Women often ask for less money than men when they’re first hired – and no employer is going to offer more than you ask for.

The wage gap that is so pervasive often begins here and each incremental raise that happens after that only widens the margin between the salaries of men and women.

It’s smart to ask for more if you’ve gotten as far as negotiating a contract. They already want to hire you. The worst they can say is “we can only offer you X amount.”

You don’t have to ask for a parade every time you do a good deed, but when you’re taking the lead on a project, volunteering to do something that others are not, or simply taking charge of something that needs doing, it’s wise to make a note of it and put it in your performance reviews.

Your efforts count, and no one can give you credit for doing more if you don’t remind them you’re doing it.

Don’t hitch your star to one person – you never know how long they’ll be around or on your side.

If you don’t have any contacts outside your department or company, start building. You don’t have to make time to have a drink with everyone, just broaden the scope of people you talk to at meetings, conferences, or even work parties.

There’s no person on Earth that we can’t all get along without.

Even if you think – or are told – the place would crumble without you, it’s simply not true. They would pick up and move on – because they would have to.

They can always find another you. And you can find another them.

Your parents have imagined your future since the moment they found out about you. But even if they paid for college, the truth is you don’t owe them your life and career.

Do your parents want you to become a computer engineer? Well, you better make sure you love it because if your real passion is somewhere else, you just wasted part of your life living someone else’s dream.

Stop feeling guilty when your parents lament that you didn’t choose the career path they wanted. They’ll survive.

There’s no magic age when women are valued.

When you’re under 40, people will always assume you’re about to have a baby and take time off.

When you’re over 40, they’ll assume you’re aging out of the workplace.

Your best option is to chasee those opportunities when YOU’RE ready.

If your job can’t give you what you want, don’t let a misplaced sense of “loyalty” keep you there.

Move on and do what’s best for you – because a company most likely won’t be loyal to you.

In order to avoid “making a scene,” women are often quiet when men steal ideas or work and claim it as their own (sometimes unintentionally, like when you’re working on a team).

When that happens, you need to address the situation so it doesn’t keep happening. If you don’t, you’re going to watch people who did far less work get promoted ahead of you.

This is one of the reasons you need to note and report your accomplishments.

Women tend to be people-pleasers. But you’re at work to do a job.

That doesn’t mean you should treat the people around you poorly, but you also don’t have to waste a lot of effort making everyone like you.

Don’t be afraid to push back at a salary or raise offer. If you know you could be making more, ask for it.

But it also helps to have that list of accomplishments in hand to prove why you deserve it.

If you helped lead, then you led.

Women tend to put themselves at a disadvantage with the language they use because they don’t want to overstate their accomplishments.

It’s never ethical to lie, but you should have more confidence in what you accomplished. Your resume is not the place to share credit with people – it’s about you.

You shouldn’t run yourself into the ground just because your company isn’t willing to hire more staff.

It can be tough to bring this up because you might be worried that it will signal to your boss that you can’t cut it, but working 24/7 really isn’t reasonable.

Start by pointing out that your job is cutting into the time you need to spend taking care of yourself.

At the end of the day, HR is there to protect the company, not you.

Acknowledging problems means they have to fix them – and some companies will do everything they can to put off that work.

Confidence is key if you want to move forward along a career path.

If you’re always the one doing the grunt work in the background, apologizing for things that aren’t your fault, and being meek, no one is ever going to look at you and say “This woman deserves a promotion.”

Even if you have a good boss or mentor, at the end of the day, people need to put themselves first.

If you’re not your own best advocate, you can’t really expect things to fall into your lap.

You have to be proactive when you want things to change.

Women are far less likely to apply for a job if they don’t meet 100% of the requirements. But men do this all the time and they end up getting those jobs!

Your unique experience might mean you’re never the “perfect fit” on paper. So what? If you really want it, go for it anyway.

Both answers require a leap of faith sometimes.

Even if you end up making the wrong decision about turning down an opportunity or accepting more responsibilities the first time around, it doesn’t mean you have to keep making the same mistake.

You don’t want to be the one asking for perks every week, but you should absolutely be asking for things that will help you in your career.

Having a mentor can help you navigate what to ask for and when.

