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1-Page PDF Summary of Year of Yes

What would happen if you faced your fears and said “yes” to everything outside your comfort zone for a whole year? In Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes, the celebrated television screenwriter and producer of the hit series “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” answers that very question. Rhimes recounts her journey of personal growth and transformation as she embarks on a year-long experiment to say "yes" to everything that scares her. From giving public speeches to prioritizing playtime with her daughters, Rhimes pushes herself out of her comfort zone and learns to embrace new experiences.

In this guide, we’ll explore Rhimes’s journey from a life of merely surviving to full-hearted thriving and outline the meaningful lessons she wishes to pass on to her readers so they, too, can reclaim their lives from fear. Along the way, we’ll compare the author's ideas to those of other similar self-help writers and provide additional context from sociology and psychology experts to help you better understand and apply Rhimes’s insights to your life.

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Key Takeaways

Women should remember that it's okay to be seen as powerful and confident. Rhimes notes that women in society are generally expected to be modest, agreeable, disarming, and defer to others’ opinions and ideas. At the same time, men are allowed to have strong opinions, make decisions, use their voices, and take up space in the room. She advises that instead, you refuse to hide from the world.

(Shortform note: Rhimes’s description of what it means to show confidence—using your voice to share your opinions and making decisions—is not the only way to display confidence, according to Kay and Shipman. They agree with Rhimes that women and men are expected by society to behave differently when it comes to confidence, and we’re taught that the only way to show confidence is the way men typically display it—by being authoritative and commanding attention. But Kay and Shipman argue that different styles of confidence can be just as powerful because confidence isn’t necessarily about your outward performance, it is about taking action.)

Everyone has greatness in them, and you can learn how to own your greatness by practicing badassery. It's okay to be the best at something and not apologize or make excuses.

Tapping into your badassery amplifies confidence in yourself and those around you—when you aren’t busy wasting your energy hiding, you can see others more clearly and appreciate their greatness.

(Shortform note: When you’re confident in yourself, it’s easier to appreciate other people’s strengths, and Kay and Shipman argue that women especially should take that appreciation further to actively build confidence in other women. They recommend that women encourage one another to talk about their accomplishments and counsel one another to take action instead of merely being supportive and empathetic.)

Commitment #2: Re-examine Your Priorities

Rhimes loved her career. Before her life-changing year, she happily gave it most of her time and attention. But during the year, she realized she needed to better balance her priorities so that she didn’t neglect her family or her health. She started prioritizing playtime with her children and rethought her relationship with food. With these changes, she felt more alive than ever.

Prioritize Pleasure and Play

To prioritize her family better, Rhimes committed to playing with her daughters more, which brought her immense joy and happiness. This meant that whenever her daughters asked her to play, she dropped everything and played with them, no matter what. Uplifted and refreshed by the joy of connecting with her children and the love they shared as a family, she felt more relaxed, creative, and grateful in all areas of her life.

Achieving this shift in priorities was not easy for Rhimes at first as it required that she create parameters with her job that she didn’t have before. Instead of letting work seep into her off-work hours, she committed to turning her phone off after 7 pm and avoided working on the weekends. Eventually, she found that her new relationship with work did not diminish her engagement with her job. In fact, she found the opposite—the more she prioritized playtime, the more energy and creativity she had for her work.

(Shortform note: In her TED Talk about her “year of yes,'' Rhimes further explores how prioritizing playtime with her daughters positively impacted her career—she attributes this shift in priorities to saving her career. She explains how being a very driven and hard worker is part of her nature, but she was beginning to burn out and lose her creative inspiration (essential to her job as a screenwriter), but she was able to reignite her experience of imagination and joy again by playing with her daughters. Prioritizing playtime renewed her capacity for creative thinking and gave her the energy she needed to continue working hard in her career.)

Key Takeaways

Anyone can prioritize playtime with their children, regardless of their life’s circumstances. For busy working parents, it might seem impossible, but Rhimes insists that it will not involve a significant time commitment. She found her daughters only wanted about fifteen minutes of playtime with her before they moved on to other things.

