One of the most challenging parts of growth as an individual, and especially as a working woman and mom, is the part when you realize that not everybody will grow and go with you. It’s a daunting and saddening realization that can be heartbreaking at times. Yet, it’s the sometimes heart-wrenching reality of personal growth. The part when caring for yourself means letting go of people not mean to grow with you….
Very often, especially as women, we’re socialized into groups and relationships that are supposed to last a lifetime. These are the friendships from “back in the day”, the associations from “way back when”, that we’re too attached to release, even when it’s clear they are no longer working in our favor. So we stay and hang around, and suppress that little voice inside telling us it is time to move on. So we shrink a little more, and a little more, to fit into boxes we’ve outgrown, for the sake of not shaking the boat…Yet, despite all your best efforts, you find yourself stagnating, not just in that relationship, but in many if not all areas of your life.
Beyond weekly manicures and pedicures, self-care also means letting go of those not meant to grow with you. While being a complex process, this release process is all too often necessary. While certainly challenging, it doesn’t have to be a drastic or dramatic process. Often, it’s just a matter of re-classifying relationships in a way that truly reflects who you are and your process of growth, which may require a few steps:
Trust yourself
How many times have you gotten this sense in your gut that things weren’t quite right? And how many times have you silenced your own instincts, preferring to trust the comfort of old habits?
The first step to releasing relationships that are no longer meant for us (or were never meant for us) is to trust ourselves. Our bodies will tell us when something is not quite right. We’ll sense it in our gut. The key is to trust ourselves.
Release in peace
Letting go, be it of relationships, associations, or jobs, does not have to be a dramatic process. Being at peace as we release what is no longer meant for us helps us keep a clear mind and spirit as we move on to the next step in our lives, on purpose.
While there may be times when confrontation is unavoidable, as much as possible, keep your peace.
More acceptance, less resistance
The difficulty in letting go of what or who is not meant to grow with us is often a matter of resistance. It’s hard to accept that we’ve been used to for so long, whether it’s a friendship, a romantic relationship, or a career, is coming to an end. So we resist and struggle to maintain the status quo, instead of accepting things as they are.
Being accepting of what is does not mean being complacent and taking whatever comes at face value. It simply means believing you are provided for at all times, and something or someone leaving is only making room for better.
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 pouring your all into being the best mom you can be since you became one. You’re still doing your absolute best, day in and day out, to be the best parent you can. And this despite the various personal, professional and social obstacles you may be facing, from juggling career and household responsibilities, to creating and maintaining a healthy and stable household for your entire family. You’ve been working at this parenting thing, not just in terms of managing every day’s life and work responsibilities, but also in terms of improving yourself. Except parenting was never meant to be a perfect science…
Along the way, you’ve faced uncertainty, even heartache, as you watch your children grow and become their own people. Your heart aches as you fear what could happen to them in this big, wide, often cruel world. You question yourself as you make each and every decision, wondering how it will affect them today, tomorrow and the days after. You deal with the overwhelming sense of guilt that comes with motherhood territory, wondering how, when, if you could do more…
As you wrestle with being your best self, taking space and going after or giving up on your ambitions, you may not be sure which path to take at times. You may be tempted to look around at what others are doing, worrying you may not measure up to the perfect mom baking sweet treats from scratch for the kids’ school fair, or the outstanding mother with the shiny career and efficient schedule, or the one with the impossibly organized home…
Truth is, parenting was never meant to be an exact science. There is no accurate, perfect recipe for growing and raising humans. There is only the will, dedication and commitment to do the best we can with what we have, right where we’re at. Sometimes your best may barely fit into your single mom’s budget, other times it may exceed it and you may have to get another job, fight for the promotion, or start the side hustle to make it work. Sometimes your best may be to let go of comparing yourself to others, release some unrealistic expectations, and be your own kind of mom. Sometimes your best may be to heal yourself, to seek therapy so you don’t pass on the same generational damages you’ve inherited yourself.
