After becoming a mother, I started getting in the habit of setting goals for my growing family. This became all the more important as our family kept growing, and the demands of work and life in general started taking over. Achieving some semblance of balance became harder as there was an increasing amount of tasks to attend to. As a working mom, juggling the home front, work, relationships, and everything in between would at times seem like an insurmountable challenge. Without some clear goals and objectives in mind, it was next to impossible to keep up. Hence the importance of setting family goals, especially as we start a new year…
I remember reading some business and strategy books (this is one of my favorites, as well as this one, and this one too), and thinking to myself that running a family and a household ought to incorporate similar principles. There has to be a foundation and systems in place, albeit unique and less business-like, to keep it functioning as smoothly as possible. Without these, the family unit is bound to crumble under the pressure of conflicting schedules, differing personalities, career demands and multiple other sources of pressure.
Setting family goals is not much different than setting any other types of goals, from personal to work and even financial goals. However, it does involve a greater level of complexity due to the sheer number of individuals, personalities and opinions involved. For family goals to truly be effective, they have to involve everyone and take into account each and every unit of the family. This can make for a monumental task at hand, and possibly a breeding ground of disagreements.
So how do we get to set effective family goals that involve everyone and can be achieved individually and as a family unit? Here are three tips that may help:
Start with a process of self-introspection
Yes, family goals involve the entire family. However, since the family is made up of separate individuals, it also requires each person to go through a process of self-analysis and introspection to determine what their vision of the family is.
When we started setting family goals in my own family, my husband and I quickly realized that coming from different cultural and personal backgrounds had us define the concept of family in very different ways. It was important for us to first think about what our own view of family was, in order to bring it to the table and discuss. It was also important to involve the children in this process, by inviting them to journal about their own family goals (this is an excellent journal for kids by the way).
Meet and discuss
Family goals are for the entire family, and do require the entire family’s contribution, including the children, as long as they are old enough to participate. Coming together with everyone’s view of what the family should be like, how it should operate, what the rules should be, and so many other factors, is a game-changer. This is where ground rules can be set, an effective foundation can be built, and where respect and consideration for all can be demonstrated.
This is also where fundamental disagreements can arise, which is also beneficial to identify where there is a need to set a different foundation. Some of the topics discussed can range from respect, health, responsibilities, religion, finances, communication, to time management, education and purpose.
Decide on the best goals for YOUR family
Setting family goals is not about reaching an ideal and elusive set of grand objectives for the family. Rather, it’s really about coming together and sharing what works best for YOUR family. No two families are alike. As much as we would like to replicate the organizational skills of this family, or the glamour of that family, the reality is, each family is beautifully unique. This is why it’s so important to focus on the goals that are appropriate, realistic and achievable for your family. It may mean starting with just waking up on time for school, or setting up a basic family calendar (check out this well-reviewed family calendar, as well as this More Time Moms Family Organizer too), or having a set budget,( you can use this Simplified Monthly Budget Planner, or this Monthly Finance Organizer) as opposed to launching into extra volunteering activities or investing in the stock market. Whatever it is, it has to be aligned with the type of family YOU have, its vision as well as its heart.
All in all, setting family goals is a crucial part of the goal-setting process as the new year begins. It involves partaking in a process of self-introspection, coming together to discuss, and finally deciding on the best goals for one’s family.
Do you set family goals at the start of the New Year?
With gratitude,
The Corporate Sis.
PS: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
If you’re like me, you know how difficult it can be to be consistent, whether at work or in life. For many, if not most of us, it can be so easy to set new goals and objectives in our minds, whether it’s being more productive at work or setting a regular gym routine.
