In times of crisis, your career is bound to experience some significant changes. Whether you find yourself in the middle of a pandemic, as we are at the moment, are going through a health-related ordeal, a life change such as a divorce, death of a loved one, or move, your work is not going to remain the same, especially as a working woman and mom. Yet, these are exactly the times you can use to grow your career.
I know every crisis I have faced has had an impact on my career, sometimes for the best, other times for the worst, always for a bigger purpose in the end. Over time, I’ve learnt to welcome these changes, and not desperately fight to maintain my career above water. After all, as working women and moms, all the parts of our lives are intricately inter-woven as we often don’t have the luxury of compartmentalizing the various areas of our lives. Instead, were’ most often pressured to wear our different hats at the same time. So can you really grow your career in times of crisis as a working woman and mom? As a matter of fact, times of crisis and challenge are often what take our careers to the next level, or on a much better trajectory.
From mine and so many other working women and moms’ experience through crisis and challenges, here are three tips to use times of crisis and challenges to grow your career:
Dare to be vulnerable and keep the communication open!
One of the biggest mistakes I made when facing life changes and crisis was to keep these to myself. As working women and moms often faced with false, diminishing stereotypes in the workplace, it may be challenging and intimidating to show vulnerability at work. Many have actually been burnt when showing their vulnerable side at work. However, the negative reactions of a few should not set the tone of how we should work better.
While you should be cautious as to who you open yourself up to at work, not opening yourself up at all, especially when dealing with life-altering circumstances, can prove more hurtful than anything else. Don’t be afraid to show some vulnerability and keep the lines of communication open, especially with your boss, direct team and colleagues. Not only will this help you from having to carry an unjustified burden at the wrong time, but may even help to bring you closer to your work team!
Set clear boundaries and expectations
In the same token, set clear expectations and boundaries of and with yourself and your team at work. During the COVID-19 crisis, many working moms are facing unspeakable challenges with child and home care, yet many are remaining silent, shouldering unrealistic and life-threatening at times burdens.
Have the courage to set expectations that make your load bearable and realistic. For some, this may mean setting alternate hours, or having frank conversations with your manager about workload, or even taking some time off. Whatever expectations and boundaries are needed, be brave enough to address them. They will not only help you lift a too heavy weight off your shoulders, but will also gain you the respect of your colleagues and team for speaking up.
Re-assess, re-evaluate, and re-assess some more!
Times of challenge are also times of growth and expansion. It’s very often when we find our backs against the wall, that we are now forced to re-consider our patterns, habits and decisions. Use these times to constantly re-assess, re-evaluate and re-consider your options. You may find out that you were wasting precious time on inefficiencies in your work processes, or that you are ready for a career transition altogether.
Sometimes, we get too bogged down on the details, so much that we lose sight of the need to take some time to assess where we stand, where we’re coming from and where we’re headed. In our careers, this exercise of constant re-assessment is not an indulgence, it’s actually a necessity.
Don’t be afraid when hard times bring on change. That’s exactly what they are meant to create. Instead, commit to using the rough patches, the life-altering moments, the wrenching decisions and transitions of work, to propel you instead of slowing you down.
How are you using the current COVID-19 crisis to grow your career?
Dear Working Mom is our weekly love letter to working moms everywhere, where we talk about motherhood, life, work and everything in between…
Dear Working Mom,
You’ve been giving of your time and energy as long as you can remember. As a matter of fact, as long as anyone can remember…Subtly, and at times not so subtly, your time has been taken for granted. It’s been assumed that because you carry the load so well, it must not be that heavy. That you can handle the household chores, the kids’ education and care, your elders’ care, your career or business, and so much more, concurrently and well…Even with your partner at home, your load has become increasingly larger and larger, taking up every minute of the day, and most of the time not even allowing you a minute to yourself, to your dreams, to your personal ambitions, to the essence of who you are…
You may find yourself operating in catch-up mode most of the time, repeatedly picking back up what you had to drop to attend to unplanned emergencies, to the kids, or the house…Before you know it, that dream of writing the book, starting your own business, or opening that boutique, has faded in the background of punctual obligations and commitments. Meanwhile, it seems your partner’s time is too valuable to be at the mercy of the same unforgiving demands and requests of family and personal life…It’s made you question your own sense of worth and self-esteem, yet you’ve just kept plugging right along…
And you’re certainly not making this up either…Just in the past few months, according to a study by the Washington University in St Louis, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, working moms have had to reduce their hours by about 5%. As a result, moms also tend to work less hours than dads during this period, and will be more likely to quit their jobs and suffer from mental health consequences. You’ve known the heavy burden you carry is not good for you. You’ve known it for a long time, and may have even started growing resentful because of it…. You may even have started giving voice to your concerns, and started a conversation or two with your partner. There may even have been some progress made, but it may still not be enough…
Could it be that you may have to acknowledge, to yourself first, that your time is as valuable as your partner’s, or anyone else’s for that matter? That the self-sacrificial and worthlessness messages that you, along so many other working moms, have received from society, may have been flawed from the start? That it may start with believing you deserve more, and daring to have the difficult conversations, the challenges to the status quo, and to make the necessary changes to make room for you too?
