Whether you’re working in the office or from home, the feeling of being trapped in your career is one you may be all too familiar with. It’s this sense of not having agency over the very work you do, or even worse, how you spend your time at work. Even worse, it can be this insidious feeling of having no control over your time at all. As a working woman and/or mom, it can all feel all the more oppressive as your time is also overtaken by parenting, household and other duties and commitments.
This sense of lack of freedom was even more pronounced for working women and moms during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of this global healthcare, economic and political crisis, so many working women and moms saddled with remote work in addition to childcare and household chores, have been looking for more freedom in their work and lives. As a result, over a million working women have had to resign from their jobs, many due to lack of available childcare. As we emerge from this crisis, many are asking the question: “How can I be freer in my work and life?”
For the longest time, women have been assigned much, if not most of the responsibilities around childcare, eldercare and the household. As women have started to fill up the professional ranks in larger numbers, they’ve still had to fulfill childcare and household-related roles on the home front. Where their male counterparts had the freedom to focus on their careers and outside pursuits, women have had to contend with almost insurmountable obstacles and inhuman demands on their time. Now more than ever, working women and moms are reclaiming their own time, a commodity that has for far too long been taken for granted by societies and institutions alike.
How can you regain more freedom in your career then, when you’re already struggling with owning your time as it is? Here are some tips that may help:
Change your mindset
Time is your most precious commodity. However, as a working woman and/or mom, you may have been taught to sacrifice your time instead of owning it. As little girls, you may have been told to be pleasant, giving up your time and energy to care for, satisfy, and fulfill the needs of our families, partners, friends, associates, etc….As an adult, you may have struggled with reclaiming your time, especially as the added responsibilities of marriage, parenting, family and even friendships, and accepted this as a way of life.
This is where changing your mindset about truly owning your time can make a world of difference. Replacing toxic thoughts and beliefs around not having a right to your own time, with healing principles such as: “I have a right to use my time in ways that are healthy to me”, for instance, can rewire your thinking in more positive ways.
Tie your work to your purpose
Creating more freedom in your career also means reframing the “why” behind the work you do. In this sense, tying your career to your purpose in every season can be particularly powerful. For instance, if your purpose is to help businesses obtain secure loans as a banking officer, then your career in banking may give you an added sense of fulfillment and direction.
Who are you helping in your career? How can you tie it to your purpose in this season? The more of a sense of purpose you get through your work, the more fulfillment you get, and the less you tend to feel trapped and lacking freedom.
Lessen the impact of money
Too often, we feel tied to a particular job because of the paycheck. As bills pile up, we think there is just no other option for us to meet our financial obligations. You may have been, or may be, in this very predicament, and may feel trapped in your current career or business.
The more you can lessen the negative impact of money, the more you can create more freedom in your work and life. What if money were no object, or were less of an object? What if you didn’t have to work so many hours? How can you create more freedom by lessening the impact of money? This can be done by creating systems in your work, including delegating, eliminating, or re-purposing tasks. Generating multiple streams of income is also another way of lessening the impact of money and feeling freer in your career and life. Last but not least, making your money work for you, through mediums like investing for example, also goes a long way towards increased freedom at work and in life.
Overall, creating more freedom in your work and life is a matter of changing your mindset, tying your work to your purpose, and lessening the impact of money. The more you can apply these principles, the more freedom you can have in your work and life.
Ask a CPA is our periodic column addressing accounting and financial questions for working women and moms. Got an accounting or financial-related question? Please email us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com
Q: I often feel defeated and disempowered in my personal finances, as if I were trapped. How can I be more empowered and create more freedom in my finances?
A: Great question! And you’re definitely not the only one to wonder about creating more freedom in your finances. Increased financial freedom not only allows you more peace of mind, it also helps you have a better quality of life, and create a solid financial legacy for yourself and your family. Not having to worry about your finances, and instead working to build wealth can be a rewarding experience in and of itself. For working women and moms, many of whom are disadvantaged when it comes to wealth-building and financial freedom, this can also mean increased time, opportunities and better work-life balance.
Here are 3 tips that may help:
Have a vision for your finances
Having a vision for your finances is the first step to wiring your mindset towards having more ownership and freedom in your finances. What does your ideal financial situation look like? How much money would you like to see in your savings account? How would you restructure your expenses?
However, it’s not enough to just have a vision for your finances. Writing down your financial vision is a powerful way to solidify it into a concrete plan and turn it into reality. It can be as simple as journaling about it, creating a basic budget, and/or setting up milestones to reach.
Set up a system
Creating freedom in your finances also involves setting up an effective system allowing you to focus on your main financial goals. This is especially important for us as working women and moms carrying so many responsibilities and commitments.
An effective system can start as simply as reminders, a monthly budget, or a financial app. It can also take the form of automating your monthly expense payments, hiring a financial advisor, or and/or devising an elaborate financial strategy for yourself and loved ones.
