Life

6 Awesome Female Success Stories

by Sara Levine

March 28, 2015

Life gets you down sometimes--no way around it, it just does. If I had to pick, I'd say that one of the biggest downers in life happens when you graduate college and enter the real world, wide-eyed and muttering, "What the hell am I doing?!" I say that partially because I'm not old enough to have experienced any other significant life crises, but nonetheless, hunting for that first job is so brutal. I kept an excel spreadsheet of all the places I'd submitted my resume to, and it took 30 job applications for me to finally get an offer. The job search is exhausting and discouraging and if there's anybody out there who needs a pat on the back, hit me up because I know how real the struggle is.

The only thing worse than getting rejection after rejection (or not hearing back at all--don't even get me started) is hearing how awesome your friends are doing and feeling hopelessly inadequate in comparison. Reddit user babadouba was riding this particular struggle bus, so she turned to r/AskWomen with the following question:

I am happy for my friends/acquaintances who landed awesome right out of undergrad because of their awesome GPA and extracurriculars. I can't help but feeling a bit bitter. I know that I could have gotten that perfect GPA without any problem if I didn't have to work 30+ supporting myself and helping my family. I know it's stupid to feel that way, but from what I have seen: awesome first job = great resume + recommendations = getting into top notch grad school/law school/MBA = even greater career opportunities.

This feeling of "I will never catch up" is killing me =(

Anyone has hard work paying off stories to share? Anything from successfully paying off your debt to overcoming major obstacles is welcome! Just really need some real examples of people reaching the light at the end of the tunnel!

And just like it always does, Reddit came to the rescue with tons of inspiring stories from women who got knocked down, but they got back up again (you're never gonna keep them down). Instead of doing my usual "one sentence to introduce each post" joint I'm just going to use gifs instead because a picture is worth a thousand words and there are only so many ways I can say "OMG so amazing."

Get your feels ready, people. And bookmark this page so the next time you're feeling blue, you can go back to these stories for inspiration!

I told you to get your feels ready. You were warned!

To this woman's credit I think she's really underselling herself by chalking it all up to "a series of circumstances" because she got a master's degree and went out of her way to get cross-trained in every job role which is extremely smart and savvy. Sure, timing is crucial but I'd say instead of "right place, right time" it was "right place, right time, right skills." Don't sell your hard work short.