Women in the workplace have made significant strides in recent decades. While pay inequity and the glass ceiling remain, employing the right mindset and strategies can help you overcome obstacles and smash your goals.

Sounds pretty nice, right? The best part is that any woman who wants to get ahead and forge a fulfilling career can start taking practical steps today. Below, Yari’s Corner lists a few tactics to consider on your mission to crush life!

Double Down on Your Personal Brand
Whether you're trying to advance as a professional or a business owner, your brand matters. Regardless of your industry, establishing a robust brand and reputation will naturally yield exciting opportunities and boost your chances of landing another — potentially better — job if you ever get laid off.

Clearly define your specific skills, experience, and accomplishments. And never stop seeking self-improvement. You have to become indispensable to become visible! Make sure you have a story to tell and that you know how to tell it concisely and powerfully.

Grow Your Network
Building a strong professional network requires a lot of time and energy. But it's more than worth it. Much of your success will depend on who you know, and constantly networking within and outside of your organization will open many doors and provide you with a backup plan when you meet challenges.

Seek out the right people in your organization and community, and don't hesitate to show them your best work. Before long, you’ll be contributing to more interesting projects or serving new clients.

Keep a Professional-Grade Resume Ready
If you hope to stand out in the job market or during client pitches, you must have a professional resume on hand. While you can hire professional writers to draft your resume, learning how to write your own is ideal.

Fortunately, you can use an online resume builder to quickly draft a well-organized and well-written resume. While you're at it, look for a cover letter template you can modify to fit each potential employer or client.

Go Out on Your Own
If you prefer to be your own boss and you have what it takes to blaze your own trail, why not start a business? These days, you have countless options for working remotely or in an office.

To set the stage for success, it's crucial to thoroughly research your market and confirm that your business idea can bring a profit in the long term. You also need to make a business plan that describes your company, how you’ll sell your products or services, and how you’ll market your brand.

Oh yeah, and your business plan needs to explain how you're going to make money! If you need help with the beginning stages, look online for business plan templates and guides.

Step with Confidence
You know that walk when a lady enters a room with a total belief in her skills, ideas, and overall competence. Project that confidence every time you go to work, enter a meeting, and meet someone on the street. You’ll be shocked how far it gets you.

If you’re looking for a confidence - and skill - boost, consider getting an advanced degree. A Masters of Business Administration, or MBA, will teach you all of the skills you’ll need to be a successful entrepreneur. You’ll learn things like ethical leadership, financial management, and marketing. And there are lots of online programs that allow you to complete your coursework when it works for you.

Be a Mentee and Mentor
Today's most successful women have worked with at least one mentor throughout their careers. It's simple: Hanging out with people who know more than you challenges you to improve.

To that end, find a mentor with lots of experience in your industry. And if you're an entrepreneur, study under someone who has come out on the other side of mistakes and failures. The guidance of someone who has been there and done that can provide you with insights and confidence you might not come by otherwise.

Furthermore, look for opportunities to mentor other women in your field. Not only is this an excellent way to help others forge a flourishing career, but teaching people can also expand your own knowledge and skill set.

Bringing It Home
No doubt women face unique challenges in the workplace. But you don't have to let those challenges keep you down.

Implement the tips above, and you'll quickly notice yourself advancing in your career and closing in on your long-term goals. Most importantly — never stop improving, be consistent, and persevere whatever comes your way.

Yari’s Corner is all about self empowerment and community! Visit us online to get the confidence boost you need to keep being an amazing entrepreneur.

​It’s a little difficult to come away from routines that we are so used to. Especially if we have done these routines over and over. When we engrain routines into our lives through repetition, they become habits that are harder to break.

If you are an individual who has found it hard to trust in the past because of hurtful trauma, then I encourage you to look at your daily social habits. Once you do, you may find that there are points in your past social interactions that may cause you some embarrassment as you reflect on them. 

I have them too. 

And although these events will forever live in our memory and past, we can learn from these experiences in order to make sure the same mistakes will not be repeated. 

For some of us, we constantly live in those hurtful moments in which we were hurt by others. We feel as if we are justified in living in the past because no consequence was handed to those who injured us emotionally. However, like a drop in a still water that sends riffs throughout the surface, this causes more pain. 

A person’s unwillingness to continue with their lives makes them absent to those who love them. This is hard to imagine, but others who are close to you feel that anxiety and stress in ways that you may never know. Therefore, when you choose to trust, you are essentially letting go of that pain, and relieving those around you from reliving it with you.

Freedom is then obtained by falling into the unknown, and trusting that you will be okay. Here are 5 reasons why trust will gain you freedom. 

#1 Trust eases anxiety
Take a deep breath, hold it for 3 seconds, and let it go slowly when you exhale. The slow release that you feel as the air leaves your chest is exactly the type of ease that you should experience when you begin to truly trust again.

