Not that golden nuggets of wisdom from inspiring stars are ever unwelcome, but International Women’s Day is an especially good time for spilling trade secrets.
Be it hard-won perspective from someone who knows, a tip for how to maintain your inner glow or a simple reassurance that it’s all going to be OK, who doesn’t need an encouraging word now and again?
And sometimes, you just want to hear it from your girls. Or the celebrities who would totally be your girls if y’all ever had a chance to meet.
So in honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, we’ve compiled some golden nuggets of wisdom offered in recent years by the likes of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Halle Berry, former first lady Michelle Obama and many more who can’t help but command attention whenever they speak.
Of course, we’re in an era when advice for women abounds, no special day required. But the one thing we know for sure is that you’re not alone in your struggles and, though there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution, it never hurts to be reminded that some of the most successful women working in show business today didn’t get to where they are because they knew everything right out of the gate.
“There aren’t many of us from the late ’90s who were taught to focus on mental health,” Beyonce told GQ last fall. “Back then, I had little boundaries, and said yes to everything. But I’ve paid my dues a hundred times over. I have worked harder than anyone I know. And now I work smarter. In the end, the biggest reward is personal joy. Has what I created pushed others to think freely and believe in the impossible? If the answer to that question is yes, then that is the gift.”
Well, amen.
But while we’ve gathered advice from women, it’s not as if it’s only for women and girls. Rather, anyone can savor this food for thought.
So on topics ranging from ambition, empowerment and what feminism really means to self-confidence, aging and taking risks, raise a glass to these life lessons from famous women who’ve been through a thing or two:
Halle Berry on Aging
“Embracing [aging] is realizing every stage you’re at, and being OK with that,” Halle Berry told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “When you feel good about how you look and the age you are, and you’re not trying to be 10 years younger—if you look that way, great—but aging is about embracing who you are and the life that you’ve lived, and the knowledge and the wisdom that you’ve gained.”
Beyoncé on Learning From Disappointment
“I try to challenge myself and the people around me to think differently” Beyoncé told GQ in 2024. “I think a big part of success is your outlook on life. Every disappointment is an opportunity for growth. An opportunity to pivot. I trust God, even when it feels like I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know the earth is going to open up for me.
Taylor Swift on Living in the Moment
“Every part of you that you’ve ever been, every phase you’ve ever gone through, was you working it out in that moment with the information you had available to you at the time,” Taylor Swift told TIME in 2023 when she was named the publication’s Person of the Year. “There’s a lot that I look back at like, ‘Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this.’ You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.”
Michelle Yeoh on Not Giving Up on Your Dreams
“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” Michelle Yeoh said while accepting her Best Actress Oscar in 2023 for Everything Everywhere All at Once. “This is proof that… dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.”
Melissa McCarthy on Knowing Your Worth
“When you finally are like, ‘Thanks so much for asking, but I’m going to pass’—that’s power,” Melissa McCarthy told Glamour in 2018. “That’s easier said as you get a little more power, but as you start up the ladder in whatever field you’re in, you have to walk if people won’t give you what you’re worth. Once people don’t respect you enough to give you what you’re worth, they’re never going to.”
That being said, the Bridesmaids star noted, “The best thing I could have ever done was struggle until I was 30. I think entitlement is just a really, really scary thing to possess.”
Demi Lovato on Staying Grateful, Even When It’s Hard
“What I would say to somebody who’s struggling right now, is try to find the gratitude,” Demi Lovato told E! News in 2018. “It’s so important that you try to find gratitude in your life and focus on the positive things and when you’re able to do that, or you’re able to help others, you’re able to get outside of yourself and you’re able to look at your life from a different perspective. Sometimes it’s really challenging and it’s really difficult, but it’s something that helps me every day, and so far it’s worked.”