Your time is valuable. Your time is worth being considered. Your time matters. Just as much as your partner’s…
I was in the middle of a meeting, when I caught myself using the same organizational principles I use at home with my two kids (and the guinea pig). Fast-forward dozens of other meetings, and it boggled my mind how much
You may have heard the saying ” Nothing is new under the sun”. As new and increasingly more complex as current times may be, we may be tempted to think we don’t have the right tools to tackle yet another seemingly unknown challenge, yet another obstacle on our way. That we need brand new, revolutionary strategies to address the setbacks that come in our way. However, what we often realize, after much unneeded stress and angst, is that there is often no need to reinvent the wheel. Besides, as working women and moms, there are not enough hours in the day for us to do so.
I first learnt of the art of repurposing when I was self-educating and binging on copywriting books. Repurposing is basically “adapting something for a different purpose”. As working women and moms, one of the (only) saving graces of gender inequity is that we get to create and get exposed to so many experiences, tasks, ideas and processes. These are the same experiences, tasks, ideas and processes that can be re-used in different areas and parts of our lives and work. Hence why there is no one better at re-purposing than the working woman and mom, and that is exactly where our force resides…
Here are three (3) ways that you and I, and working women and moms, can use the art and the power of repurposing in our careers and businesses:
Repurpose your skills
How many skills have you acquired in the process of going through your life and professional experiences, that you may tuck inside your memory and forget about? Working moms, how many organizational and managerial skills have you acquired just from raising kids and running a full household? What do you keep on learning day in and day out that you can re-purpose to your work?
For instance, you may have learnt new networking skills from your side hustle, or taken up a new coding class with your bestie, which can all contribute to your career or business in positive ways.
What skills have you acquired lately that can you repurpose at work?
Repurpose your experiences
You’ve gone through many experiences already in your personal and professional life, which have equipped you with additional skills. How about re-using these skills at work? Therapy has taught me so much about mine and others’ personalities, which has made it much easier to navigate professional environments. Going through certain types of hardships has also taught me how to better handle delays and unexpected turns of events at work too.
What have your experiences taught you that you can re-apply in your career or business?
Repurpose your ideas and processes
I use a lot of the same techniques I employ in my side business in my career, from negotiation skills to follow-up. Re-purposing your unique ideas and processes can go a long way at work, especially as a working woman often short on time.
What unique ideas and processes you used or have been using in one area of your life can you re-use for work?
As a working woman and mom, you truly don’t have to re-invent the wheel in your career and business. Re-purposing your skills, experiences, ideas and processes may not only help you save precious time, but also give you an incomparable competitive advantage.
“Busy” is not just the modern badge of honor these days. It’s also become the working woman and mom’s defining badge of honor. However, in these over-committed, over-burdened streets of working motherhood, made even more complex by a debilitating pandemic, we’re quickly learning that too busy doesn’t make an impact, especially as working women and working mom. That being stretched in too many directions, especially in times of crisis, only creates more chaos and even more crisis.
One of the most precious lessons the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me is that impact is better than busyness, especially at work. Like so many, it’s prompted me to ask myself what really matters and where I can create more impact. It’s also forced me, in the midst of the exhaustion and extreme stress of homeschooling, working, handling housework, and surviving the stress of living through a pandemic, to re-consider my too long professional to-do list. Most importantly, it’s reminded me, ironically in the midst of what turned out to be the busiest times of my life, of the importance of switching off the “busy” button…
But…how do you turn off the “busy machine” when there’s even more to do than usual? How do you keep up with not just yours, but the needs of others who may heavily depend on you at work (and outside of work)? And how do you not succumb to the angst of letting go of something that you shouldn’t have, or decreasing your performance ?