All the time, your best is what makes you no less, and no better than any other mother. Your best makes you the best mother for your child, even in the face of tough decisions and heart-wrenching choices you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Because parenting was never meant to be an exact science, with perfect baking recipes and glossy Instagram pages. As a matter of fact, it was meant to be messy, imperfect, evolving, as anything founded in love, growth and purpose is meant to be.
So make the mistakes, enjoy the process, laugh at it, cry at it, throw yourself at it, feel good about it, don’t feel so good about it. But above all, allow it to make you and anyone else involved in this magical journey, better, stronger, fuller, of the very consciousness of Love and Life….
In today’s ever-evolving world and workplace, and in the face of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, being flexible and adaptable has become a necessity. It also happens to be one of the most important attributes of career success for working women. According to this Randstad study, 51% of women list adaptability and flexibility as key attributes to succeed in their careers, even ahead of teamwork (35%) and technology (37%).
There have been lots of talks about Intellectual Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ), especially in the realm of professional success. However, much less has been discussed about Adaptability Quotient (AQ). According to this 2004 study published in the Institute of Health Records and Information Management (IHRIM)journal, AQ constitutes a “statistically significant predictor of business transformation success”, as derived from the study of 15 global corporations going through strategic change. Business growth company Advantage defines AQ in the business sense as “ the ability to adjust course, product, service, and strategy in response to unanticipated changes in the market”.
In simpler words, AQ measures one’s ability to adapt to change. In reality, this is nothing new. Humans have survived for millions of years because of our very capacity to adapt to constant climate change, as quoted in this article of Scientific American. In his global best-seller Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind, renowned historian and author Yuval Noah Harari describes the stories of humankind’s conquest of the world by thriving, surviving and adapting to changing conditions. At a gender level, Melinda Coetzee and Nisha Harris’ 2008 study of call center agents published in the South African Journal of Psychology demonstrates that females display higher levels of career adaptability than males. A more recent study exploring gender and personality traits as predictors of entrepreneurs’ cognitive adaptability also concludes significant differences exist between males and females.
As working women, we’re certainly gifted with unique adaptability skills. In order to continue turning these into competitive advantages for ourselves, as well as our personal and professional organizations, it’s important that we focus on a few principles:
Opportunity is everywhere
I once worked for a Senior Manager who had this inscription on her desk: OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE. When I started working in her team, she asked me to read it aloud. Instead of seeing “Opportunity is now here”, I read “Opportunity is nowhere”. At the time, my mindset was reflected in what I was seeing in this seemingly innocuous inscription. Instead of seeing opportunity everywhere, I was tempted to dismiss it. So are many among us…
Developing adaptability is also a matter of seeing opportunity everywhere, especially in the places where there seems to be none. It’s seeing opportunity in the layoff, the job loss, the relationship breakdown, the economic downturn. Are you seeing opportunity in your current circumstances?
Curiosity does not kill the cat, it makes you more adaptable!
Remember the proverb: “Curiosity killed the cat”? Used to warn against the danger of experimentation, it’s also reflective of many a damaging mindset. As working women, we’re warned against overstepping the social boundaries restricting us away from areas, professions and even attitudes traditionally reserved for men. Little girls are admonished against stepping away from feminine territory…
When it comes to being adaptable, curiosity does not kill the cat. What it does kills are false, sexist, stereotypes, slow progress and lack of innovation. Curiosity creates innovation, enhances resourcefulness and engenders progress. Sounds like a win to me!
The BIG picture is the BEST picture
Adaptability requires being able to see the big picture, the entire forest as opposed to just a few trees. It is the best picture from which to create a context in which adaptability becomes a key advantage.
This is also the picture from which we can create systems allowing us to navigate complex and difficult realities, such as systems to tackle working motherhood effectively, or systems to move over glass ceilings and brick walls at work.
