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…
“Knowledge without wisdom is like water in sand.” – African Proverb
Too often, especially as working women victims of the proverbial “glass ceiling” in corporations or other obstacles to career advancement, we may look to tirelessly improve our knowledge and the structures we’re part of in search of greater equity and fairer opportunity. However, one of the places we sometimes fail to look at, is our own mindset. Yet, mindset has been proven to be the single most important factor affecting an individual’s success.
I know most of the advice I, and so many other working women, have received when it comes to career advancement ranges from technical to strategic and tactical recommendations. Very seldom, are we encouraged to re-visit and reinvent our mindset for career success. And this, despite having been conditioned for so long to perceive and accept the working world as a gendered construct built for and to the advantage of men. Without knowing it, we may be expanding countless personal, professional, and even emotional and psychological resources fighting battles we may already have lost in our own minds, as we hold negative, counter-productive beliefs about ourselves, doubt our strengths, and lack a clear sense of purpose.
Long before I had even heard of the “glass ceiling”, or the “concrete wall”, or concepts such as “mansplaining” for instance, I believed I would inevitably have to face a career ceiling. I could never speak up long and assertively enough to be heard. Or maybe I didn’t know all the right people, or did not have the right skills… For me, like for so many other working women, the invisible but quite palpable professional ceiling was still alive and well, most of all in my mind…
In a world where the career success ceiling for women still exists, despite numerous significant advances, it is crucial for working women to not only continuously work on their mindsets, but to strive to re-invent it at all times, against the common pressures of modern society and our own internal preconceptions.
To begin this reinvention process, here are 3 tips to reinvent your career mindset for success:
What are your predominant beliefs about yourself and your work?
We don’t talk enough about the role of our mindset at work. I had to learn the hard way that the biggest block in my career was my mindset. Not the boss, not the co-workers, not even the glass ceiling and some of the discrimination so many of us encounter…The biggest block was in my head!
Our mindsets are shaped from childhood on, from the words spoken by well-intentioned (or not so well-intentioned) family, friends and other people in our lives. For instance, if you were always told you were shy, like I was, this may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy for you, and the message you would hear from your inner voice every time you sat at a meeting and were afraid to speak up. Or that “little girls should be seen and not heard”, another proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy for so many working women afraid to let their voices be heard.
Now your turn:
What are those predominant beliefs about yourself?
Which ones are negative self-beliefs?
Can you replace them with the exact, positive opposite?
Re-discover your strengths
So often as working women, we don’t realize our strengths. Remember, we tend to be most critical towards ourselves. We also often forget to focus on our strengths, or to notice how they have evolved over time. Re-assessing your strengths, or even discovering them for the first time, takes the cap off of what you can achieve.
Here are a few steps to re-discover your strengths:
Take the time to self-evaluate
Ask friends and family
Analyze your successes
Get some clues on your failures and attempts
Rethink your WHY
WHY are you doing what you’re doing? Is it for the purpose of it all, the money, the relationships, to pay your student loans, take care of your family, etc? When I started my career, I didn’t have a clear WHY. It took me quite a few years to figure it out, and to figure out that it also changes with time. The WHY you had when you started your career is likely not the same WHY you have today.
By identifying and acknowledging our predominant beliefs about ourselves and our work, especially the negative ones, re-discovering our own unique strengths, and re-thinking our why, we also learn to re-wire our mindsets for success on our own terms.
How do you re-invent your career mindset for success?
Dear Working Mom is our periodic love and encouragement letter to working moms everywhere…
Dear Working Mom,
Remember that time, a long while back, maybe so far back that you may not even remember, when you promised yourself never to lose yourself? Never to lose that spark, that creativity, that spunk, that pep in your step, no matter what?
It’s been a while and life certainly has happened since then, taking over like a rushing wind of commitments, duties, and obligations of all kinds. And maybe one morning you may have woken up to realize that you can’t remember the last time you rode a bike, or read a book from cover to cover, or dug out your favorite dance shoes out of your closet to practice some of your old steps… Maybe someone asked you what you like to do, and you couldn’t come up with anything outside of going to work, picking up the kids, cooking, cleaning or your favorite brand of laundry detergent…
There are so many ways that, as modern moms, we can lose ourselves in the beautifully messy whirlwind of motherhood,marriage, partnership and life in general. We blink and it’s been a month, a year, a decade of beautiful, busy, often challenging but oh so rewarding moments. But we also blink and it may have been a month, a year, a decade, of forgetting a little bit of who we are, a little bit at a time…And you’ll know it too… You’ll know it by the way you feel a little off-center, a little off-balance, a little not like yourself…It’ll show up in the restlessness in your body, the raciness in your thoughts, the unexplainable jitters followed by a frustrating lethargy, the unanticipated moodiness…
And when you start noticing your soul wandering in exhaustion, it may be the sign, dear Working Mom, to return to yourself. To get back to those things that truly bring you joy, to make time for those old passions, even if only for a fraction of your day…
Because you never have to lose yourself, not through your work, not through your marriage or partnership, not through your relationships, not through anyone or anything…You never have to lose yourself, because those who love you need all of you…
Because your children need the spark in your eyes, the joy in your laughter, the energy in your step, and all the parts of you that make you…
Because the world needs the entirety of who you are, and so do you…
The older I got, the more I realized how precious of a commodity time is, especially as a busy working mom. One of the things that often gets overlooked is our self-development, sacrificed at the altar of all the other obligations of my life. The more I also realized that if I wanted to continue to grow and develop myself into the best version of who I am called to be, I would need to invest in my own self-development in and outside of work.
