2020 was a lot of things, but one sure thing it was, was a year of lessons. From the global angst of an uncontrollable pandemic to the anxious frustration of quarantine, not to mention the aggravated stress of an ever-looming financial and economic pit and the stinging heartache of hundreds of thousands of lives taken away, lessons, hard, heart-wrenching, implacable lessons, were everywhere. These are timeless lessons that will undoubtedly forever stay with us, especially as working women and moms…

While there have been twice as many fatalities affecting men than women worldwide, more women have been affected by the pandemic than men. On the work front, women constitute 70% of the health workforce, thus being more prone to infection. On the home front, from the increase in domestic violence to the lack of domestic and emotional support for working moms, women are facing incredibly high obstacles. An entire generation of progress and advancement for women is also at risk…

This year has shaped the way I see myself, the world around me, and the work I do. Like so many of you, as a working woman, a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter, it has stretched me, pushed me, punched me, egged me on in ways I could have never imagined. Ultimately, it has rewarded me with the precious gift of appreciation and gratitude for the rare privilege, taken away from so many who did not cross this year’s threshold, to simply be…

As I’m grateful to put a period on 2020, I’m also so thankful for the precious lessons this year has allowed me to etch on my mind and memory. Here are 20 of them, that I’m taking with me and am privileged to share with you:

• Prioritize your mental health

If there is any year that has tested our mental health, it is this one. 

This year taught us that even when you’re low on strength and resources, you cannot afford to neglect your mental health.. 

Not when you’re up at 2am frantically checking your email for your COVID-19 lab testing results…

 Not when you have to dig deep into your last resources of love, calm and resilience to soothe a crying child frustrated by weeks of quarantine and Zoom video calls, as you struggle with putting on a brave face for yet another online meeting…

Not when you’re watching heart-wrenching stories about George Floyd and  Breonna Taylor and dealing with an entire world’s racial reckoning..

Taking care of your mental health is not just necessary to survive, but to thrive in all areas of your life and career. 

• Your career should be an expression of your purpose.

What happens when crisis hit? When the world as you knew it no longer exists? When the “new normal” is nothing but?

You do what working women and moms with an endless to-do list, bills to pay and a couple of extra smart mouths to feed would do. You re-consider your priorities, very often ending with a big question mark over the one activity most of us spend most of our time in: our careers…

For many, if not most working women and moms, it has become obvious that our careers should be an expression of our purpose. That if, faced with the fragility of life, we must devote time to work, it must be work that serves a purpose. Our purpose, to be more specific…

• You own your career, and not the other way around.

So often, we feel like our employer is our source, that our careers own us, long hours, bad managers and all…It’s not until something drastic happens, that we finally dare to take back ownership of our work, and ultimately our lives. While women are leaving the workforce in greater numbers than men due to handling the brunt of household duties and chores at home, they’re also faced with the harsh decision to redefine and reclaim their careers. 

This year, I learnt crisis is actually opportunity. The opportunity to re-define your work and career, rather than let it define you. 

• Resiliency is key to career success.

Careers are like good cakes. They’re made with the right ingredients, with time and enough consistency to breed the type of success that is not just glowing in appearance, but fulfilling and sustainable. 

For working women and moms faced with so many odds on the home and work front, especially during this past year, resilience is one of these indispensable key ingredients to career success. It’s the ability to keep going when the going gets tough, like it has certainly been during this pandemic, and to still be there when most have left the career battlefield or resigned themselves to career stagnation.

• Your career evolves with you.

One of the biggest misconceptions about our careers is that our work is separate from our personal lives as individuals. As we’ve all come to find out through the extraordinarily drastic circumstances of the 2020 crisis and pandemic, nothing could be further from the truth, especially for us as working women and moms. 

As this crisis has stretched and weighed down so many working women and moms, it has also shown that our work, the way we work, and the ability to do our work is not separate from who we are and what happens around us. As millions of working women have had to leave their jobs to attend to childcare responsibilities and home duties, their careers have changed along with them. And as so many working women and moms learn to re-define work through this crisis, their careers are bound to evolve with them.

• Crisis is opportunity in disguise.

For working women and moms, the balance of work and life has dangerously tipped, seemingly abolishing decades of feminist advances. For women owners of small businesses, the crisis has been particularly harsh, replacing the glimmer of previous hope with a stark preview of things to come.

However, it’s also taught us new ways of doing business, the ability to transform our operations from in-person to remote, and the importance of using hardship as an opportunity to reinvent the way we do what we do. 

• Be flexible with your approach to reach your goals.