When you lack trust in people, there are things that will inadvertently cause you anxiety. Most individuals do not go throughout the whole day plotting 3 or 4 steps ahead of another person. That is not normal for those of us who trust. However, those who lack trust will be always thinking of the next steps ahead.

You cannot always anticipate the next move from anyone. There are way too many variables ahead that you have to plan for and each person is liable to make a move that you never even saw coming. 

Think of all the time that you have wasted in trying to get ahead of someone who may or may not have had malintentions for you. The fact that you have not even waited to see this individual’s true intention should be a red flag that you have deep rooted trust issues. Instead of wasting precious time in anticipating other’s moves, reallocate that energy into living a life full of love and fulfillment. Trust allows for this type of life. Anxiety does not.

#2 Trust creates space for growth
The ideal predator of the animal world encircles and traps their prey allowing for no escape from them. In this scenario, distrust is your predator, and you are its prey

Distrust leaves most of us full of fear, paralyzed to continue on with life. You are unable to trust yourself to make the right choices. You are unable to create meaningful relationships because you distrust those around you. You are unable to feel safe because you are unable to trust your environment. 

How can your character grow in such a harsh mental terrain?

Think about the release that I mentioned in the first reason why trust equals freedom. Think about the growth that you would attain if you moved yourself from such a barren wasteland to a garden full of life. Your life and heart will have ample amounts of nutrition in this new environment to foster growth for years to come. 

Although it takes more than trust to allow yourself to feel safe enough to continue to build, it certainly is one of the most important factors that will initiate such growth.

#3 Trust allows you to become connected with those around you
Connecting with others is very similar to effective communication. In my article 9 Easy Ways to Build Trust with Family, I discuss tips on effective communication. These tips are not limited to family members. They can also be applied to others around you. Trust allows for you to be fully engaged while communicating for several different reasons.

Can you imagine being fully engaged in a conversation with another person if you thought that that individual had ulterior motives? I definitely cannot.

Being around other people should not automatically make your internal hard drive go to war with itself. This is a symptom requires further exploring. When you take down those walls put in place to protect you from potential threats, you encourage others to do the same. 

I have seen multiple YouTube channels in which the same repetitive concept is displayed. The concept of the wealthy being completely out of tune with those of us who live everyday lives. This concept is quite interesting to me because, in a way it relates closely with my point. Connecting with others keeps you grounded to reality.

I find it fascinating that these Youtubers have enough insight to see that, however, they do not see the same in themselves. Moreover, they lack the know-how to connect with their audience on a wider scale. 

How can we connect with an entertainer that does not share similar experiences, or is closed off to trusting those around them? I encourage you to think about this, and think about how this connects to you in your everyday life.

How can you connect with others if you are closed off and think that no one really has the best intention for you? What type of individual would you be if you are not held back by someone or something? Would you be more reckless? For some the answer is yes.

At our core, humans in general yearn to be part of a group that is accepting of them. It is the very reason why social groups flourish, and on a much smaller scale- you are happier when you see a group of friends that you haven’t seen in a long time. 

#4 Trust gives your life more meaning
While trust allows you to connect with others, there are other ways that it helps your life have more meaning. 

If you are a trusting individual, your life will not be defined by a never ending battle. Trusting any process allows for any set goal to flourish on its own. The universe will respond to your willingness to any event that may come your way, and allow for success in each of your goals.

Can you think of any time in which you held some reservation about a choice, just because you were full of uncertainty, doubt, and were paralyzed to go on? Later you found that the choice had slipped through your fingers. Did you realize then that doing nothing was the incorrect path?

Life itself is full of twists and turns that branch off into more twists and turns. You have to be able to trust that you are able to navigate these paths with the skills that you learned from the past. 

#5 You become more resilient 
No matter how much they hurt, past events have encouraged you as a person to grow. You are able to take those experiences over to the next life event that comes your way. The end result: you become extremely resilient- able to overcome adversity as it comes your way. 

While this blog post remains light and full of positivity, allow me to instill some reality. The truth is, the more you trust the higher the chance that your trust in others will be taken advantage of in some shape or form. 

If you are currently reading this post then you are looking for reasons to trust others. Which means you may (or may have not) undergone a traumatic event that has caused you to think distrusting others was and maybe still is a bad idea. 

The good news is that you are still here. The hard past did not end you. You may be guarded, but you have the chance right here, right now, to turn that past into scar tissue. Your scars are what make you unique… and beautiful. You have the chance to overcome the pain, and share with others your experiences- just as I have. 

Don’t miss the opportunity. I’m rooting for you.

Conclusion
Make no mistake, your past- as painful as it may have been did not break you. Become free from those mental constraints that hold you back because of these 5 reasons. I guarantee that life will become much brighter and full of hope. 

Leave your comments below on how you feel trusting others will help you achieve your personal goals. I look forward to hearing from you soon.