Quotes from Karen Wright

Choosing is hard, but not choosing is, in my view, much more debilitating. Sitting in limbo – not fully in your marriage and not out of it, looking at piles of pictures sitting on the floor rather than displaying them on a wall, letting time pass in a job you don't love but are reluctant to leave – and the non-choices are what will eat away at you.

people are generally willing to help, especially if you are specific and modest in your request.

In addition to day-to-day energy levels, you also need to take care of what's known as your "surge capacity." The human adrenal system is designed to withhold a bit of energy just in case of an emergency – encountering a sabre-toothed tiger or living through a world-wide pandemic, just as examples. But if you tap your surge capacity repeatedly without a break and without replenishing it, the crash will be even more dramatic and be harder to recover from.

We've all got limits on our energy, time, and attention. Why not place our focus on the situations and issues where we can move the needle?

net gain or net drain

Be polite, be kind, but be firm if you are clear that the idea in question will deplete you. Your ability to say no without justifying your decisions might be one of the least developed but most powerful tools women can learn.

Choosing is about assessing what has the best chance of achieving your goal based on some combination of what you know and what's unclear. Knowing yourself – your goals, your values, your needs – is a level of self-awareness that creates the most solid foundation possible for making choices.

The Must list is short because you are going to say "no" to anything that does not check every box on it.

I'm regularly confronted with my own work to do and a need to feel a sense of integrity when I'm suggesting things to my clients.

The paradox of being a "strong" woman is that you are both perfectly capable of taking care of yourself and desperately hopeful that you don't always have to.

if I could develop one new skill that would make a big difference in how most people communicate, it would be the skill of making a request.