Now more than ever, working women must leverage and continue to develop their AQ to face and improve the ever-changing landscape of work and life we find ourselves in. Now more than ever, organizations everywhere and society at large must learn to empower working women to create the change needed to not just survive, but also thrive trough adaptability to times of change.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and in these times of pandemic it is taking on a special meaning for everyone. For working moms especially, who are highly impacted economically and whose load is multiplied on the home, work and health frontlines, it is taking on a larger and more critical meaning by the minute. Yet, more than the unfair share of work and home responsibilities, it’s the mental load working moms carry that threatens their well-being.
It’s becoming increasingly important for working moms to take care of themselves and protect their mental health. Juggling the demands of motherhood and employment, not to mention the related economic and physical impact, not only take a mental, but also an emotional toll on mothers. One that we don’t talk about enough, and repeatedly ignore as a society as we keep glorifying the motherly sacrifice that is hurting more than it is helping anyone.
Faced with increasing demands on our time, energy and sanity, from inside and outside our homes, from our daily to-do’s to the mediatized messages around “doing and having it all“, it’s harder and harder not to fall victim to the temptation of constantly pushing ourselves. All along, we pretend to be fine. We pretend everything is ok, that we’re unstoppable, that we can take the heat, that we can attend the boardroom meeting AND be there for the kids’ soccer game, get dinner AND prepare the brief, and so on and so forth…We’ve just got to keep it together, at all times, at all costs…
Truth is, we don’t have to keep it all together. We don’t even have to keep any of it together. What we have to keep together is our mental health. What we must preserve is our wholeness, the same wholeness that our kids learn from and our communities are strengthened by. What we must fight for is our pulse, our capacity to be, live, and grow fully…And none of it includes over-scheduling ourselves and our kids, working ourselves to the bone, and feeling like we’re failing in all areas at the same time…
While there is a lot of expert advice on mental health awareness, protecting our mental health as working moms can start at home:
Let’s check in with ourselves
We check in with everyone else around us, from our families to strangers on the street. Yet, how often do we check in with ourselves? How often do we stop once during the day to simply ask: “How am I doing today?” How often do we stop and simply sit in silence and breathe?
Checking in with ourselves will let us know when we’re not ok, when the tightness in our chest is more than indigestion, or the constant headaches may be hiding something deeper. It’s the first gateway to taking our mental pulse, and the first step towards better mental health and wholeness.
How about letting go of the need to keep it together?
Why is it that we must tidy up the house before we leave, even if that means stressing ourselves and running late? Why do we feel that we must keep our homes, our families and ourselves looking a certain way, at the expense of our own sanity? Why do we feel the need to prove that we are perfect homemakers and can bake a cake three different ways? Not that there is anything wrong with keeping a tidy home and looking great, on the contrary, these are great, especially if they make us feel better. Plus who doesn’t love cakes? Yet, if it’s unauthentic or it’s coming at the cost of violating our integrity and authenticity, it is never worth it…Nothing ever is…
Letting go of the need to keep it together is hard. It’s going against all the messages we’ve been endoctrinated with at a very early age. It’s going against the very voices of our mothers, sisters, and friends. Yet, it’s essential, so we can stop suffering in silence to maintain an image that was never us…
When help comes in the form of therapy…
Asking for help is complicated. Asking for help when help is wrapped under taboo concepts such as therapy is even more complicated. It’s ok to fear it, and not want it at first, and believe we don’t need it…Everyone has their own journey, and makes their own decisions.
Yet, if at some fork of the winding road of motherhood, work, and life, we find ourselves needing an extra hand to take the next step, that may just be it…Even if it means someone else has to make the call for us, drive us, and wait for us at the door…
As work is increasingly done remotely, especially in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, more meetings are being conducted online. While the general rules of an effective meeting apply remotely as well, the change in environment and setting does alter the way we run and perform in an online meeting. This change in environment can be especially challenging for working women and working moms, who may find thatremote meetings make it even harder for women to be heard and stand out.
According to this study by psychologist Victoria Brescoll, work meetings in general perpetuate gender inequities in the workplace, as men speaking up more often tend to be viewed as more competent while women would be rated less competent when speaking up more often. These inequities in turn tend be amplified in online environments. Additionally, women are largely in charge of household responsibilities, and as such are more likely to be preoccupied and distracted by sheer virtue of being home. As such, the same traditional gender roles that may overrule workplaces and households may also take over during online meetings.