Learn through the process
Last but not least, gaining more freedom in your finances largely comes from educating yourself. Learning about the many options at your disposal to make the best out of your money puts you at a distinct advantage. Whether you choose to take classes, read books or learn on social media, the goal is to be knowledgeable about the best options for you.
Using dedicated resources like Certified Public Accountants, or financial advisors can also further your education in a more direct way. Working with a financial professional can not only help you solidify your finances, but also help you grow through the process.
Overall, creating more freedom in your financial situation is far from being a luxury. In a world threatened by economic instability, having a vision for your finances, setting up an adequate system, and learning through the process are effective ways to be freer when it comes to your financial situation.
Have you ever used a SWOT analysis in the business you serve, or in your own business?
If you have, you may know it as a powerful tool of business evaluation, whereby an organization evaluates its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). However, you may not have used it for your own purposes in your career or business.
One particularly powerful exercise I encourage my audiences of working women and mothers to perform during corporate trainings consist in conducting their own personal SWOT analysis. Whether I’m speaking to career women or women entrepreneurs, the results are always astounding and rich in knowledge at the individual and collective level. This is especially powerful for women as our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats tend to differ from our male counterparts’, which have served as the standard for quite some time.
One of the reasons why the SWOT analysis is such a powerful tool, for businesses and individuals alike, is that it forces us to conduct a periodic self-assessment. Most importantly, it urges us to question and challenge the status quo, and re-assess where we stand in our work and lives. Research shows we should re-assess our lives and hence careers every 7 years, as our circumstances, mindsets, and entire beings change. Unfortunately, too few of us realize this need for re-calibrating, especially as working women and mothers buried in unending to-do’s and commitments.
This is where the personal SWOT analysis can help:
What strengths do you possess, natural and acquired?
This is the number one question I ask of most women who attend my trainings. It’s a seemingly simple, but oh how loaded and even triggering question for so many working women. As we have been socialized to value more male-oriented qualities, such as assertiveness, domination, or stubbornness, many, if not most of us, have forgotten to recognize and tap into our own strengths. For the sake of breaking the glass ceilings and concrete walls in our careers, many have silently abdicated our own power in favor of more recognized and celebrated success values.
However, what we’re coming to realize is that the values brought on by women in the workplace,such as effective crisis management, consensus-building, innovation, creativity, and so many others, are just as, if not more effective than those brought on by their male counterparts. As a matter of fact, an increasing amount of research is clearly demonstrating that the presence of women on boards and in the management of companies, boosts their profits and sustainability in the long run.
Valuing and assessing your strengths as a working woman is the ultimate competitive advantage, for yourself and the organizations you serve. These are natural as well as acquired strengths from experience, education and/or other mediums. Not only do these set us apart, and So let me ask you again: What are your strengths as a working woman and mother?
What are areas of weaknesses and do you need to improve on these?
We all weaknesses. These are not just areas of improvement, as often deemed in a politically correct tone. They are actual areas where we do not thrive as well, and that do not put us in a position of advantage in our careers or lives. It’s important to be brutally honest about our weaknesses, not just in an attempt to improve or correct them, but also and most importantly to clearly recognize what is NOT in our zones of genius.
How many of us have been prompted to get into careers and work that did not correspond to who we are? Actually, how many of us are now in careers that cater to our weaknesses as opposed to our strengths? Yes, many of us may not have had a say in the matter. However, as we grow and evolve, it becomes crucial to really understand where we’re not at an advantage, so we can focus on our strengths as we work to improve our weaknesses. In other words, increased self-awareness helps us avoid majoring in minors.
What are the opportunities you can currently take advantage of?
One of the main obstacles in the way of many, if not most working women and moms, is lack of opportunity. However, much of this lack is also fueled by the fact that we’re not always aware of what these opportunities are. Yes, very often, they are hidden from us. Other times, we could not recognize them if they were right in front of us.
It could be as simple as the opportunity to volunteer for an assignment at work, or as complex as starting a business in one of our areas of genius. However, not taking the time and making the effort for conscious self-awareness can make us blind to what is for us.
What are threats surrounding you?
Lastly, as in business, many threats also surround us in our work and life. These can range from threats to the industries or businesses we serve, to impediments to our time, effort and energy. Stopping to assess the obstacles and barriers on our path does not just help us avoid these, as many of them, such as the advent of artificial intelligence replacing certain jobs, for instance, are unavoidable.
Being aware of threats in our work and life also help us in developing the mindsets, skills, and tools to better adapt to and grow through change, even if adverse. These are ultimately the mindsets, skills and tools that will stay with us, and positively impact others as well.
Overall, while the SWOT analysis is just a tool, the real power we have as individuals, particularly working women and moms, is that of self-awareness. Yet, as powerful as it is, it requires the willingness, discipline and focus to make it a regular practice. Only then can we truly thrive in the complete fullness of who we are…
When was the last time you conducted your own SWOT analysis?
