Confidence is necessary to achieve your dreams, and when your dreams are big it is all the more important.
Good news for Canada, our young girls are brimming with confidence and have their eyes on some lofty goals.
According to a recent Angus-Reid poll, Canadian girls between the ages of eight and 12 are looking more and more to top-flight careers, such as being a CEO, doctor or school principal, and are shunning some of the more traditional (read 1950s-era) vocations like secretary and homemaker.
It would be easy to cast aspersions on the survey simply because it was commissioned by Mattel, the toymaker responsible for Barbie dolls, which in itself has been an ongoing source of controversy for the image it portrays to young girls.
But the numbers paint a good picture for our future.
Consider the differences between the girls of today and the girls of yesterday (women now over the age of 40). More than half of today’s girls want to own their own company, while only one in five of yesterday’s girls had the same desire.
When they were young girls, 54% of women now over 40 said they wanted to be a secretary when they grew up. That number has fallen to 32%. A quarter of yesterday’s girls had designs on being a stay-at-home mom, but that has fallen to 17% for today’s young ladies.
Perhaps the most telling statistic about the mindset of young Canadian girls is that only 4% think their gender will prevent them from attaining their goals.
That means a vast majority of girls feel empowered to accomplish their aspirations, no matter how high their desires; more than half of the girls between the ages of eight and 12 surveyed are optimistic that nothing will stand in the way of their dreams.
It represents a major shift in the mindset of the fairer sex, and one that has been long awaited.
As 19th century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau said, “What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.”
The same holds true for women.
This survey says the Canadian women of tomorrow are in good stead to be leaders in our nation.
And judging by the current state of leadership in Canada, it can’t happen a moment too soon.