We spend so much time at work that we often end up becoming close to some of our co-workers. And there’s nothing wrong with that – unless you overshare.

In an ideal world, relationships would stay the same forever. But we all know they don’t.

And for goodness sake, don’t talk smack about other people – it will ALWAYS get back to them.

There’s a lot of advice here, but the best piece is to think of yourself as your own business.

If you think of your job as a client, then you can get some perspective on whether or not to continue the relationship. When a relationship with a client goes sour, you find a new one.

You are in charge of doling out your time accordingly. And sometimes you can’t give it all to an overly needy client when you’ve got other things going on.

This includes your labor.

If you do something for nothing, people will keep expecting that.

Don’t give away free work with the hopes that you’ll eventually get paid. You only make your efforts look less valuable.

You don’t have to be entirely paranoid, but you should remember that you’re the only one on your side 100% of the time.

Don’t give people ammunition to harm your career. Follow up on promises made verbally with an e-mail to secure your paper trail. And pay attention to when the people around you don’t seem genuine.

You can still be nice without giving them the upper hand.

Making good decisions is not the same as worrying or obsessing.

In fact, worrying gets you nowhere. It only takes away the energy you could be using at work AND at home.

Only a complete narcissist is 100% confident in themselves and their abilities all the time.

The rest of us often feel like we’re just winging it and worry that someone will find out we don’t know everything.

Well, the truth is we don’t.

Have confidence, but ask for help or advice when you get stuck.

You are giving money back to the people who employ you when you don’t take your days off.

The office will survive without you while you recover, recuperate, or just flat-out have some fun with your life.

You’ll be a better employee after some time off – that’s part of the reason companies give you those days!

You should always be careful about what you say at work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t form real relationships and trust your instincts sometimes.

Just be thoughtful about it.

The least busy people are the ones that go out of their way to look harried.

If you have real, creative work to do, chances are you need to give your brain time to mull it over. Thinking is working!

Seriously, make the notes. Write down everything you do.

You never know when something that looks relatively mundane may turn out to be something that truly benefits your company later.

If you wait until your annual report is due to try to come up with everything you’ve done during the year, you’re bound to short-change yourself.

If you feel like everything you say will inevitably fall on deaf ears, then you’re going to shut down altogether.

Recognize when you know something and learn to speak about it with authority, even if that means disagreeing with someone else.

And when you see another woman being talked over or saying something only to have a man recognized for saying the same thing 5 minutes later, SPEAK UP. (This goes for you too, men!)

A simple “I believe that’s just what so-and-so said earlier” goes a long way in helping everyone feel heard.

If you’re lucky enough to love your job and wake up knowing that you’re doing something good for the world every day, kudos to you!

But don’t let that stop you from asking for the salary and perks you deserve.

Just because you’re lucky doesn’t mean you should undersell your talents.

Seriously, ask for more money.

They might say no. But at least you’ll know where you stand and even get some concrete ideas about what you need to do to put yourself in a position to hear “yes” the next time.

There’s no prize for trying to work on your career while struggling to keep your home life together, so you might as well call in the pros when you need help.

Why should you have to slog through the grocery store after a long day at work under those glaring lights when you could have groceries delivered with the push of a button while you enjoy the last moments of daylight instead?

Horrible bosses affect you long after you’ve gone home.

If you have any other choice than to deal with them, get out of there.

Your mental health is more important.

Not only do people cringe internally when you overshare at work, but even among your work friends you don’t know who might use personal information against you.

Fighting with your spouse? Thinking of buying a house? Kids having behavioral issues? Find some non-work friends to talk to about it and stay professional in your professional space. After all, that’s what you expect of everyone else, right?

It’s part of setting boundaries – you have to set them for yourself as well.

Bosses have many responsibilities and one is to help you succeed.

If you feel like your boss is keeping you down, don’t expect anyone to come save you. You could end up stuck right where they want you for years.

This is crucial for women.

Every time you ask for what you’re worth you’re making it easier for those women who come along after you to do the same (or not have to ask at all).

Think of all the women who came before us that made it possible for women to have jobs outside the home. The trailblazing is not over yet. You have a part to play.

There’s no real reward for staying on one career path forever if you don’t really love it.