As a busy working mom, it’s always been important for me to continue to invest in my personal development, so I could be happier, more purposeful, and more present as a mom, wife, friend, sister. One of the most frequent complaints I hear from fellow working moms is their fear of losing themselves completely once they partner up or have kids. Personal development can go a long way towards remaining true to yourself, and actually adding to what you bring to the table of your parenting, partnership and relationships in general.
Here are 10 ideas of on-the-go activities you can use to develop yourself in your spare time as a busy working mama:
Meditate, pray and journal
Meditation, prayer and/or journaling can go a long way towards personal development. Taking some time daily to explore your inner thoughts, feeling, mindset, goals and aspirations not only brings clarity, but also helps in feeling more centered and purposeful.
Update your financial goals
Got 10 minutes or more? Take a few moments to quickly check your budget, bank balance and financial goals. A little bit periodically adds up to a lot over time when it comes to your finances…
Work out for a half hour
Health is wealth, and working out for at least half an hour three times a week is a powerful way to develop ourselves not just physically, but also mentally.
Plan out your schedule
Planning out your schedule has been proven to help get clear on your purpose, prioritize tasks reducing procrastination and even help save money. It doesn’t have to take long either, and can be done in a matter of minutes.
Read a self-development, business or career book for 15 minutes a day
Despite all the technological advances made so far, nothing compares to stimulating your imagination and learning while reading a book. While reading a book cover to cover in one sitting may be virtually impossible as a working mom, reading a chapter a day, or just 15 minutes a day, can go a long way.
Take a course
Nowadays you can educate yourself on the go if you just have a reliable Wi-fi connection, a working laptop and/or phone. Platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, or Edx. Learning a language on the go is now much easier with tools like Rosetta Stone or Babbel.
Listen to a podcast
I discovered podcasts a few years back when trying to occupy my long commutes, and have not looked back ever since. Some of my favorites are Sarah Jakes Roberts’ Woman Evolve, Harvard Business Review’s Women at Work, and Brown Ambition.
Catch up with friends and family
Got a minute? Take some time to message or call a friend or family member. In an increasingly virtual and remote world, re-establishing regular human contact, even if for a few minutes on the go, can be a much needed booster.
Listen to an audiobook on the go
Another perk of long commutes or just having a few spare minutes is the ability to listen to audiobooks on platforms such as Audible for instance. When time is too limited to read an entire book, why not listen to it? While I admit I still prefer a good ol’ paper book, taking in an audiobook on the go also does the trick.
Netflix and chill
Last but not least, how about a regular session of Netflix and chill to catch up on your favorite movies or documentaries, while getting in some well-deserved relaxation and maybe an educational resource or two in the process.
What are your favorite ways of developing yourself on the go?
Did you experience a crisis that forced you to re-define your entire career? Maybe it was a personal tragedy that rocked you to the core, a wrenching loss, or even a long-awaited change that shuffled the cards of your life and work…Whatever it was, it created a more or less urgent need for you to re-define what work means to you, what your own definition of professional success is, and what goals and plans you have in your future.
For me, crisis has always been a blessing in disguise, especially as related to my career. It’s after defining moments in my life, from giving birth to my children, to facing personal challenges and harsh opposition at work, that I had the opportunity to re-think what work truly means to me and the legacy I want to leave through it. My definition of success went from a focus on financial success, to one of purpose, personal fulfillment, and service. I went from wanting to multiply the zeroes on my paycheck to re-connecting with my deep desire to find and pursue work connected to my purpose, work that fills me up, work that makes me truly me, not just in the office, but in all areas of my life.
I have talked to many working women and moms who have also had similar experiences, after the birth of their children, after divorces, personal losses, and a host of crises, setbacks and tough challenges. Through all my conversations, the same theme of purpose and fulfillment has emerged, opening the door for these women to re-define the work they do.