As a working woman and mom juggling many balls in the air, I know I’ve certainly struggled with being and staying consistent with my goals and habits. As women set goals differently than men, favoring more private, less competitive goals encompassing both their personal and professional lives, one can argue that women tend to also approach being consistent in a different manner than their male counterparts. What if, as often busy and overburdened working women and moms, we could devise our own approach to being more consistent in our work and lives in general? This is certainly a question I’ve asked myself year after year, as I kept experiencing the same challenges with establishing long-term consistency in my work and life…
What I have discovered in my own journey with consistency, is that as working women and moms, we’re already dealing with inconsistency on a day-to-day basis. After all, the very nature of our lives as women and mothers can be rather unpredictable. From facing the unpredictable threat of gender stereotypes, to withstanding the various seasons of our lives from marriage to motherhood to menopause just to cite a few, as women we deal with constantly having to adapt, stretch, reach, and overcome the numerous obstacles on our way. It then becomes extremely challenging to establish constant consistency in our work and lives. How do we consistently hit the gym at the same time every day when the needs of our kids may change from day to day, especially given that moms usually carry the brunt of caregiving at home? How can we consistently maintain the same rhythm at work with minimal, sometimes even non-existent, childcare and household support at home and in society?
Despite the numerous books and articles written on the topic of consistency, especially as related to goal-setting, not enough is being said about what it would mean for women. After all, most of the advice out there is geared at men, who most often benefit from societal support as well as that of the women who make up the backbone of families and communities. What this means for us as women and mothers, is that we must learn to redefine what consistency means to us, and how to best apply it in the context of our lives and work.
From mine and that of many other women and mothers, here are some tips that may begin this process:
Look within first:
Research has shown women tend to favor more private, as opposed to public, goals and intentions. The same can be said of choosing to become more consistent in our goals and habits. Being self-aware in the process of deciding to be more consistent is the first step. This entails having a clear vision of who we are, what lights us up, what truly matters to us first. Without this vision, without this sense of who we are in whatever season of our lives we’re in, it can be daunting to set the priorities that would require us to be more consistent in the first place.
Who are you in this season of your life? What matters to you? What no longer does?
Start with what fulfills you
Studies have shown women are more attracted to life goals that promote self-fulfillment, than plain work goals. This is why we often tend to tie our professional goals with our life goals. Besides, given the many facets of our lives and the many hats we wear, compartmentalizing the various areas of our lives is next to impossible. The reality is, at any point in time, we are all of our identities at once, the woman, the mother, the sister, the friend, etc, even to the point of commingling our different identities.
As self-fulfillment is then so much more important to us as women, starting with what fills us up makes sense. Whenever I try to be more consistent in one area or another in my life, beginning with what matters to me is crucial. It’s this fulfillment that can keep me going when the going gets rough and time seems to dwindle to nothing.
What fulfills you? What are the habits and goals that would bring you the most joy? Start with those to build consistency.
Now create your own version of consistency
As you become clearer about the vision for your life, and you can more clearly identify those areas of your life that truly bring fulfillment to you, then you can start building your own version of consistency. This version will look different from that of another woman, who may be in a different phase or season of life, and who may have a different vision than yours. This version may certainly not be perfect, or tied to a rigid schedule. Yet, it may just be the version that works best for you.
For me, it’s been a matter of honoring my capacity, and building the consistent habits that fit in my own life. It’s been about integrating the various areas of my schedule, work and life, to make it all work as best as possible. That means going to the gym after dropping off the kids to school because I’m already out and I can carve some extra time in the gap. It also means waking earlier to meditate, read and write, so I can be available when the rest of the family is up. It means focusing on my teaching when it’s time to do so and not try to fit in anything else.
Some of the tools I’ve been using in the process include life planners, to help me plan my goals according to my particular schedule.
Last but not least, it means giving myself grace when my best efforts don’t work, when I can’t make it to the gym or be fully present, knowing that tomorrow is another day and I’ll give it another short…
What does consistency look like for you? How can you make it fit and work in your own life and career?
With Gratitude,
The Corporate Sis.
Disclaimer: Please note some of the links in this article are affiliate links.
As layoffs have been sweeping the business and corporate landscape recently in areas such as tech for instance, many have been directly or indirectly impacted by it. Many working women and/or their partners are currently dealing with layoffs, and having to adjust to an uncertain economic outlook. For many, it’s also been an unplanned crisis they were not prepared for.
