One thing that is sure about the pandemic, is that it has definitely radically altered the way we think about work, especially as working women and moms. As we went through the pandemic and watched the lines between work, life and parenting being blurred, throwing working moms and women into an abyss of unending and exhausting responsibilities and struggles. As a result, many, if not most working women and moms, have been re-thinking their careers and what they truly want out of work.
According to a recent research by McKinsey, one in four working women in North America revealed they were considering a career downshift or dropping out of the workforce entirely. This shift in career attitudes and expectations clearly shows women and moms are stepping away from traditional views on work, and redefining its meaning in their lives. However, for many, this also equates to stepping onto unfamiliar territory. After all, most of what we known as far as work and careers go, comes from traditional perspectives passed on from previous generations. For the longest time, work has been confined to something we do to earn a living, separate from who we are and the personal parts of our lives. Today, and especially after the pandemic, the lines between the personal and professional have been incredibly, and probably irretrievably, blurred. We work from the same homes we raise our kids in, often on the same kitchen tables we eat our family meals on, in the same environment we live, breathe and evolve in every single day. Sometimes, work even involves sharing some of our most private moments on screen and social media, when our positions require it or when our careers err on the side of unconventionality. In any case, work is definitely not what it used to be, which is only one more reason to revisit our careers and what we truly want out of it…
Yet, where do we even begin in this monumental quest to re-define what we want out of work, when the last thing we need is yet another monumental task on our to-do list. This is the question so many working women and moms are asking themselves at this very moment, as some are forced to exit the workforce for lack of adequate childcare and others are seeking a relief from chronic burnout. The reality is, revisiting the very meaning and purpose of our careers is not a one-time thing. The reality is, it’s a process that requires regular attention and dedication. While it may vary from individual to individual, depending on personal preferences, circumstances and choices, it’s anchored in three major principles, including:
Shifting Your Mindset
Rethinking the meaning, place and purpose of work in our lives is no easy feat. Considering the amount and sheer number of pressures faced by the average person, from financial to economic and personal pressures, stepping outside of the traditional norms of work in order to create one’s own definition of professional success can be a daring act in and of itself. Yet, it’s very much a necessary one…
How would you envision your ideal career if money and the other pressures of life were non-existent? What would professional fulfillment and purpose look like to you? How would you rethink your career ambitions to fit your life, personality and priorities?
Organizing your Priorities
Speaking of priorities, a big part of rethinking our careers as working women and moms is also a matter of organizing, and re-organizing our priorities. One thing the pandemic exposed for many, if not most of us, is the lack of boundaries existing between the different areas of our lives. Let’s remember for working women and moms, work is all around, from the professional work we do in and out of the office, to the work we do at home folding laundry, cooking meals and homeschooling kids…
While much of this lack of boundaries was a result of extreme circumstances imposed to us by a global health crisis, a significant part of it was inherited from a latent inequity in social roles and responsibilities at the expense of working women and moms’ balance, health and sanity. This is where understanding, acknowledging and organizing our priorities comes into play…
What truly matters to you? What can you delegate or get more help and assistance on? What are non-negotiables in your work and life? What constitutes a sacred space for you? These are all questions that touch to the core of who we are as working women and moms, that have been neglected for far too long in favor of the proverbial hustle to get it all done. Maybe this is the time to put them back on the table…
Learning to Set Boundaries
Where lines between work and every other area of our lives have been blurred during the pandemic, most of us have realized the urgent need for boundaries in the way we work and live. As we re-imagine our careers in the wake of this crisis, we’re also slowly learning to stop teetering on the edge of personal and professional burnout and exhaustion. This requires getting re-acquainted with the concept of boundaries.
What boundaries do you feel are lacking in your work and life? How did this impact you during the pandemic? What kind of boundaries would you set in your ideal career?
As so many working women and moms are reframing their vision of their careers after the pandemic, many questions are coming to the forefront. While these are challenging our traditional views on work, they’re also helping create the new working world for women and moms.
Are you rethinking what you want out of your career after the pandemic?
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.
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?
As a small business owner, you may have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. You are certainly not alone. While countless businesses have literally sunk under the economic, societal and political effects of the pandemic, small business have suffered the most under the pressure. Most of these small businesses are also owned by minorities, including women and African-Americans, worsening the socio-economic impact of an already devastating crisis. Of these struggling minority businesses, a majority is women-owned and has registered a 13 point drop in overall health in July 2020, as compared to a five point drop for male-owned businesses, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
As vaccines are getting distributed more widely and the next normal is slowly setting in, a reset is imposing itself for most companies. From the way they operate, to their employees’ schedules, not to mention their very revenue-generating activities, companies have been gearing up for significant changes. Despite being provided some assistance relief, these changes are still spelling doom for many. Yet for most, these are necessary changes carrying with them incredible lessons of resilience, adaptability and growth.