2020 has taught us what all crises do, that is to be flexible, agile and adaptable in the face of change. It has forced us to reconsider our most prized goals, and re-prioritize our objectives. Some of these goals have been put on the back burner, others are no longer relevant, and most of them are looking very different from the way we originally envisioned them.

As working women and moms, although the losses are undeniable, the hidden gains, in terms of added clarity, flexibility and strength, are here to stay. 

• A career detour is not a denial.

Working women have borne the brunt of unemployment during this crisis at a much higher rate than their male counterparts. As owners of small businesses in the service industry, and employees on the medical front line, so many women have lost their jobs and sources of income. 

However, these career detours into temporary failure are also uncovering systemic gender-related gaps and issues that can now be addressed. For many women, this will be the opportunity to turn a career detour into a better path for gender equity. 

• Do not hide your gifts.

What the 2020 pandemic and crisis re-emphasized to all of us is the preciousness of time and the fragility of life. As we watched reports of millions of people taken by the disease, weighed down by its economic burden, and permanently affected by its disastrous impact, we were reminded to make the best out of what we have, right here, right now. 

As working women and moms, it also means resisting the temptation to hide our gifts, to bury our abilities and capacities under appearances of conformism and correctness. For many, it has ignited the beautifully desperate call to not leave our best for last. 

• Do what you can with what you have right where you are.

Going from having so much freedom and choice to being limited in action, resources and access, especially as mothers, workers, and leaders, is a reminder to make the best of what we have. Despite the enormity of the struggle facing working women and moms, kids still went to school, work still got done, and food still made it on the dinner table. 

• Failure is the most powerful of teachers.

So many started the year with lofty goals and ambitious objectives. As unfortunate circumstances continued to unfold, we learnt from failing to achieve what we thought we needed. Instead, we learnt from the lessons of failure, unemployment, business demise, and family challenges, some of the most powerful lessons of our lives.

• Pick your career battles wisely.

What do you do when you’re stuck between a career rock and a personal hard place? When you have to attend to your family, and risk your job at the same time? When the mortgage is due, and you’ve just been let go from work? When you have to choose between childcare and work?

These questions, and so many others, were ripe in the minds and lives of working women and moms during this pandemic. Hard choices had to be made. All throughout, these women learnt to pick what matters most. 

• Respect the different seasons of your life and career.

Through many of the heart-wrenching choices  and adjustments working women and moms have had to make during this crisis, they have also had to accept the different and challenging seasons of work and life. From career breaks to unemployment, and business re-adjustments, honoring and learning from the various seasons of our work and life is invaluable. It is what gives us the stamina and inspiration to keep going, and to re-adjust our sails as we go….

• Do not dwell on what it looks like, believe in what can be.

Crises make it hard to see the forest from the trees. When everything looks bleak on the horizon, it can be close to impossible to keep our eyes on the prize, whatever that may be for us. 

Yet, as a working woman and mom, it was crucial for me to believe so I could keep striving towards not what I could see, but what could be. Striving towards the health of my family, the pursuit of my purpose, and the hope that we can be the light at the end of our own tunnels. 

• Find the positive in every situation and work it to your advantage.

Being quarantined for almost the entirety of 2020 allowed us to get back to the true spirit of family, and for most of us as working women and moms, re-prioritize precious time and energy. While we were away from work, technology stepped in to help, albeit imperfectly, keep business going. In the direst of circumstances, there is always a glimmer of positivity we can work to our advantage. 

• Learn from every situation.

2020 was one of the biggest lessons most of us had the opportunity to learn. One giant lesson we’re still absorbing, especially as working women and moms…Every situation has something to teach us, most of all the ones we desperately try to avoid or run away from…

• Do not be afraid to define success on your own terms.

Challenging situations have a way of bringing clarity into the darkest of circumstances. What with mass layoffs, overwhelming unemployment, and the gigantic burden on working women and moms, learning to re-define success on our own terms in the face of adversity may just have been the greatest gift of this season.

• Prioritize what is sacred to you.

What is truly important to you? What matters the most? What is sacred to you?

Often, we tend to wait for a catastrophe to ask ourselves these questions. Maybe the lesson of this past year is to stop waiting for unfortunate circumstances, or the other shoe to drop, and instead get in the habit of prioritizing what is sacred to us at all times…

• Let go of what and who is not for you.

As working women and moms with unending to-do lists, letting go may not be our first instinct. I know it’s not often mine. Yet, the pandemic and global crisis of 2020 taught me, as it did most of us, that in order to focus on what truly matters, the less important has to go…

• Above all, don’t quit, never quit. 

Last but not least, stay the course…

What lessons have you learnt this year?

The Corporate Sister.