Christina Aguilera on the Importance of Being Able to Support Herself
“I made up my mind at a really young age that I had to do for myself,” Christina Aguilera told Billboard in 2018. “I never wanted a man to tell me what I could and couldn’t do, what I could and couldn’t spend. I always knew I had to be the queen of my castle.”
Emma Stone on Using Anxiety as a Tool
“I’ve told a lot of younger people that struggle with anxiety that, in many ways, I see it as kind of a superpower,” Emma Stone said on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2024, “because I think that…you have a lot of big feelings if you’re anxious.”
And to be an anxious person, she continued, “I do think that it requires a certain level of intelligence about the world, you know, ’cause who looks at the state of the world and really is taking it in and really feels a lot of empathy and no anxiety comes with that?”
Ultimately, she added, “it just means we have these tools to manage. And if you can use it for productive things, if you can use all of those feelings and those synapses that are firing for something creative or something that you’re passionate about or something interesting, anxiety is like rocket fuel, ’cause you can’t help but get out of bed and do things, do things, do things. Because you’ve got all of this energy within you. And that’s really a gift.”
Sheryl Lee Ralph on Being Your Own No. 1 Fan
“People don’t have to like you, people don’t have to love you, people don’t even have to respect you,” Sheryl Lee Ralph said in accepting her 2023 Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. “But when you look in the mirror, you better love what you see!”
The Abbott Elementary star added, “To anyone who has ever had a dream and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come true: I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. This is what striving looks like. Don’t you ever, ever give up on you.”
Michelle Obama on Why You Shouldn’t Fear Failure
“Do not be afraid to fail because that often times is the thing that keeps us as women and girls back,” Michelle Obama told an audience of students on International Day of the Girl in 2016. “Because we think we have to be right. We think we have to be perfect. We think that we can’t stumble. And the only way you succeed in life, the only way you learn, is by failing. It’s not the failure; it’s what you do after you fail.”
Diane Keaton on Wishing She’d Been Less Fearful
“Here is my biggest takeaway after 60 years on the planet: There is great value in being fearless,” Diane Keaton wrote in an essay for Huffington Post in 2006. “For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets. I wish I had put myself out there a little bit more and experienced people more instead of protecting myself.”
Hailey Bieber on Not Pitting Women Against Each Other
“I feel like people really perpetuate women-on-women drama and women competing against each other and fighting with each other,” Hailey Bieber told her guest Emily Ratajkowski on a 2022 episode of her YouTube series Who’s in My Bathroom?. “And I’ve just always really felt like there’s enough space for everybody. There’s enough room for everybody to thrive, and we’re so much more powerful when we’re just supporting each other.”
Lizzo on Enjoying the Ride
“You’re not supposed to be happy all the time,” Lizzo told marching band members during a visit to her old high school, as seen on CBS Sunday Morning in 2019. “You’re not supposed to know what you’re doing all the time, especially at this age, but not knowing what you’re doing has nothing to do with where you’re going, so I want you to know that. Cherish your journey and respect your journey.”
Cameron Diaz on the Fallacy of Anti-Aging
“There’s no such thing as anti-aging,” Cameron Diaz, author of The Body Book and The Longevity Book, told People in 2014. “There’s no such thing as turning back the hands of time, and it makes me crazy that we live in a society where that’s sold to women—that we’re supposed to believe that if we’re getting older, we’ve failed somehow, that we have failed by not staying young.
“I wish that women would let other women age gracefully and allow them to get older and know that as we get older, we become wiser.”
Jane Fonda on What Feminism Means to Her
“I worry that the word ‘patriarchy’ makes people’s eyes glaze over with the assumption that it means ‘Men are bad, and we need to change to a matriarchy,” Jane Fonda wrote in a 2017 Lenny Letter essay. “But this is not about replacing one ‘-archy’ with another, it’s about transforming social and cultural norms and institutions so that power, violence, and greed are not the primary operating principles. It’s not about moving from patriarchy to matriarchy, but from patriarchy to democracy. Feminism means real democracy.”
Source: www.eonline.com