As we’re starting to emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, one thing we can all say is that we’ve become quite familiar with change. From one day to the other, we’ve gone from going about our daily lives the way we’ve always known, to being hunkered down in our homes, homeschooling our kids, and working remotely. Talk about a total change…
For working women and moms, this change has been even more drastic, as society unconsciously reverted to a more traditional setting with traditional gender roles. What this means for working women and moms is having to shoulder the unfair and unequal weight of household, child-rearing and elderly care responsibilities, in addition to work and other duties. What this also meant during this pandemic, and still means to this day, is that the type of drastic change we’ve been forced into has been so much more detrimental to working women and moms. No wonder so many working women and moms have been pressured into a mass exodus out of their careers for lack of adequate childcare, among other reasons…
Yet, change is not all bad. Quite to the contrary. In his best-selling book, “Who Moved My Cheese”, Dr. Spencer Johnson teaches an edifying lesson about change through the short, yet powerful story of a couple of mice and little humans dealing with change. His book, a masterpiece in simple, practical change management in my opinion, reminds us all of that the only constant is change. As such, change should not be avoided, or resisted, or even worse, fought against. Instead, we’re reminded to embrace the gift of change, along with the opportunities it brings along.
As beneficial as change may be, its recent manifestations have not necessarily been good to working women and moms. How then can working women and moms leverage change in their careers especially, when the latter are being particularly threatened by the current societal and business changes at play, from remote work to lack of childcare? Can otherwise seemingly challenging circumstances be reframed to allow for positive change? The answer is yes.
Here are three tips to consider:
Actively expect change (and prepare for it)
The only constant is change. As much as we may be creatures of comfort, we have to contend with the reality that nothing stays the same. For many, if not most of us, this requires a mindset change in how we see ourselves, the people surrounding us, and the environments around us.
By making peace with the fact that change will happen, we can develop a preemptive inner resilience to bring us through change in a positive and productive way. We’re also better equipped to monitor ourselves and the world around us for signs of change, and begin to prepare for it while adverting the related inevitable negative consequences.
As working women and moms, it can mean setting up systems and processes in our work and lives that can stand change. For many, it’s creating additional streams of income through side hustles and businesses, building investing resources, or automating certain tasks to make room to pivot when needed.
Adapt!
Adaptability is one of the most valuable personal and professional skills. For working women and moms who juggle so many balls in the air, and face so many more opportunities to experience change, it’s literally indispensable.
Think of it as cultivating the resilience, creativity, innovative spirit and strategies to reinvent ourselves as environments, people and circumstances around us morph. While adaptability requires courage and the aptitude to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, it also offers the incredible gift of reinvention and pivoting, both professionally and personally.
For many working women and moms during the pandemic, it’s meant learning to adapt to remote work while homeschooling kids and running a household, among other responsibilities. This in turn has generated treasures of creativity, resulting in cutting-edge new businesses, innovative ways to work, and fresher ways to approach the always-elusive work-life balance.
Enjoy the process
Change is not to be feared. Rather, it’s an opportunity to face uncertainty with an open mind and positive perspective. In many ways, it’s an adventure back to the core of who we are, uncovering layers of our personalities and mindsets we may not have suspected unless faced with the prospect of change. More than anything, it’s an inevitable process whose rewards, most of which are unseen, well outweigh the costs . Enjoy it!
If we can’t avoid change, especially as working women and moms, then we shouldn’t miss the opportunity to maximize its potential in our work and lives. By preparing for it, adapting to it, and enjoying the process, we have the potential of turning what most fear into some of the biggest opportunities of our lifetimes.
To PhD or not to PhD? Making the decision to pursue a terminal degree is no easy feat. Making the decision to pursue a terminal degree as a working woman or working mom may downright be one of the toughest decisions you’ll have to make in your career and life. Going for your doctorate degree also means preparing for one of the most challenging balancing acts of working studying and taking care of your personal life. While you may decide to complete this degree at your own pace, whether it be on a full or part-time basis, the challenges will still be there.