(Shortform note: While Rhimes insists that every family can prioritize playtime in their schedules, this may be an overly optimistic and unrealistic expectation for many. Families with low income are not just commonly short on free time, but they also often struggle with having their fundamental needs met, like providing their children enough food. Experts estimated in 2021, more than 9 million children (one in eight) faced hunger. These families might find it hard to prioritize play.)

Play is not just for people with kids—play is about carving out time daily to do what brings you pleasure and joy. Prioritize your version of playtime and you’ll feel more centered, recharged, and fulfilled in your day-to-day life.

(Shortform note: In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown expands on the definition of play: Not only does play bring you pleasure and joy, it has no other purpose but to bring you pleasure and joy. This distinguishes playing from other fun activities. Research shows that playtime, no matter your age, can increase your ability to connect with others, boost your creativity, and decrease your stress.)

Prioritize Your Health

As courageous as Rhimes was in facing her social anxiety, she also took a brave and honest look at her relationship with her health and body. She decided that she would feel healthier and happier if she lost weight. By fully committing to the challenge, she succeeded in her goal, which connected her more to her body, boosted her confidence, and made her feel better physically.

In choosing a healthier lifestyle, Rhimes worked to change her relationship with food. This was not an easy decision for her—eating was one of Rhimes’s greatest joys and main ways of coping with stress and uncomfortable emotions. However, she could no longer deny how unwell she felt physically, so she decided that choosing weight loss was more important to her than choosing to continue her eating habits. To successfully do so, she tapped into her strong work ethic and committed to being healthy.

Being in a Fat Body Does Not Mean You Must Change

Rhimes’s personal journey to health does not reflect the right path to health for everyone who might be perceived as being overweight. In You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, fat-activist and author Aubrey Gordon explains how society has many deeply held, scientifically inaccurate beliefs and biases about fatness (the term “fat” is being reclaimed by people with large bodies to describe themselves and is not a derogatory word, much like the word “queer” has been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community). A few myths Gordon outlines about fatness are:

1: Contrary to popular belief, your body size is largely determined by factors outside of your control. Most people’s bodies have a “set-point”—the size their body naturally tends to be, which is determined mostly by genetics.

2: The healthy choice for fat people is not always to lose weight. In fact, common weight loss strategies, like restricting calories and over-exercising, can lead to weight-cycling (also known as “yo-yo dieting”), which can have detrimental health effects over time, including metabolic diseases like diabetes.

3: Not all fat people use food to cope with stress and deal with difficult emotions. Emotional eating is an issue for people of all body sizes, and not every fat person has emotional eating issues that need to be addressed.

Key Takeaways

Everyone’s body is their own, and everyone has the power to choose what health and happiness mean to them. If you are unhappy with your health and body, you can make different choices and commit to them fully. However, if you choose not to make those changes, then you should accept the outcome of that choice. For example, if you choose to play video games all weekend, don’t be upset about your stiff muscles on Sunday night. Accept that that’s the outcome of your choice.

Changing your relationship with your health is never an easy journey. If you recognize that it will be challenging, you’ll be better able to accept the difficult times and stay motivated.

Social Factors Can Matter More Than Your Personal Choices

It’s common for self-help sources to emphasize your personal responsibility to make better choices for your well-being, but there are reasons why you might not have full agency over your health choices. Having a lack of access to healthcare and information (due to language and financial barriers, for example), having limited autonomy (like children and older people in assisted living), and having different cultural and social values are all examples of what experts call social determinants of health.

According to the World Health Organization, social determinants of health, like those listed above, can have a greater impact on health than healthcare or personal choices. Research shows that social determinants of health account for a significant percentage (an estimated 30-55%) of health outcomes.

Commitment #3: Get Comfortable With Conflict

Before her transformative year, Rhimes would avoid conflict with others. During the year, she learned that conflict wouldn’t bring about the end of the world, that she could assert her boundaries by saying “no,” and that having difficult conversations could bring her a measure of peace and confidence in herself. Ultimately, these realizations led to more honest and authentic relationships.

Assert Your Boundaries

Rhimes began to practice asserting her boundaries with people in her life. The more she practiced, the more comfortable she became with saying “no” when needed. She gained more trust in her instincts about what her boundaries were and when to assert them. Before she committed to boundary-setting, Rhimes had felt obligated to say “yes” to every favor asked of her, and the lack of boundaries ran her ragged and took a toll on her finances. But once she adopted the practice of saying “no,” she felt this sense of obligation lessen.