Changing paths isn’t being flaky, it’s doing what’s best for you.

If people don’t understand that, that’s fine. It’s not about them anyway.

Suck it up up and have those conversations you’ve been putting off.

Do you need to approach a co-worker about something? Do you need to reprimand someone you manage? Do you need to ask your boss for something?

It’s not going to magically happen without the hard part.

Do it. Get it over with.

The sooner you do, the more time you’ll have to plan for what comes after (and you’ll probably realize it was no big deal to begin with).

Even for those of us who love our jobs and immerse ourselves in them, there’s still a line.

Because jobs come and go (sometimes unexpectedly) you can’t bind up your day job with your self-worth and entire identity.

What will you become if that job goes away?

Almost everyone has been “promised” something at one time or another only to find out it has been forgotten or neglected later.

That’s why you can never hear it enough: get it in writing.

You don’t have to make your boss sign a blood oath in the hallway, but sending an e-mail after an important meeting stating what was talked about and saving any replies could be crucial in getting what you were promised (and that’s especially important if that promise made you take on more work while you waited for things to pan out!)

When you step in and give someone credit, you’re being a role model, advocate, and just general good person. You’re also setting a precedent for fairness and accountability.

Just don’t give them credit for YOUR work.

That’s fine if it was a team effort, but do acknowledge and say thank you for compliments on your own work before you move on to recognizing others.

Unless feedback is patently cruel or unfair, take it seriously.

At the very least it will help you understand how people view your work. Even if you think it’s perfect, you’re not the one deciding its worth.

Not “I’m so sorry, I can’t, but…” or “Well, maybe I can do it later…”

Just “no.”

That’s a full sentence. Pause after it.

Then, if it’s appropriate, explain the circumstances under which it might be ok to take it on (if you think it can benefit you).

But if it’s something that shouldn’t be expected of you to begin with, you can say no. People do it every day.

Your partner cannot expect you to have the same hours at work as they do and then put in an extra 5-8 hours of work at home. That’s ridiculous.

If there’s another able-bodied person in your home, they should be pulling their weight.

Don’t fix everything they do or decide it’s all better done yourself – there’s no need to be a martyr by making your workday 18 hours long.

Sometimes it just slips out of our mouths, even when we’re not sorry.

Women use the word far more than men and it weakens your communication.

Apologize when you’re sorry, but work on ridding your vocabulary of the word the rest of the time.

And don’t speak up in a meeting by leading with the word “sorry.”

When your building a career there’s no perfect time to have kids.

Millions of women have found a way to make it work and millions wished they would have just had kids when they felt the most prepared physically and emotionally.

Only you know when the time is right, and in many cases, you’re protected by the law from discrimination if you decide to have kids and return to work.

Even if your workplace isn’t ideal, there are networking groups and other professional organizations where you can find inspiration and mentors.

Just be sure to have a pool of people you can draw on if you need advice or a few motivational words. Otherwise, things get very lonely.

We’re largely over the idea that there’s a dream job out there that will make you pop out of bed every day with complete glee as you head into the office.

Sure, you might have those days – and even those years! – but don’t always assume something is wrong if work is not a fun-fest 100% of the time.

It is work, after all.

When people are loud they sound like they know what they’re talking about and we tend to err on the side of treating them like an authority.

But you have expertise too and you’re allowed to disagree or speak up first. If you don’t, can you really expect to be noticed for that next promotion?

Once you get the hang of this you’ll wonder why you ever spent so much time replying to e-mails all day. What a waste!

We treat e-mail as a good distraction because it still feels like work, but at the end of the day, an empty inbox doesn’t mean you’ve actually accomplished anything.

Use it sparingly, make it short, and DO NOT give people the ability to use it as a paper trail of your incompetence/immaturity. Saying things like “well since I can’t rely on so-and-so to do it, I’m writing to ask…” may come back to bite you.

A friendly workplace is great, but it doesn’t mean you’re among friends.

Everyone has a career to protect, so the way they act to your face may be very different from the way they act when you’re not around.

Don’t put all your trust in people just because they’re nice to you at the office.

If you have any clout at all, then you’re a role model to the people around you and they look to you for guidance.