At the end of the day, the main, and most resounding concern small business owners have, is around resetting their organizations for the best after the pandemic. The main question, however, is how.
How do you change and adapt at the same time? How do you create opportunity out of apparent scarcity? How do you manufacture the next normal in an uncertain landscape still ridden with crisis?
Get re-acquainted with your “why”
Crisis are excellent opportunities to reconsider the “why” behind our motives, projects and organizations. As a small business owner, a crisis of such a magnitude as the pandemic we all faced, may have put everything you thought you knew back in question, especially when faced with the horrid prospect of life or death, of survival or destruction.
While there are many mechanical, financial and tactical concerns that may appear to rule the existence of a successful business, its main driver really is its “why”. All systems, processes and people ought to rally around a strong sense of identity of the business. This sense of identity may have been altered or reinforced by the recent crisis, or may have been even reinforced. Whatever the case is, re-evaluating your business’ why is indispensable to moving forward and resetting as a small business owner after the pandemic.
How can you adapt your business to the current business landscape
One thing that has been made even more constant by the recent pandemic is change. As individuals, we’ve changed the way we related to each other, the way we live, the way we parent, and definitely the way we work and do business. More than ever, our adaptability and resilience skills are needed to help us understand, manage and overcome the onslaught of change we’re now facing. Our organizations and businesses especially are grappling with these drastic changes in unprecedented ways.
As a small business owner, what this may mean for you could be to reconsider the environment your business is currently in. Is your business adapted to the new online trends that have prevailed as a result of the pandemic’s physical distancing? Are you prepared to restructure the way you manage your employees? Is your organization open to upcoming economic changes? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when considering where your business currently is, as opposed to where it is supposed to operate.
Check your systems
If the “why” and the adaptability of businesses are the heart of a business, its systems are its limbs. These systems and processes are the very mechanisms , from accounting to financial, that keep the business functioning to its optimal capacity. In times of crisis, these mechanisms can unfortunately doom an organization to utter failure.
Are your accounting systems adapted to the nature and type of products or services you sell? Is the way you’re structuring your finances adequate for your type of business? If your business is currently changing, are your systems also being adapted to these changes?
Overall, as a small business owner, changes are more than ever needed to recover, and strive through the aftermath of this and any crisis. Resetting priorities, motives, skills and systems is then no longer a luxury, but an ever-present requirement.
How are you re-setting your business as a small business owner?
Career trauma is real. If you’ve ever experienced it, you know firsthand the destructive impact it can have, not just on your work, but literally on all areas of your life. Many are the accounts of fellow working women and moms who have suffered horribly from the effects of career trauma, from acute stress and depression to complete career loss and change…
Career trauma can come in many forms and manifest in different ways. While most of us can experience positive growth and expansion from the work we do, many among us can also be confronted with the very opposite. Toxic environments, for instance, can cause real and damaging distress, through hurtful and negative behaviors such as bullying, betrayal, or cut-throat competition. Poor, ineffective and at times downright terrible managers, may also create or contribute to career trauma, reinforcing the concept that “people don’t leave companies, they actually leave managers”. Not to mention the brutal effects of company restructuring, downsizing, and reorganizations on employees. All these factors, and so many others, can make it hard for people to recover their sense of wholeness and professional confidence after dealing with career trauma.
For so many of us, especially as working women and moms, our careers are not only part of our identity, but define who we are and what we stand for at the core. Having this part of our selves be taken away from us, or diminished in a significant way, can terribly alter our sense of self along with our perception of others. Additionally, considering that women tend to be more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than men, the consequences of career trauma can be disproportionately more acute for the latter. As a matter of fact, much of the “she-cession” resulting in millions of women exiting the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, is hailed as a mental health crisis as well as an economic and societal one.
Yet, despite the devastating effects of career trauma, there are ways to recover from it and go on to have a successful career. Here are a few of these:
Reframe your career narrative
Perspective is everything, and how we frame our experiences can turn them into lifelong obstacles or opportunities. The latter is best. Reframing your career narrative to see opportunities for growth, re-direction and expansion rather than loss and trauma can go a long way towards healing, but also towards making a new start.
Let go of what you cannot control
Some circumstances, events and people are just outside of our control. This includes sabotaging co-workers, ineffective managers, or antiquated organizational structures, to cite just a few. Rather than focusing on the trauma these can create, it’s best to learn to release control and instead work on what we can control, including our attitudes, responses, and resulting choices.
Seek the support you need
Career trauma is a direct, and painful attack on our mental health. As much as we may try and implement positive and proactive ways to recover from it, we may still need a certain level of support to overcome it altogether. This can come in the form of trustworthy friends and family members, or even more formal and professional assistance such as therapy.
Yes, career trauma is real and can happen to the best of us. Yet, by reframing our career narrative, letting go of what we cannot control, and seeking the support we need, we can minimize its negative effects, and successfully recover from it.
