You have competed before. Whether you know it or not, you have. It might have been just thoughts in your brain mentally competing against another girl to physically competing on stage for a crown. But we need to collaborate more.
Society, and especially mass media has long stacked women against each other. To beauty pageants where women compete against each other for a crown and title, to reality shows where women compete against each other for the “love” and attention of a man.
Healthy competition has its own benefits and can teach us a thing or two about ourselves, but it doesn’t have to be 24/7.
In the book, I AM THAT GIRL by Alexis Jones, Sophia Bush wrote, “Ladies, we need to collaborate, not compete. We need to champion each other, send out high-fives across the World Wide Web, and give high-fives in person.”
So how do we do that?
It seems as if we are trained and almost engrained to compete against one another. We need to exercise the concept of collaboration often for it to become a habit.
Here are suggestions on how to collaborate with other women:
Use each other’s talents
Are you good at blogging and know a girl who is good at photography? Swap talents and help each other’s businesses grow. Have her take pictures for your blog and promise to give her credit and advertise her business on your blog platforms. Now she has great photos for her portfolio and is getting her name out to a new crowd while you have awesome pictures to use for your blog! Use your gifts to better others.
Be a cheerleader
If you know a girl that is trying to grow a business, win a contest, raise money or awareness, you can show support in many ways. Take a few minutes to share her information on your own social media platforms or simply use word of mouth and tell people you know about her cause.
Actually give out the high fives
Whether you lost a competition or someone achieved something you wish you had, give her a high five (literally or virtually). Tell her congratulations or send a sincere note. We should cheer each other on because wouldn’t we appreciate the support if it were the other way around?
These are small steps to help us break the cycle of competition. There are endless possibilities of what we can do and achieve. Taylor Swift is a good example of collaboration over competition.
Collaboration feels good and is an overall win-win situation, while competition typically involves some sort of “loser.” Now that you have some collaboration tools, what do you plan on doing with them?