Even when women are not directly impacted, their partners may be, this disrupting the balance of the household from various perspectives, including an economic one.
So how does one deal with layoffs, whether directly or indirectly? Here are a few tips that may help:
Processing emotions is important
Being let go is emotionally painful. From feeling devalued to a sense of guilt and worthlessness, one can experience many negative emotions from the experience. However, too often, in attempts to show strength or simply because we’re too overwhelmed, many don’t take time to acknowledge theirs or others’ emotions when faced with layoffs. Yet, this is an important part of the process.
Processing emotions related to layoffs includes addressing the negative internal backlash fueled by anger, guilt, and other self-deprecating feelings. It’s a matter of acknowledging where we are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, in order to move forward in the most effective manner.
Apart from addressing the emotional impact that comes with layoffs, dealing with the financial consequences is also key. Losing part or the entirety of one’s household income, especially in times of general economic hardship, can have monumental effects.
This is where making a financial plan, including reducing expenses, finding ways to create supplemental income, and re-evaluating one’s money mindset, comes into play.
Last but not least, layoffs, as painful and destabilizing as they may be, are also opportunities to revisit and re-evaluate one’s career plans. For many, it has meant going back to achieving old objectives and goals, such as going back to school, starting a business, or even taking some time off to regroup and start again. For others, it’s meant considering a drastic change in careers and long-term plans.
The reality is, disruption is more often than not a chance to begin again, however traumatic and unplanned they may be. Layoffs are certainly no exception…
All in all, dealing with layoffs, whether directly or indirectly, is far from easy. However, with trust in the process, a solid financial plan and the courage to re-evaluate prior career plans, they can also be the gateway to new opportunities and fresh beginnings.
When times get a little, or a lot tougher economically, we often start thinking about our finances first. As working women and mothers, many of whom are the primary breadwinner in charge of the finances of our house, or on the other end of the financial spectrum, suffer from not being involved enough in the household’s finances, knowing how to manage our finances and budget during challenging economic times is crucial. Not only does the welfare of our families depend on it, but our own ability to thrive and not just survive is also linked to how well we can maintain and grow ourselves financially.
As an immigrant coming to school in the United States, I had to learn very early on to budget in an effective and often even creative manner. Knowing how to stretch a dollar was a necessity as I grew up into adulthood. Growing up in a one-parent household in SenegaI, I watched my mother budget in an efficient way so as to keep food on the table, clothes on our backs and even private school tuition paid. That’s where the foundation of my financial knowledge started, and continued into my educational background as an accountant and Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
So how do you budget effectively when tough times happen? Here are a few principles I’ve learned and kept on using to adequately handle my finances during challenging economic times:
Don’t wait for tough times to budget for tough times
Budgeting for difficult economic times happens before the challenges even arise. This means getting in the constant and consistent habit of budgeting. One budgeting rule that I often follow is it 50/30/20 rule. According to this popular rule, we are to spend 50% of our income on essentials, 20% on savings including investments, and 30% on everything else. While there are variations of this rule depending on each individual’s situation, the main principle here is to develop a consistent habit of giving your money a place to go, and enforcing the discipline to save resources over time.
Categorize your money
I once heard from someone that money that doesn’t have a name is money unloved. In other words, if you don’t assign your money a qualifier and a job, you have more chances of losing it. In a culture where we’re so used to instant gratification, where we can purchase anything at the click of a button, it’s never been easier to lose track of your spending and hence your money. This is why it is so important to categorize your money as soon as it lands in your bank account.
I like to assign my money at home as soon as I receive it. By home, I mean specific accounts destined for given purposes. While some bank accounts are for general spending or savings purposes, others are for longer-term purposes, creating an investment or dream vacation fund, for instance. I have found the practice of assigning my money a home and labeling my accounts as specifically as possible, allows me to avoid over-spending while increasing savings, especially in tough economic times.