(Shortform note: It is widely accepted among mental health professionals that personal and professional boundaries are beneficial for your mental health and enable you to have healthy relationships with others. Without them, you can lose track of your needs and preferences and, as a result, you may feel exhausted and resentful while attending to other people’s needs and preferences over your own. With boundaries, you allow the other person to know where your lines are. In doing so, you give them the choice to respect your boundaries or not, which can tell you a lot about them and the relationship you share.)

Key Takeaways

When you embrace everything that scares you, you don’t necessarily erase all your boundaries, but instead, you learn to listen to your inner voice and your intuition and say “no” when you need to.

When you’re clear with your boundaries, you make it clear to others what they should expect, which allows everyone to proceed with confidence. There are many ways to assert your boundaries—Rhimes recommends saying things like, “I’m going to be unable to do that” or “that is not going to work for me.”

(Shortform note: One of the early steps in establishing boundaries with others is to affirm for yourself that your needs and preferences are just as important as theirs. But first, you must get in touch with what your needs and preferences are by listening to your inner voice. In The Success Principles, Jack Canfield discusses three ways your inner voice speaks to you: through your emotions, your thoughts, and feelings in your body. To hear your inner voice more clearly, he recommends practicing meditation and also asking yourself questions as if you were speaking to another person.)

Embrace Difficult Conversations

In the process of getting more comfortable with saying “no,” Rhimes realized that she was capable of having difficult conversations of all sorts, like confronting people’s passive-aggressive behavior or confessing mistakes she had made. The more willing Rhimes was to have difficult discussions, the more she could see that having conflict with others in her life was ok and even fruitful. She started sticking up for herself more and not letting others treat her poorly. She grew more courageous about being honest with people and spoke her mind aloud more often. Difficult conversations became something to lean into rather than avoid because they often revealed a truth, which set her free.

Key Takeaways

Difficult conversations aren’t always going to end the way you hope they will, but it is worth the risk. When you start embracing conflict and difficult conversations, some people might turn away from you: those who cannot tolerate conflict, accept the truth, or respect your boundaries. Despite this potential loss, you stand to gain much more—genuine authenticity in your relationships and more confidence in your ability to stick up for yourself and tell the truth.

(Shortform note: As Rhimes describes, avoiding conflict is not a good strategy if you want healthy, authentic relationships. But what happens on the other side of the spectrum—when we continuously spark and perpetuate conflict with others? In The Anatomy of Peace, the Arbinger Institute explains that if conflict features heavily in your life, it’s important to acknowledge the role that you’re playing in its creation. If you desire more harmonious relationships, you may have to change your mindset and behavior to work with people rather than against them.)

Commitment # 4: Embrace Your Truth

Rhimes realized that when she embraced who she truly was and allowed herself to openly speak her truth—her beliefs, preferences, and limitations—she became less afraid of the things that had once scared her. She thus committed to living a life dictated by her truth, regardless of whether or not she conformed to societal standards.

Own Your Limitations

Rhimes was a single, full-time working mother, and she had at-home childcare to help her raise her daughters. She committed to being honest about all this to the press. She reflects on how society shames women for having help because women are expected to do everything themselves—have a successful career plus a happy family. Thus, very often, successful, famous women with children are not transparent about the help they have at home when they are asked to divulge their “secret” to juggling so many different roles in their lives. They act like they can do it all without help, which, Rhimes notes, is largely inaccurate. She decided to combat the shame associated with having help by being radically honest about her own life.

Key Takeaways

It's okay to have help and be honest about it. No one can do it all alone. Women who have help managing their lives should not hide it. Pretending you don’t have help sets unrealistic and harmful standards for women with fewer resources who feel like they’re constantly failing because they can’t keep up.

The Challenges That Working Mothers Face

Rhimes’s observations about high-profile career mothers are part of a larger conversation about the myth of work-life balance for professional women and their families. Professional women have been told that they can have it all and do it all—succeed in their dream careers and be present, engaged wives and mothers. But increasingly, professional women are questioning the real-world limitations of this belief and are pushing back against the unrealistic standards that make them feel like they’re always on the verge of failure.