As a working mom and introvert, switching from physical meetings to remote, online ones has certainly been an adjustment. First, the online etiquette is different from that of live meetings, which affects the way participants contribute and stand out. Second, the way an online meeting is run has significant repercussions on its effectiveness and outcome. Last but not least, the incidence of potential technical difficulties can discourage contributors as well.
So how do you stand out as a working woman in an online meeting, when you may be worried about your kids barging in the room at any moment, or preoccupied about dinner in addition to all your work deliverables? How do you manage all your competing priorities while still appearing professional and doing your best work? What do you make of less than ideal circumstances when your goal is to keep forging ahead successfully both personally and professionally? While the answers may vary from one woman to another, there are a few steps that may help:
Be intentional about the meeting: What are you bringing to the table and what are you hoping to get out of it?
Online meetings, just like meetings in general, can be huge time-wasters, especially considering the lessened physical interaction and remote environment, in which so many things can go under the radar and be unnoticed. It’s the reason why I’ve learnt to be more intentional about meetings in general, and about online meetings in particular.
What are you able to contribute to the meeting? What are you hoping to get out of the meeting? The clearer you are about your answers to these questions, the better the outcome.
Prepare ahead of time
Advance preparation for any meeting cannot be overemphasized. For online meetings, it’s even more crucial and includes more elements such as:
The appropriate online etiquette
The agenda of the meeting
The location of the files to be discussed, if any
The meeting participants
Any technical arrangements in case you have to present something for instance
Etc…
This also means testing the technology beforehand, to make sure you will not have any issues accessing the meeting or contributing to it. Also make sure you have additional options such as audio dial-in, in case your internet connection becomes unstable.
If possible, share your video
In the absence of physical interaction, picking up on facial and bodily cues becomes crucial during online meetings. While there are certainly instances when you’re not able to appear on video, as much as possible when you’re able to do so, allowing yourself to be seen makes a difference in the way you’re perceived and how your contribution to the meeting is received. This helps personalize the conversation, and adds another layer of professionalism and personality to your presence and contribution.
As such, showing up with a professional appearance is recommended. While it can be tempting to adopt a more laid-back style at home, a professional look while at work, even remotely, can go a long way towards maintaining and improving your professional reputation.
Don’t be afraid to speak up!
It may be intimidating and a bit cumbersome to speak up in an online environment. Actually, it may be quite tempting to hide behind one’s screen and lay low. However, this is where your capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and still be reliable and consistent is tested.
If online meetings are intimidating to you, consider rehearsing your potential remarks and contributions ahead of time. Jot down the ideas you intend to share, so you can rely back on your notes during the meeting. Additionally, consider using the chatting capabilities, if available, to share additional insights and remarks.
Prepare to deal with last-minute mishaps like a pro!
When working from home, especially as a working woman and mom, mishaps are bound to happen. I’ve had my kids pop up during online meetings, my phone accidentally go off or crash on the floor, or the doorbell ring off the hook in the middle of a virtual presentation…Things just happen!
Mentally prepare for the possibility of mishaps, so as not to lose your focus and countenance when these occur (because they will happen). Even better, you may choose to forewarn the other participants, if you suspect an interruption during the meeting, and have some sort of a contingency plan in place, just in case. Whatever may happen, try and keep your cool. This is also how you demonstrate leadership and adaptability, and stand out as a true leader.
Keep the human touch!
Don’t forget to keep the human touch, even remotely! Smiling, being courteous and considerate never go out of style, even and especially in online environments. Showing respect and appreciation for others, while still bringing your contributions to the online table, are also signs of great leadership and personality.
All in all, standing out in an online work meeting may be far from easy for working women and moms, due to consistent gender inequities and the unequal distribution of responsibilities on the home front. However, positive change can be created with a few consistent steps and actions…
How are you managing and standing out in online meetings as a working woman and mom?