Shift your mindset.
Many of the challenges we face during tough economic times are not just related to money but also, and most importantly, to our money mindset. For many of us, managing our money during tough economic times turns out to be a painful exercise, because we haven’t made up our minds around our finances. Making a conscious decision to save money, or to reach a certain financial goal, is highly dependent upon our mindsets. The good thing about mindsets, thankfully, is they can be changed.
Throughout the many challenging economic periods of my life, I have taught myself to think about money not as a scarce, but an abundant resource. This has allowed me to feel less powerless in the face of rough economic times, and to keep working at bettering my money habits and mindset.
Another mindset shift that has been really important in my experience has been too learn to distinguish oh between my wants, needs and dreams. By order of impact, I have made it a habit to prioritize essential needs and dreams, and be especially vigilant around wants. Very often, our wants are punctual and not really reflective of what truly matters or has the longest-term impact. Compare wanting a $1,000 brand name purse to a lifelong dream of starting a business, taking a dream vacation, or retiring our spouse or parents early, for instance. Funding our dreams almost always ends up providing a greater return and satisfaction in the long run.
All in all, tough economic times are an excellent opportunity to train ourselves to manage our money more effectively. As a matter of fact, managing our money in difficult times should not be all that much different from managing our money at any time. The same principles apply, albeit with some level of variation, depending on our personal circumstances and environments. As such, learning to budget before tough times arise, assigning our money at home, and changing on money mindsets are the three most essential tools to effectively budget our money when crisis hits.
Now let me ask you, what are the tips and tools do you recommend to manage your money and budget effectively during top economic?
How many times have you wondered why there are not more hours in a day? How many times have you been so frazzled, stressed, and paralyzed at the thought that you don’t have enough time to do everything that’s on your plate? And how often do you find yourself at the end of the day dissatisfied, disappointed and disheartened at how little you accomplished during the day? If you have, and are nodding out reading this, you certainly are not alone. I know I have, and still do feel like this way more often than I would like to.
As a working woman, and especially after becoming a working mom, these questions have haunted me over and over again. And it’s certainly not for lack of resources around it…After reading countless articles and books on time management, I’ve realized many of those are not exactly built for us working women and mothers. Like much of the advice given out there, it’s mainly tailored for our male counterparts who do not have the same pressures and demands on their time as we do. This in turn has prompted me to consider the ways in which I could build a schedule that really works for me. I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t accomplish my goals and objectives. Like so many, I felt frustrated not being able to move forward, and experiencing a sense of failure as a result of it.
What dawned on me afterwards was that maybe the lack of time wasn’t the main issue. Maybe the issue after all, was a lack of alignment between the schedule I tried so desperately to make work and myself as an individual. Research shows making a plan and establishing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) goals increase the chances of accomplishing our objective. However, what I didn’t find much talked about in the research is how goals really tie in to who we are and not just what we do. Too often, we focus on the tasks on our to do list. We define ourselves by what we do and most importantly what we achieve and accomplish. At the end of the day, for many of us, we perceive, and so do others that it is what makes a successful. As a result, we often end up getting sucked into a tsunami of to-do’s, without clearly relating what we do to who we are. In turn, this creates goals and objectives that do not fit us as individuals, and as such are so much harder to reach, making us feel powerless and disempowered in the process.
This is especially relevant for us as working women and moms, as our nurturing nature often puts us in positions where we tend to consider others’ goals and objectives before our own. In addition, the pressure to conform to society’s expectations and demands often leads us to take on these expectations and demands as our own. Hence why so many of us find ourselves powerless in our careers, and by extension in our lives. The same goes for our schedules.
After years of fighting against the clock, and not feeling accomplished at the end of the day, I started asking myself if the goals and objectives I was pursuing were really the right ones. This prompted me to get more attuned to my inner voice and what brings me joy, what makes me feel fulfilled, what gives me a sense of accomplishment as opposed to what the world considers “accomplished”. And little by little, I started building my schedule around these. What I noticed as a result was not only an increase in productivity, but also in the sense of empowerment, joy and fulfillment as I started turning my schedule into something that was more reflective of myself.
