What Would Moana Do? Seven Life Lessons From Disney Princesses

Tiana: Work Hard for your Dreams

Princesses don’t typically have to work too hard for a living. That’s, like, one of the primary perks of being one, right? Disney princesses, who always seem to start their movies as scullery maids, have long broken the mold. But even among Disney princesses, Tiana from The Princess and the Frog is special.

Tiana is no princess when the movie opens. Technically, she’s not one at all: No, she’s a waitress who dreams of owning her own restaurant. She works long hours at two jobs, saving every spare cent she has to buy her own place. Her dream is sidetracked for a bit when she and her eventual beau, Naveen, are cursed and turned into frogs. But eventually, the curse breaks, true love wins, and Tiana—a princess for only a day, really—is able to purchase her own place.

It’s too bad that, of all Disney’s princess movies, The Princess and the Frog—an old-fashioned 2D movie made when 3D animation was all the rage—was the one perhaps least seen. She was the one who upended decades of Disney princess passivity.

“It serves me right for wishing on stars,” she moans. “The only way to get what you want in this world is through hard work.” That’s an important lesson for even dreamers like me to internalize, and it’s one the Bible teaches, too. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” we’re told in Colossians 3:23. “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied,” Proverbs 13:4 says. Hard work leads to good things, we’re told. And Tiana points the way.