Stand up for them, and clear a path for them to ask for what they’re worth.

Use your power for good.

Did you ever look at someone and wonder how the hell they got that job?

It’s because they applied.

Just apply.

Assuming that once you get a promotion things will get better may be a bit naive.

If you have a toxic boss, that’s one thing. But if your company treats you unfairly, chances are that’s just how they roll.

You might think you can help change it from the inside, but it’s also important to know when you should move on because a place just isn’t good for you.

Feedback is crucial, but it may say more about the person giving it or the company culture than it does about the quality of your work.

It’s important to be able to recognize when you can benefit from feedback and when you can’t. But don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re worthless or incompetent if you know you’re not.

Get a second opinion if you’re not sure – that’s why it’s crucial to know people outside of your unit or company.

Don’t assume you’re not management material because you don’t think you could be like your current manager. You will do things your way.

No one is perfect at their jobs, so don’t wait until you check every last box before you reach for the position you want.

You may not have your dream job at 25. Very few people do.

That doesn’t mean you should give up your dream.

If you end up taking another job to make ends meet in the meantime, don’t feel like that’s a life sentence.

Work pants might not be at the top of your mind but how you dress and shop for yourself could be a metaphor for a lot of other things in your life.

You don’t have to care about fashion to know it’s a good idea to invest in quality over quantity.

That applies to almost everything.

This happens SO often. A company will give a man the job and put you in the wings for the next available position.

It’s never gonna happen.

They’ve already shown you what you’re worth.

Now show them.

There’s a different between friendly advice to be less intense at work (some people really do need to dial it down a notch) and being told to slow your career roll.

Passion and drive threaten the people around you. That’s why they try to stomp it out.

Don’t let them.

The sad truth is that a lot of fields and companies don’t have women in senior roles. Or, sometimes, those women have become just like the men they work with and are all too happy to help throw other women under the bus.

But if you can find a female mentor, snap her up!

And don’t waste her time asking about the small stuff. Make sure she knows you’re interested in the larger picture.

She may end up revealing some things that help you plan for the long term.

The way people react to you often has more to do with them. But the hard truth is you might also be really annoying.

Chances are, however, that if you’ve put some thought and effort into how you act and carry yourself around your colleagues and work hard, then anything bad they have to say about you is more about them and what they’re threatened by.

But learn to know the difference.

If you have a good reason for doing something, don’t wait around for approval from every last person just because you’re afraid to take the leap – that’s just procrastinating.

Be ambitious when you can and if you misjudged something, apologize, say it won’t happen again, and learn your lesson for next time.

This is a tough one because you shouldn’t be expected to dole out inspiration and advice to every person who wants to be like you. It’s exhausting.

But do note that if you’re blazing a trail, people are watching.

You can be a good role model passively even if you can’t mentor every person coming up behind you.

We’ve all met that person who we can’t believe got so far in life while still acting like a petulant child.

Don’t assume that just because we’re in the “real world” that people are going to be decent.

Some people never grow out of their bad behavior – and you have to be ready for that possibility.

Unless you work for a very small company, your work and future are being discussed when you’re not in the room.

There’s going to be a meeting in which people decide whether to promote you or give you a raise and you won’t be there for it.

That’s why your work needs to speak for itself (which means you need to record your accomplishments) and you need to have a person who believes in you higher up in the company (and that means you have to network).

You might love your work, your coworkers, and your boss. But if you know that the company is using that work to do something you don’t agree with, then you need to think again.

Just imagine how you would react if someone asked you to explain why you helped contribute to that mission. If you can’t answer that, then it might be time to find a company that aligns with your moral code.

You’re a person, not a job.

You can invest a lot in your work, but at the end of the day, it’s healthiest to see it as a set of responsibilities and skills that you excel at and that you can take elsewhere if you need to.

It’s tough not to be recognized for your work, but if you expect a pat on the head for everything or if you only feel successful when someone else says you are, you’re in for some disappointment.

Have enough confidence in your work to know that it’s good.

People will be happy to tell you when it’s not.

At some point, there will come a time when the right decision for you means you’ll be disappointing someone – maybe even someone you admire.

It happens.

Push ahead with what’s right for you.