This is very much a personal process that affects each and every one of us differently, based on our individual circumstances, beliefs and mindsets.
However, while the process may look different for each and every one of us, there are some guiding questions we can all use:
What does impact mean to you and your work?
Having an impact means something different for each and every one of us, for our work and our organizations and businesses too. In my teaching career, impact is measured by how well students are being academically served. When I write, it’s about conveying a message that has the power to help, uplift, inspire and edify. What is impact in your line of work and for you?
How can you create the most impact?
Having an impact requires focus and strategy. Doing it all, as so many of us strive to do, doesn’t allow us to have optimal impact. I’ve found creating an impact requires Re-evaluating your involvement, trimming your to-do list, and releasing what does not fit. That can be hard to do when you’re used to doing so much…
Where can you create the most impact?
Sometimes we’re not having any impact, or the right kind of impact, because we’re not in the right place for us. Could it be that you’re overwhelmingly busy but not having real impact because you need to be somewhere else? It took a whole new career and change of professional trajectory for me to even begin to think about creating an impact.
If you find yourself being overwhelmed and so busy in your work there is no end in sight, yet discouraged because you’re not seeing your work’s impact, then these questions may help.
This week, a fellow working woman was blatantly and publicly insulted in the midst of her workplace, a victim of televised disrespect and misogyny. Her name is Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and both the incident itself and her response are a vibrant testimony to the misogyny in Congress, and in the workplace in general. It was also a loud reminder that an issue that should have now been long overdue is not only still very alive, but may actually just be worsening as time passes…
As a working woman, you may have experienced similar situations and incidents where you may have been publicly or privately disrespected by a male colleague. It may have been over a professional, or even a personal matter. And more likely than not, it may have hurt and affected you to your core. I know from experience that the few times I’ve had to face these types of situations, I felt diminished, less than, and like the air had been ripped out of my chest. It took me a long time to learn not to allow attacks like these to lessen my sense of self, and render me powerless. Still, despite the benefit of experience and time, addressing issues of misogynistic disrespect and sometimes flat-out aggression against working women.
How do you address disrespect that should not exist? How do you begin to dismantle patriarchal issues that may have lasted longer than you’ve been alive? How do you continuously defend the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that is due you in a professional yet direct and unequivocal way, when your career, your reputation and your coins are unfairly at stake? These are the questions that Ocasio-Cortez answers so eloquently and vehemently in her speech to Congress.
As I listened to her words, I was reminded, not just of the weight of these injustices, but also of the necessity for each and every one of us to continue to advocate for ourselves and our fellow working women:
Recognize disrespect and misogyny for what they are
In environments where gender inequity is the norm, it can be challenging to recognize instances of disrespect and misogynyfor what they are. Instead, we may be tempted to brush these incidents as par for the course and the price we must pay to rise to the top, or just not shake the precarious boat of our careers.
This is where it’s crucial to recognize the blatant, and not-so-blatant signs of disrespect and aggression directed at us and other working women. Too many toxic environments have been thriving on unhealthy sexist and misogynistic foundations, creating toxic surroundings for their members. Signs such as mansplaining, overly competitive traits, all the way to sexual harassment point to dangerous workplaces.
Don’t be afraid to call it out!
Whether you decide to address instances of disrespect and misogyny publicly or privately, don’t be afraid to call it out. Not only is it a way of bringing it to the other party’s attention, it’s also important for your own personal well-being and professional welfare.
However, whether you’re addressing your boss, colleague or a client, addressing it head-on may not be enough. In certain instances, you may have to refer to other superiors, or even Human Resources. While it may be intimidating to deal with these types of circumstances, choosing to endure or ignore them may only help to make matters worse over the long run.
Take time for self-care!
As I mentioned earlier, being disrespected and having to face misogynistic attitudes in the workplace takes a toll on working women. It’s not just an emotional toll, but also a mental and even physical one that may manifest in a number of negative ways, including loss of motivation, lack of productivity, and even chronic anxiety and depression.
As you face and confront these challenging types of issues, don’t forget to take time to care for yourself. This is not just about lighting candles and running yourself a bubble bath, but also taking advantage of mental health resources such as seeing a therapist for instance.
In her courageous stance against disrespect and misogyny against women, Republican Ocasio-Cortez reminded us all of the urgency of standing by women, believing women, and defending women.
Have you ever faced instances of disrespect and misogyny at work? Tell us your story by emailing corporate@thecorporatesister.com or posting a comment.