In many ways, having a full-time, high-powered job is inherently incompatible with being an equally involved parent—many women have little control over elements of their careers like conflicts between work and school schedules and too much work travel. As a result, many professional women are reducing their work commitments, leaving their jobs, or hiring at-home child care support.

However, at-home childcare is a luxury most American families cannot afford, costing an average of $612 per week. There is also a shortage of affordable child-care center options for the average working family—half of all Americans face challenges in securing child care. This shortage of affordable care hinders women's workforce participation and economic mobility, contributing to gender and income inequality. And when women who can afford child care don’t acknowledge they use it, they not only set unrealistic standards for women with fewer resources—they also contribute to the widespread perception that, if they just try hard enough, women can “do it all,” a narrative that downplays the need for more affordable childcare options.

Play By Your Own Rules

As she breezed past the one-year anniversary of her commitment to change, Rhimes embraced a desire that had previously caused her confusion and shame—to not get married. She felt liberated when she finally accepted that this was what she wanted and she could disregard what society expected of her. To get there, she had to have a difficult conversation with her boyfriend, and their differences on the matter eventually dissolved the relationship. But Rhimes describes how, although she grieved, she also felt exhilarated because she felt free to live the life she wanted rather than a life she felt she was supposed to live.

(Shortform note: As a person without interest in marriage, it’s not surprising that Rhimes felt far outside the norm. But, increasingly, she is not alone. American society has long held the expectation and belief that everyone should want to get married. However, the percentage of American adults living without a spouse or partner has risen sharply in the last few decades. In 2019, roughly 38% of adults ages 25 to 54 were neither married nor living with a partner, up from 29% in 1990. Though there are other potential reasons for this decline in partnerships, such a drastic decrease suggests that Rhimes’s decision to not marry does indeed reflect a societal shift on the desirability of marriage.)

Key Takeaways

Society puts people in boxes and imposes rules about how our lives should be. Don’t waste your life trying to play by those rules. You can find more happiness by making choices according to your own particular wishes, even if those wishes conflict with what society expects of you.

(Shortform note: While dismissing society’s expectations can be a liberating act that brings greater happiness, for many, throwing off the burden of these expectations and expressing their authentic selves may not be a safe choice. In many home environments, communities, and societies, individuals can face persecution or discrimination for expressing certain aspects of their identity, such as their gender, sexual orientation, or religion, which makes it unsafe for them to be themselves.)

Commitment #5: Let Go of Stale Relationships

As Rhimes began to change, her relationships began to change. Before the year of yes, she often didn’t see people for who they really were. She describes how, much like she created characters for her shows, she “made up” supportive, fun personalities for friends who were treating her poorly. But during her year, she let go of friendships that were not good for her and strengthened her friendships with people who genuinely supported her growth.

(Shortform note: Another way to describe Rhimes’s inability to see her friends clearly is that she ignored their “red flags.” Psychology experts explain that everyone has flaws, but red flags are behaviors that indicate serious problems in the relationship are likely. We ignore red flags in relationships because we don’t want to lose people. In an effort to hold on to relationships, we uphold the good first impressions that they made on us by ignoring our current perceptions of them. We also make efforts to create and build on illusions about who they are and how they treat us. Look for red flags thoughtfully—don’t ignore them and don’t overreact—take notice and reflect on how they actually make you feel.)

Key Takeaways

As you grow and evolve, people in your life may react poorly to your changes, and they may try to drag you back down. It's better to shed unsupportive friendships and focus on those who love and celebrate your growth. Happy, healthy people are drawn to one another. Unhappy people are the most miserable when a fellow unhappy friend breaks free from their old patterns and blossoms.

(Shortform note: In The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga offer an explanation for why unhappy people are miserable when others do well: The main cause of people’s unhappiness is their endless need for approval, and unhappy people view approval as a zero-sum game—the better others around them are doing, the worse they look by comparison. This competitive mindset makes your success and happiness a threat to them because, in their minds, your happiness makes it harder for them to gain approval by others.)

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