Research shows that by the time a girl reaches age 11, she has built the belief system that you earn love by pleasing others. But as we know, a life built around that sentiment, is destined for poor mental health when your internal reward system is - put others happiness before your own, to please and ‘be a good girl’ in the eyes of the community around us.

Dr. Michelle McQuaid spent years of her adult life ticking the boxes of what we are told will provide us fulfilment and happiness - a great career, good financial income, getting married and having children and once those boxes were ticked, life will set and fulfilling. But what happens when you tick those boxes, yet you find yourself ignoring your inner voice in the sacrifice to achieve them and side-line your mental well-being to keep it on track?

Dr. McQuaid found herself exhausted, burnt out and deeply unhappy and it came to a point after her midlife, where it was time to stop and look at how did she get here, and why was she so conditioned to ignore her sense of self to achieve the ideals of others. So we sit down with Dr. McQuaid, an Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Wellbeing Science at Melbourne University, blogs for Psychology Today, and has been featured in Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal and more to unpack what she has learned through research around the grooming of good girls and it’s impact as the good girl grows into a women.

Rebecca Bull – Creator / Executive Producer / Co-Host

Zoe Weir – Co-Creator / Co – Host

Sophie Jackson – Producer

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