What kind of woman do you want to be?

I want to do, rather than to be. I'll leave it to other people to determine what kind of woman/person I am. There's usually no shortage of opinions.

I can't process injunctions like "be happy" or "be yourself". To me, those are yardsticks I can't imagine or realise. There are things I know I like doing, which give me pleasure. I want to carry on doing them, and being healthy enough to do them.

I disagree - both beauty and happiness are very much within our control - they are merely ongoing goals as opposed to finite ones (climbing Everest/making a million/refitting your kitchen).

I know some people who are so caught up in finite goals because they are results-driven that they forget about process entirely. Their lives and those of their families are very uncomfortable and the DC have lots of mental health issues.

Because both are outside our control in many ways. I am a naturally happy person. I wake up in a good mood more often than not. This is just my personality (my mum says a I was a 'sunny' baby). Other people aren't like this and their happiness depends very much on outside factors over which none of us has control. Same with beauty.

I'm 50, I'm happy, I'm cheerful, I'm open to change... I've reached "good enough".....

What is meaningless about wanting to be beautiful or happy? Both are great contributors to ongoing well being (= process).

I'd like the willpower to be healthier than I am now. Which I know is only down to me.

By achievement I just mean the goals one sets for oneself. These should always be highly subjective but, I think, fairly specific. Goals such as I want to be happy or I want to be beautiful are meaningless really.

Not everyone is goal-oriented or results-driven - though people who have those personalities have a really hard time understanding people who are process-driven and think they could achieve so much more.

Oh gawd, yes, aiming for 'perfection' is a sure fire way to set yourself up to fail.
Achieving happiness is a great achievement, Bonsoir

I also think it is a good idea not to be hung up on "achievement". There is a lot more to happiness than achievement.

I firmly believe that perfectionism is the enemy of achievement. All the women I know who are perfectionists actually end up achieving less than the steely pragmatists...so although who and what I want to be is always a work in progress, I know that I do not wish to be a perfectionist!!!

The socialised me and the feminist me want entirely different things.

The socialised me wants to be skinny. The feminist me wants to not give a fuck about being skinny.

It's a constant battle!

I haven't had the chance to read all the thread but here goes.
I want to be the kind of women people see me as. I feel very disconnected from who people think I am and how I feel. On the whole I think people think I am clever, funny, kind, worthwhile, extraordinary, talented, beautiful, organised, generous but I don't feel those things within myself.

I am working at connecting myself back into who I am but am so stuck at the moment on how I look I can not seam to find myself as the person I used to feel I was. It dismays me as a feminist that I can not equality my actual worth and person hood with more then my external appearance.

I'm totally meant to be studying so will come back later and read other posts.

Summer

This is a great thread!

The kind of woman we should aspire to be: we should recognise that we'll never be thin enough, toned enough, tidy enough, capable enough, kind enough, enough enough enough etc etc we just need to be happy to be ourselves. We'll know we're there when we feel we have nothing to prove.

We should all stop comparing ourselves to others and stop worrying about we have NOT got, but rather concentrate on what we do.
Honestly.

It is one of the great, deep and profound joys of middle-age that I have become quite fond of who I am and what I am achieving

What kind of woman do I want to be? Pretty much the one I am, maybe more assertive and less prone to procrastination, but overall I'm quite happy.

I want people to think I am nice and competent and take me seriously. I want to be seen as kind in the same way as I want others 'default setting' to be 'kind'.
I cannot be arsed to worry about nails and weight an'all that shite - I am me and I am alright.

One that likes themselves.

I was reading a thread about pregnancy and it was sad the number of women who liked being pregnant because they felt they could be happy with their bodies and because they felt they could treat themselves.

No one is going to live my life for me, so I want to have a contented one.

I want to be happy and healthy, with a good work/life balance. I've accepted that I will never set the world alight, or be the life and soul of the party - but as I'm getting older I'm much happier in my own skin. I'd like to be more confident, as that has definitely held me back over the years, and the depression that I suffer from on and off really bugs me, - but I have a great family in DH and the DCs, and a close circle of really lovely girlfriends. When I'm not moaning and whingeing I realise I'm actually very lucky.

Actually, what I've just said is a bit nonsense. I'd like to think about that some more.

Im happy to be me.not an unattainable strive for perfection.good enough

Like Beachcomber, I want to be free. To be the person that I am. I don't mean sex-neutral when I say that, I just mean me.

I'd like to be more confident in standing up for what I believe in. I am getting better at it.