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If you’re a working mother, you may have struggled with expressing the fact that you are a mom in certain, or all, professional settings. Like many, you may have felt that motherhood may be perceived as a career hindrance, and not an asset. You may have even experienced situations in which your professionalism, competence and/or abilities were put in question due to the fact that you have children to care for. For instance, so working moms have admitted being fearful of revealing they had children during interviews for fear of not getting the job. Others have even suffered through losing a promotion or having their professional advancement and growth stunted, often resulting in what is known as the motherhood penalty.
The motherhood penalty encompasses a host of various problems working mothers face in their careers after having children. This penalty is also unfair punishment for mothers, based on inaccurate, biased perceptions of mothers, including the view that motherhood renders women less productive for instance. Men, on the other hand, tend to be professionally rewarded after becoming fathers, in a phenomenon known as the “dad bonus”. This not only affects women’s career trajectories, but also their earnings, promotions, performance evaluations and employment prospects. Yet, the reality is much different from these false, negative, but unfortunately widely-held perceptions. According to the 2019 research by Berlin Cameron entitled “Let’s put the motherhood penalty to rest”, the skills mothers develop after having children are essential to the workplace.
In Power Moms, author Joann Lublin says it so well: “Motherhood transforms many women into better leaders.” In these modern times where parents are not only time-starved, but also limited in key resources such as childcare and parental leave, mothers have no other choice but to become extremely effective at managing priorities well, multi-tasking and delegating. In addition, they are also more apt at exhibiting values that have been proven to benefit organizations such as innovation, creativity, empathy, and crisis management, to cite a few.
As a working mom, you may know this all too well. However, faced with various professional ceilings, walls and barriers in your way to career growth and fulfillment, it may be difficult to take advantage of your maternal skills in the workplace. This is the message I’m often getting from moms and others, who are certainly aware of the assets they bring to the workplace, yet struggle with maximizing these effectively.
Here are three strategies that may help:
Highlight your motherhood transferrable skills as a leader
Motherhood also breeds transferrable leadership skills, such as organization, project management, crisis management, multi-tasking, compassion, and empathy, to cite a few. These are all invaluable skills in the workplace. Unfortunately, they are also skills that many working mothers hesitate to highlight in their professional experience.
While it can be intimidating, especially in certain professional settings and environments, to talk about the advantages of being a working mother, it can be a game-changer. Too few of us dare to challenge the negative stereotypes plaguing working moms, instead preferring hiding behind a false sense of safety in silence. Let’s dare to pinpoint all the skills, assets and intuition we bring to the workplace, including those that come with being a working mom.
Seek alignment
As much as we may try, certain professional environments are just not aligned with thriving as working moms. Often, these are environments heavy with gender bias and stereotypes, whose culture does not allow for working mothers to grow, develop and succeed. This is where alignment matters. Being aligned with your organization, department or business unit is crucial in order to be impactful.
How can we better seek alignment as working mothers? The interviewing process is a great start. Let’s remember that we are not the only ones being interviewed, but that we are also interviewing the organization itself. This, in turn, is a valuable opportunity to take the cultural pulse of the company or business, and assess its openness to and views of working mothers. We can also check for metrics such as statistics of working mothers in leadership for instance.
In our careers, we can and should continue to seek alignment by continuously assessing the pulse of the culture we work in, and determining if it is still a right for us. This means also being ready to pivot, adjust and even transition as needed.
Allyship is key
Being an ally to working moms, and seeking allies ourselves, also goes a long way towards ensuring that more mothers are in leadership seats. In this regard, we are all leaders in our own right, regardless of the position we may occupy. This also means we can all serve as allies to women in leadership positions, or moving towards leadership positions in our organizations.
How can we do this? It can start with amplifying working mothers’ voices, joining causes on behalf of working moms, or simply supporting a mother at work. However, serving as an ally does not preclude us from also seeking and recognizing allies. This can go from seeking mentors and sponsors at work, to recognizing the subtle signs of someone who is showing up as an ally, through their direct or indirect support, leadership and/or guidance.
All in all, it’s refreshing and hopeful to see that views on motherhood as a hindrance to a purposeful and fulfilling career, are changing. The Let’s put the motherhood penalty to rest” study also outlines the promising fact that younger generations are more likely to equate motherhood with leadership. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing “Great Resignation”, as well as the work revolution that is taking shape, are all re-defining working motherhood in terms of increased authenticity, purpose and fulfillment.
All in all, while there is much work to be done when it comes to working motherhood and leadership, we are hopeful. Most importantly, we are moving towards the direction of asserting authentic leadership as mothers, rather than hiding or even worse, denying the precious asset we bring to the table of work, both individually and collectively.