Some of these challenge, to cite only a few, include the sheer amount of work, sacrifice and research involved. For most working women and moms, the time and effort commitment required can stand in the way of family and personal life, and even work. Many, if not most traditional PhD programs, tend to require full-time availability for years, making it close to impossible to work while studying. Thankfully, there is an increasing number of professional programs, geared at more experienced candidates, which may allow you to keep your job while you complete your doctoral program. Money can also become an issue, unless you’re offered a scholarship or significant financial assistance. This is why finding the right doctoral program can make a world of difference for you…
Women have actually earned 52.9% of doctoral degrees in the US in 2018-19, as revealed by the Council of Graduate Schools. However, it appears they are under-represented in elite PhD programs, particularly in maths-skill oriented fields, creating a notable “prestige gap”. While the data does not reveal the reasons behind the under-representation of women in high-prestige doctoral programs, patterns of gender inequality are undeniable. Some of the reasons behind the “prestige gap” may include women opting out of the application process to elite programs, scoring lower on average on the math GRE, or having different constraints than men. On the other end of the spectrum, this could also be explained by admission committee bias, rooted in deeply-seated cultural beliefs about gender and ability.
Despite the obvious, and not-so-obvious, obstacles standing in the way of working women and moms pursuing a doctoral program, there are strong benefits to doing so. These can be summarized in the three categories below:
Impact
If making a difference in your field is a priority for you, then a doctoral degree can help you achieve this. One of the main benefits of completing a doctoral program is learning the art of research. Through research, you may be able to contribute to the existing body of knowledge in your field, thus potentially creating change and tremendous impact.
Career Growth and Influence
Completing and earning your doctoral degree also means you are an expert in your field. Research allows you to exponentially grow your expertise in your chosen field, and sets you up to grow in your work.
Additionally, you may be able to boost your career prospects once you complete a doctoral program. You may be able to start a career in academia as a professor and/or researcher. If academia is not in the cards for you, then a variety of high-level industry careers may open their doors to you.
Another area of career growth is monetary. You can reasonably expect to earn a higher salary with a doctoral degree in hand, along with additional opportunities to increase your income. These may include but are not limited to consulting, speaking, teaching and other expert-related opportunities.
Potential
Last but not least, earning a doctoral degree will help you develop exceptional critical thinking skills through research, expert knowledge in your field, in addition to the resilience and fortitude to resolve complex problems. The challenges presented by a PhD program will certainly develop your potential to its fullest, and prepare you not just for a successful career, but also for a greater purpose in your work and life.
To Phd or not to Phd? It’s a question whose answer may vary from individual to individual. Despite its great rewards and long-term benefits, it’s also a journey that’s just not for everyone. It requires not just tremendous resilience, dedication and sustained effort, but also a solid passion to stay the course when the going gets tough. Yet, if you’re attracted by the prospect of contributing to greater knowledge, overcoming the challenge of a terminal education process, and achieving a sense of purpose through your work, then you may want to consider making it a part of your career and life path.
If you’re among the 45% of Americans who have a side hustle, you are in good company along with the roughly 70 million people side hustling in the U.S. If you’re a working woman, you may be part of the 51% of women who actually rely on the gig economy to make ends meet. Although on average, women’s side jobs earn less than men’s, both on a yearly and hourly basis, despite the fact that women are clocking in more hours, thus perpetuating the gender gap at a rate of 35%, side hustles are still prevalent among working women. As a matter of fact, 24% of these women consider their side gigs could become a full-time job.
All in all, there are many reasons why, as a working woman, you may have or consider having a side gig. From paying off debt, to purchasing a home or making more money to pay bills, your goals may vary. However, whatever your motivation or results may be, accounting for your side job accurately is crucial. Indeed, any income you may earn from it is taxable, which makes you liable to the IRS. Additionally, there are a number of deductions you may be able to get if and when you properly account for your expenses and revenues.
Here are a few tips to properly account for your side hustle, or at least set the foundation to do so:
Understand your side hustle
The first step to accounting for your side hustle is to understand your business. Answering basic questions such as the ones below may help to get you started:
What are your products?
Are you selling products or services?
Where are your revenues coming from?
What type of expenses do you incur?
These simple questions will help you better understand what your source(s) of income are, where your money is going in terms of expenses and expenditures, and how your side hustle works in general.
