My chosen word for 2024 is attitude. A word that derives from the Late Latin and later Italian for “disposition, posture,” but also “aptness, promptitude.” I like that attitude is both disposition (inherent qualities of mind and character) and aptitude (a capacity to learn and being fit for purpose), as it’s one word to encapsulate the inherent balancing act of being in the energy of the person you want to be.
I often joke about how I want to be Victor Nikirov from the anime Yuri!!! on Ice when I grow up, and my friend nicknamed me the Scorpicorn Girlboss once she was making a point about how I come across when I allow myself to just be me.
There’s a lot of stigma against the “girlboss” in spiritual circles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to be an advocate for leisure and deep rest and remembering our intrinsic worth when patriarchal capitalism makes us believe we are only worthy our productivity.
But I think it’s a reaction to burning out because of what we made the concept mean, and it should not be the case.
Embracing our Strength in 2024
It’s 2024, which in Numerology is a 8 year, corresponding to either Strength or Justice in the Tarot (depending on which tradition you look to). Perhaps it’s biased, but the energy across the board seems to agree with Pamela Coleman Smith switching the cards. I’m in a personal year 11 (apparently double numbers have their own meaning! I found it out recently) so the switch kinda becomes pointless, as 11 is whichever is not 8 of the two 😆
Jenna Black’s Women of Wealth podcast opened the year with a reflection on bold leadership that, to me, echoes the energy of the Girlboss and takes it to the next level. The criticism that the “girl” part can be patronising is valid, since we don’t add cutesy titles to men. And I’m not here to convince anyone that they should feel differently.However, I want to offer a different perspective.
Girlboss Attitude
#Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso came out in May 2016, and it’s the memoir of Nasty Gal’s CEO and how she went from being a high school drop out starting an eBay shop to heading a multimillion-dollar fashion empire. I watched the TV show, which was bad but relatable.
Perhaps they updated the promo copy for the 2024 vibe, but I don’t believe it’s implying things that aren’t true. From her website: “#GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly” and also with the Workbook “designed for both the dreamer and the doer.”
Millennial Business
For me, the Girlboss is not the cutesy title alternative to the bro marketing hustler, and it’s not just “a boss who happens to be a girl so just call her a boss”, because what we see as a boss is often based on an outdated patriarchal idea of what authority looks like. When a Millennial woman (Amoruso was born in 1984, so she is older than me enough to be my business senpai) came on the scene with money to back the idea that you can bring a dream into reality even if you are bootstrapping it through grit and determination, it gave us all a permission slip to get off the beaten path.
Later on she admitted to being unprepared for the challenges of being a CEO. Nasty Gal ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2016 after she had stepped down from her role. This is not a reason to dismiss her original point, but a lesson for those coming after her.
It shows the essence of the Girlboss, threading the thin line between pragmatism and vision that is the hallmark of our generation. It feels like a very Saturn in Pisces idea that we’d be having this conversation.
Attitude to reality
One thing that is going out in 2024 for me is the idea of realism. I’ve been sitting with the biases I took uncritically from my family and my culture the whole of last year, and realised that we often use it as interchangeable with pragmatism, but to me realism has a different philosophical connotation.
Realism is the“tendency to see things as they are”. It’s opposed to idealism which is “belief that reality is made up only of ideas”. Or as I’d say, the philosophy of “what could be”. Innovation is driven by people who see the potential and bring it down to the material through trial and error. Seeing things as they are would keep us stuck.
The difference between those who make things happen, and those who build castles in the sky, is not in the vision. Many visions that are actualised are wilder than some people’s dreams that stay just a dream. It’s pragmatism.
The word pragmatic comes from the ancient Greek pragmatikos “fit for business, active, business-like; systematic,” from pragma (genitive pragmatos) “a deed, act; that which has been done; a thing, matter, affair,” especially an important one.”
Something that has been missing from the conversation is the necessity for the interplay of the masculine and feminine.
Balancing strategy and energetics
Although in Astrology the pragmatic signs are feminine ones, the masculine in business is pretty much what you expect. A structure that is rigid and strictly scheduled.
When we talk about the feminine in business it’s about intuition and creative flow. It’s doing things from the energetics rather than an intellectual strategy. Many people have made money through manifestation alone, but those who kept it learnt how to do business.
The Girlboss way, to me, is about bringing the two into balance. Like a river without a bed is a swamp, a river bed without water flowing is not a river either. There’s a need for true feminine leadership, rather than women in positions of power making themselves be as like men. Moving from an energy of expansion rather than contraction reveals how much more potential there is to create great things.
There are many men embracing their more intuitive side, so it isn’t about our genders per se. But women have been socialised in a way it’s a low hanging fruit to be empowered this way.
This is the attitude I’m bringing to 2024. After all, Mars was in my II House for my Solar Return.
