her that he has never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

No.

The only thing he said to her was posing the rather anticlimactic question: “Can you tell me where I’m sitting, please?”

In other words, no matter how much of your time you spend visualizing some things, they will never come true if they are unreal to start with.

…and Actual Objectives and Goals

You need something much more tangible.

If you’re Jim Carrey, it can be a $10 million check; in Rachel Hollis’ case, it was a $10,000 Louis Vuitton Speedy purse.

The thought of owning it was what kept her going: she promised herself that she was going to buy it the first time she charged a client $10,000 in consulting fees.

It took her many years and many checks of $1,000 or $2,500 to get there, but one day she did do it. And the first thing she did afterward: went straight to the store and bought the purse. She claims to have never felt prouder.

Two lessons to take from here.

First, instead of setting yourself an unrealistic objective, set yourself a SMART goal. That stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

Secondly – well, scratch the part about time-bound. Be patient with your dreams. Sometimes it may take a week to turn them into reality, sometimes more than a decade. Don’t forget that that’s how long it took Julia Child or James Cameron to come up with Mastering the Art of French Cooking or Avatar.

Home and Family

Rachel Hollis is a mother of four.

And she is also a CCO of her own company, a bestselling author, a blogger, and a motivational speaker.

So how does she do it?

“When it comes to women,” she says on her website, “there always seems to be a question about how we can balance everything. Girl, I don’t even try!”

Put simply: forget everything movies ever taught you. Not only there are no happy endings – but there are also no happy middle parts as well. At least not happy in the way they tell you are going to be.

Balancing between life and work is a myth; it’s something nobody can do it. (Not even Shonda Rhimes!)

So, embrace the chaos and try to find yourself around day by day.

Also, don’t even dare to say “no” when someone is offering a helping hand. The Beatles put this better than anyone: you’ll get by with a little help from your friends.

Body Image

Based on the tone of Rachel Hollis’ ode to self-love so far, you can probably already guess what her advice is going to be here, right?

Just embrace who you are and stop punishing yourself by following Instagram profiles of supermodels and actresses.

Well – not exactly: do stop doing the latter, but don’t do the former!

Because your body is a divine gift and you need to keep it in the best form possible. And because it’s not exactly a question of beauty – it’s a matter of health.

So, you don’t need to care about how you’d look like in a bikini on the beaches of Ibiza; but you do need to take your lifestyle seriously if you experienced problems climbing the stairs that Friday the elevator didn’t work!

That’s not a way to live your life.

Throw out most of your snacks. Start eating some healthy food. Exercise.

Your body will be grateful.

Sex

Also – your sex life as well!

If it is in any way boring – then you’re certainly doing something wrong.

Sex should be about pleasure, and when it is not, there’s no reason for it happening at all. And that’s exactly what Rachel convinced herself at a certain point in her marriage; this turned her sex life around.

Namely, firmly believing that the goal of sex is to experience an orgasm, she told her husband that she would never have sex again without achieving this goal. And since her husband was a thinking man, he agreed.

Now – if we are to believe her – Rachel does have an orgasm every time she has sex.

Some of her tips: start enjoying your naked body; encourage yourself with some positive sex talk; experiment; and when things aren’t going that well – well, power it through!

Even if that means committing yourself to having sex every day for, say, a month. Because, let’s face it: that’s one commitment you should be able to carry through easily.

Key Lessons from “Girl, Wash Your Face”

1.      You Are in Control of Your Own Life
2.      Someone Else’s Opinion of You Is None of Your Business
3.      Compare Yourself Only to Yourself from Yesterday

You Are in Control of Your Own Life

If you need to take only one lesson from this book – take this one:

You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.

That’s both a burden and a blessing. Because, on the one hand, it leaves you no room for excuses. But, on the other and more important one, it makes your life a joy and an experiment.

Your own personal, customizable journey.

Someone Else’s Opinion of You Is None of Your Business

We live in a social media-obsessed world, and everybody has something to say about someone.

Most of the time these are not good things. However, more often than not, it is precisely because of these things our lives seem so empty and meaningless.

Why should we?

If something makes us happy, what difference does it make if it doesn’t fit in the conventional narrative of happiness?

Think about it this way: if Picasso or Beethoven did what their surroundings told them to, they wouldn’t have become Picasso and Beethoven.

Compare Yourself Only to Yourself from Yesterday

“Comparison is the death of joy,” notes Rachel Hollis, “and the only person you need to be better than is the one you were yesterday.”

Of course you’re not going to be better than Oprah or Sandra Bullock in a few months’ time. Comparisons such as these can only make you feel unhappy and worthless.

But you can be better than yourself from yesterday – and achieving that will make you feel good and content.

Do that long enough and, who knows: maybe you can become the next Oprah or Sandra Bullock!

Like this summary? We’d like to invite you to download our free 12 min app for more amazing summaries and audiobooks.

“Girl, Wash Your Face Quotes”

Our Critical Review

Chances are you are not going to find anything new inside Girl, Wash Your Face.

But, somehow, Rachel Hollis has a way of communicating the clichés in a manner that has already reached the hearts and brains of many girls and women worldwide.

So, why shouldn’t it do the same for you as well?

(One note, though: at certain points, the book may sound a bit too Christian and too preachy; so if that’s not your cup of tea – be prepared for digressions of this kind.)

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.