Keep track of your income and expenses
While you may not have a fully formed business just yet, you may want to keep track of any revenue your side hustle is generating. The same rationale also applies to your expenses. Anything you’re spending as related to your side hustle, be it in supplies, technology, courses, etc, should be accounted for.
You may even think about opening a business bank account to keep track of your income and expenses. In the meantime, you can use simple and free tools like an Excel spreadsheet to keep a record of these. This will help you know whether you’re actually making a profit, and will also come in handy when it’s time to report your revenues and expenses at tax filing time.
Carefully consider your taxes
Now that you understand how your side hustle operates and you’re starting to keep track of the revenue and expenses it generates, you can go one step further and consider some tax implications. Yes, you will have to pay taxes on your side hustle income, however, once you start generating substantial revenue, there are other tax factors to consider. For instance, if you’re selling services and/or products in a state where these are taxed, you have to collect sales tax from your customers. This is tax that you collect and then pass on to the state, consider it a pass-through tax. Keeping track of it is crucial if you don’t want to end up using your own income to pay it.
Another tax concern to keep in mind has to do with making quarterly estimated tax payments once your side gig starts generating substantial income. While you may be able to cover your business taxes with the taxes set aside from your regular employment at the beginning, after you owe more than $1,000 in taxes from your side hustle, you may need to start making estimated tax payments.
All in all, while side hustles are great ways to generate extra income and even lay the foundation for a lucrative business, they also carry with them important accounting and financial implications. The sooner you are aware of these and start looking into them, the better.
How many times have you started your week overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work staring you in the face? From your professional to your personal responsibilities, your schedule can easily have you going insane before you even begin your day, especially as a working woman and mom. Even worse, it can make or break your productivity and efficiency, and even alter your mental state in too many negative ways to count. As a recovering perfectionist working mom on the mend, I know all too well the toll that overcommitting yourself can take on anyone. Regardless of how competent, energetic, or indefatigable you may be, spreading yourself too thin is the perfect recipe for overwhelm, exhaustion and ultimately burnout.
There are many reasons why working women, especially overachieving ones, tend to overcommit in their families, careers and even friendships and other relationships. The root cause stems from an inability or difficulty to set appropriate limits and boundaries. For most, it even goes back to childhood, as girls are generally socialized to be accommodating, helpful and polite, often to avoid appearing selfish, self-centered or uncaring. This in turn breeds endless guilt on the part of women who cannot seem to say no. In many instances, over-commitment in overachieving women can stem from insecurity or pride.
If any of the above sounds familiar, you are certainly not alone. A 2019 study from leadership training company VitalSmarts finds 3 out of 5 individuals agree to do more than they can actually achieve in their available time. 1 in 5 people admits to have reached their limit in terms of commitments. Side effects reported as a result of over-commitment range from acute stress, anxity and worry, to draining feelings of defeat and overwhelm. Even more concerning yet, 44% of this study’s participants confess to not being fully present with their loved ones half of the time, with 37% admitting to being rarely if ever present. In the case of working women, this over-commitment is rarely ever truly rewarded, just by the sheet weight of breadth of expectations and demands on their time and energy.
How to do you keep then from overcommitting yourself when demands and expectations pile up? It’s a question that like so many working women and moms, I’ve struggled with and still wrestle with regularly. Like so many, I’ve tried it all, from attempting to delegate more, to building a not-to-do list, to even attending productivity workshops. Many of the techniques advertised out there would work for some time, until I would revert back to my packed to-do lists and compulsive “yes” habits.
When I read about the rule of 3, which basically consists in using 3 words as a figure of speech to communicate an idea, reflecting a rhetorical technique from ancient Greece, I started applying it to various areas of my work. It wasn’t until a while later that I started applying it to my own schedule, using these 3 guiding steps:
Identify 3 areas of Purpose
This first step requires much introspection and reflection before even engaging in it. If you take a look at your to-do list, you may notice that it runs the gamut, from picking up the dry cleaning to finishing the quarterly financial presentation. This can make it hard to focus on what is most important and most impactful. Notice I didn’t mention “most urgent”. In the times we live in, everything is mistakenly deemed to be urgent, from picking up a random phone call to having your brain “picked” at the drop of a dime.