As a result and after talking to many other working women and moms around me, I started building my schedule around three main principles:
The Dream time
Carving out time to pursue dream ambitions and life goals is essential to our happiness. As a working woman and mom, this was time that often eluded me. As a result, I often felt frustrated because I didn’t have time to write, and go towards the things that really brought joy to me and nurtured my soul. Whenever I try to create more of that time, it almost seemed like I was taking it away from my family, my social relationships and other commitments already lined up. A strong sense of guilt would ensue which would leave me even more depleted and dissatisfied. This is where I made a conscious decision to intentionally carve out what I call my “dream time”. For me, it meant waking up a bit earlier to have some me-time, and tackle personal and professional projects. Despite having to be more disciplined and organized, I could feel my enthusiasm, motivation and joy increase. Paradoxically, the more disciplined I became in intentionally building my “dream time”, the better I was with myself and others.
Carving out your dream time is going to require discipline, organization, and is definitely not easy. However the more you build the habit, the easier it becomes, and the more joy you’re bound to experience.
The Sacred Time
Building a schedule that reflects more of who I am is also making time for the non-negotiables in my life. Those are the sacred areas of life that we can’t reclaim back. For me, it’s time for faith, time for self, and time for family, friends and important relationships. Often, time spent at work or running around from commitment to duty to obligation can take us away from our “sacred time” time, resulting in disconnection, loss of relationships and even decreases in mental health.
What I learned from trial and error is to make sure my sacred time is always indeed treated as such. What this means is also striving to block my calendar, and build serious boundaries around my time. As a working woman and mom, I found that it allowed me to lessen the sense of guilt that I would get when working or engaging in other activities because I would know that I had respected my sacred time before hand. This also allowed me to build deeper, more intentional relationships with the people near and dear to me.
Carving out sacred time in an intentional and organized manner also requires much discipline, organization and boundaries. However, doing so can lead to much more satisfaction and much less guilt as working women and moms.
The Impactful Work time
As a working woman and mother whose time is certainly not infinite, doing work in an effective and impactful manner is crucial. Yet I was finding that many times, I was spending time on work that didn’t reap the desired results. It almost felt like wasting time, which ended up being costly in the long run because each hour wasted would have repercussions on my personal and private life, as well as on my sense of fulfillment and worth.
This is where I started paying attention to the concept of impactful work. It is the idea that one should focus on work that creates a true, long lasting and effective impact. Was the work I was doing really creating this type of impact, or was I just doing busywork much of the time? This was a tough question to ask myself, as it also forced me to put my work habits, discipline, and work ethics into a question. Yet this also provided the opportunity to really define what impactful work was for me, and how to best achieve it.
Defining impactful work for yourself as a working woman and mother, and as an individual in general, will help you streamline the many tasks and to-do’s on your list. It will help you focus on what truly matters, what will matter tomorrow, next year, and in the next 5 to 10 years. With this type of focus, irrelevant tasks are eliminated, delegated, or postponed. Instead, relevant and impactful work is prioritized, put to the forefront, and dedicated a greater and more acute level of attention and focus. And ultimately, this is how impactful, deep work gets done.
For us as working women and mothers, it allows us to not have to give up on our careers, and our work in general because of lack of time or availability, but instead multiply our productivity and impact in less time.
Overall, carving out your dream time, your sacred time, and your impactful work time allows us as working women and mothers, and as individuals in general, to build schedules that truly work for us and reflect who we are. How we define our dream time, sacred and impactful work time will certainly differ for each and every one of us. Ultimately, it will help us create the life and work that are truly aligned with our purpose and with ourselves.
Now let me ask you, how do you define your own dream time, sacred time, and impactful work time? If you had to build you a schedule based on these three principles, what would fit in there?