Out of these conversations and my own experience, here are 7 principles to re-define your career after a crisis:
Reconnect with yourself
At some point in our careers, inevitably, we get disconnected from ourselves. It may be because we get too busy, or we get on someone else’s agenda, or life throws too much at us to keep us grounded in our essence and what truly matters to us. So we start doing things more out of habit or convenience than out of true meaning, purpose and joy. Sometimes, we don’t even have any idea of what really brings us a sense of purpose, meaning or joy, because we’ve been conditioned to doing the same thing over and over and over again…
As working women and moms with so much on our plates, and so many expectations heaped on us by society and family, it’s crucial that we take the time to reconnect with ourselves. Not once in a blue moon, not when all hell starts to break loose, but as often as we can. But what does reconnecting with oneself truly mean? It means stopping, even if for a few minutes every day, and observe ourselves, asking of ourselves simple questions such as “What brings me joy?”, “Am I feeling heavy and unhappy at this moment, or light and fulfilled?”, or “What are the places, activities and people that drain me, and what are those that energize me, fill me with life and sheer joy?”.
The answers to these simple questions, especially after a crisis, open the door to uncovering what’s been missing, what needs to change, what is no longer welcome, and also what needs improvement.
Re-define your WHY
Why do you do what you do? What are the motives, the reasons behind you getting up in the morning and spending most of your time behind a desk, on a construction field, or typing on a laptop? While most of us would cite basic survival reasons, such as making money to feed our family, taking care of our of loved ones, or having the bare necessities, that’s not enough of a WHY to spend our most precious asset, time, in unfulfilling careers and occupations. Yes, surviving is necessary, but after the survival should come the thriving, the expanding, the continuous growth that makes us who we truly are.
What’s fascinating about our WHY is that it changes with time, with experience, with us, as we grow and evolve into the purest and most evolved version of who we are. The why of the beginning of my career as an accounting associate eager to climb the corporate ladder, is very different from the why I have now. My mission has changed, my purpose has evolved, and with it, my entire outlook on myself and the world.
What is your WHY today?
Make room for what brings you joy
We don’t often think about JOY when it comes to our careers. We may think of money, or prestige, or advancement. Yet, what about that light inside of us, that pep in our step that makes us stroll through life, have a sense of purpose and fulfillment that frankly, no amount of money can buy…
That joy is not foreign to you. You may have lost sight of it, as life became more demanding, and expectations of the outside world came crashing down on your time and energy. You may not even remember it, from the days of being a carefree kid or a dreamy college student. Yet, what crisis reminds us of, is of the urgent need to tap back into our joy. The compelling urgency to dig back into the recesses of our experience and mind to unearth the seeds of this not-so-elusive joy.
For me, it was getting back in touch with my love for writing and teaching, which I was elated to find had never disappeared, but were just buried under too long to-do lists and uninspiring chores. The great thing about re-connecting with what brings you joy, is that you can apply to pretty much anything, if you’re willing to be creative, and re-create what makes up the fabric of your work.
Clear the clutter
Making more time for what brings you joy, growth and evolution as a working woman also means making less time for what doesn’t. This is where clearing the clutter becomes unavoidable. What endless tasks and chores have you or others forced upon your schedule that leave you drained and uninspired? What are those things, those activities, those interactions that take you too long to go through, not because of their complexity or your inability, but because they are not aligned with who you are? What areas of your work feel ineffective or inconclusive?
Clearing the clutter is a continuous process of evaluating and re-evaluating what no longer fits, what never fit in the first place, and what must change. For me, it’s a constant process of introspection, analysis and critical re-evaluation, not just of what I do, but of how I do it.
Come out of your career closet
Many, if not most of us, have locked ourselves in our own, self-made career closet of expectations and appearances. We may have picked a career because our parents wanted us to, because the money was good, or because it seemed like the only viable choice at the time. Over the years, we may have stayed in this career closet of our own making, relinquishing the opportunity to change, grow, evolve, as complacency and habit firmly set in to our daily lives. That is, until a life-changing crisis hit…
Maybe the crisis happened to unlock that career closet of yours, and allow you the opportunity to finally break free from so much obligation and forceful dynamics. While it may not necessarily spell a drastic change in careers of even jobs, it may be an open invite to step out of your own closeted way of doing things into the most effective and happiest version of your professional and personal self…
Build a path to transition
Once we realize the need to re-define our career and start on this path, then a shift happens. We unwittingly begin to build a path to transition towards a different way of seeing and doing the work that we do. Again, it may not be a drastic one. We may not even change jobs, or careers, or even the color of our office wallpaper. Yet, a path to transition will inevitably open up and require us to step on it and begin a journey of self-transformation…
For me, it was a matter of leveraging my natural and acquired skills, and combine them with my academic and professional training to transition into a different but related career into teaching. The path to transition was a progressive one, built from trials and errors towards creating the career best fit for me.
Make the leap!
Last but not least, re-defining your career will also require a brave leap of faith of some sort. Some leaps may be more life-changing than others, but all of them will demand courage, faith and some level of risk-taking.
For some, it may be finally asking for the raise you deserve, making an internal move within the same company, or even dedicating yourself to an altruistic cause. For others, it may be turning in your resignation letter, starting that side hustle or full-fledged business, or taking a gap year to find out who you really are. Whatever it may be for you, know that the leap will always leave you better for it, stronger, and infinitely happier for daring to honor your true self.
How have your own crisis helped you re-define your career?