This is where the “Rule of 3” comes in. After much reflection and self-audit, can you consolidate your commitments into 3 main areas? These are what I call the three areas of Purpose. These are intentional areas regrouping your most important and most impactful commitments. If you work as an auditor with a side consulting practice, your three areas of Purpose may be Audit, Consulting and Personal, for instance. My three areas of Purpose are Teaching, Writing and what I call my Sacred Zone, which includes my spiritual, personal and family commitments. What are your three areas of Purpose?
Streamline 3 main goals per area per day and/or week
If you look at your daily to-do list and you have upwards of 15 commitments to uphold, you may be burning yourself out. As a matter of fact, at any given moment, you may not even remember what those are. Instead, streamlining your commitments by area of Purpose, and limiting them to three per area of Purpose can help you accomplish more, minus the overwhelm and stress eating.
What are three main goals you can tackle today in each one of your areas of Purpose? If consulting with clients is one of your Purpose areas, then Mondays may be dedicated to planning, email and administrative tasks, while Tuesdays may be focused on client calls, meetings and networking, for instance. Picking a theme under which to place each day’s commitments may also help in this streamlining process.
Use the AIR criteria:
The following three crtieria and questions, can help to identify and confirm your areas of Purpose and commitments within each area:
Alignment: Is this area or commitment aligned with my role, skills and sense of Purpose?
Impact: Does this area and/or commitment create the most desired impact?
Real Growth: Is this area and/or commitment contributing to my growth?
Last but not least, keep in mind this is a growing, living, breathing process. The most important metric to consider here is progress, which makes it important to review your process daily. I’m constantly looking at better ways to streamline my commitments and areas of Purpose to create more impact, but also to achieve the ultimate freedom, that is time freedom.
Would you or are you using the Rule of Three to streamline your schedule?
Have you ever stood at the door of an incredible opportunity, and wanted nothing less than to run the other way? How many times have you anticipated with dread the possibility that you may actually win? Have you ever feared actually making it, rather than failing at it? That strange feeling in the pit of your stomach, that peculiar mix of joy and dread, is actually the fear of success so many women experience, especially in a professional context.
Fear of success for women is actually a theory developed by Matina Horner, as part of her graduate dissertation back in 1968. In her study and dissertation at the more than 30 years ago, Dr. Horner asked asked an audience of college students to respond to a scenario-based case in which a male, represented by “John”, or a female, represented by “Anne”, is at their medical class’s top. As a result of the negative responses by students to “Anne” being at the top of her medical class, the research concluded women experience a fear of success. As such, females anticipate negative repercussions for succeeding or even participating in male domains.
What Dr. Horner also discovered is the more women’s ability increases, the more their fear of success increases. This in turn negatively impacts their ability to compete with their male counterparts. Fear of success was also found to be correlated with women’s progress in school, where they tend to switch more “traditionally feminine” domains. It was also tied to society’s attitudes in general.
Fear of success can manifest in various ways, including procrastination, avoidance, low self-esteem, intimidation, fear of speaking up, among others. Many women will deliberately lower or hinder their own performance in order to avoid success. There are many reasons for this, from the fear of being cast out and rejected, to the torture of not belonging and losing social and emotional support, especially as nurturers. This also explains why despite the rising number of educated women, the representation of women at higher professional levels is still limited.
This fear of success in women is costing us valuable resources, innovation, and advances that remain buried in the unproductive soil of negative societal pressure. Beyond the most visible economic and financial argument, is also that of the personal limitations and even decay, imposed by restrictive gender roles that are frankly no longer aligned or adapted to our modern society, if they ever were.
In many cases, what is construed as being a fear of failure really hides a terrifying fear of success for working women. One we must first understand in order to deconstruct and challenge in the professional, personal and social contexts. One we must learn to honestly diagnose in ourselves and others, in order to limit and eventually stop its destructive consequences for all of society. It’s a challenge that must be undertaken on a personal and communal level, at the academic level, in professional organizations and teams, all the way to the highest governmental spheres, if we want women’s potential not to remain untapped for much longer.
