Take Toni…Toni just lost the promotion she has been working tirelessly for all year. Sandra knows, because just like everyone in the office, she received the email announcing Daevon’s new title. The title she had been after for all this time…Although it was only 3pm, she decided to pack up and headed out the door, mumbling something about a doctor’s appointment to the secretary. She was home when her husband and the kids came home, in her “bad days” pajamas, glass of wine in hand, tears in her eyes. All went downhill from there. I’ll let you picture your own version of the story…
LikeToni, I wish someone would have told me how to deal with a career crisis at home as a married or partnered working woman. Losing a job, being demoted, or generally being unfulfilled in your work, are all things that can negatively affect one’s home life. Many, if not most, have faced at least one career crisis that rocked our home lives. I remember facing my first career crisis and having no idea how to react, what to do, and most essentially, what to avoid doing.
Unless you’re blessed with a constant, uneventful career, you’re bound to face ups and downs at work. Some of the latter may never amount to full crisis stage, but some may. Even for those small work mishaps, it may be challenging to leave it all behind your cubicle or office desk at the end of the day. If your career or business is weighing on your mind, not discussing it with your partner or your closed friends and relatives is nearly impossible.
I tried to apply the proverbial “leave work at work” piece of advice, and draw a strong line between career and home life. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Even when I swore to keep work and life separate, my face would betray me, exposing all my business in the middle of dinner. Truth is, I never believed the different areas of our lives should be kept apart from each other, in their own well-kept compartments. Everything we go through is connected, and attempting to draw barriers between our varied life experiences doesn’t benefit us in the long term.
It took me a while to deal with the inevitable nature of career crisis. Over time, through many ups, downs and lessons learnt, as well as through learning from others, here are a thing or two about dealing with a career crisis at home:
You don’t have to carry it all on your own
A career crisis is not something you have to face on your own. It’s ok to share the difficulties you’re facing at work with your significant other at home. If you’re not able to do so, then you should revisit how much support you really are getting in the relationship.
Use it as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship
Tough times can always serve as an opportunity to strengthen your home relationship. It’s during those challenging episodes that partners can show more of their vulnerable side. It’s also when their commitment can be re-affirmed and even expanded.
But…don’t overburden your home life with career pressure
However, as much as you should count on your home base to support and shoulder you in times of career crisis, there’s a risk of over-burdening your relationship with your work. While you don’t have to deal with career challenges on your own, you also have to balance it all out. If your home life is at the mercy of your career, or vice-versa, there’s an imbalance that may spell trouble for you.
All in all, every situation is different, and so is every home and career. It’s up to you to evaluate the right balance between what you can ask of your home base and what can destroy it when facing a career crisis.
Now, your turn: How do you deal with a career crisis at home?
I recently attended a women’s empowerment conference in one of the nearby universities, and one of the questions raised by a young student was: “Should I pick the career with great perks or the career that’s a best fit?” This is a question most working women and working moms ask themselves on a daily basis. The job with the great perks, including free travel, luxury stays in intercontinental hotels, and a great salary to boot, may certainly be attractive. Yet, how about the gig where people our value, where we get the most fulfilled, although the pay may not be quite as appealing? Let me tell you, you should pick the career that fits you best.
A few years back, I had to seriously ask myself this question when offered an opportunity that seemed impossible to refuse. I had two babies at the time, one of which an infant, and the prospect of added financial gain was hard to ignore. Despite the sinking feeling in my stomach as I read the about the 25% travel requirement, I accepted the offer. It was the beginning of a painful realization that there are truly no perks or amount of money that is worth the feeling of fulfillment and wholeness one deserves, especially as a working mom.
As you may start or be re-directing your career or business, you may be faced with the same pressing question. Do you take the high-paying job with loads of advantages, or do you pick the option that feels and looks like a better fit for you as a working mom and working woman? You know, the one that actually lets you see your kids, be home for dinner, and work at something that makes your heart full at the end of the day? In my opinion, the latter holds true, and here are three reasons why:
It’s never just a career decision, it’s a life decision
At times, we tend to compartmentalize our work and life in separate containers, as if one had nothing to do with the other. I’ve learnt that pretty much everything that affects your life can affect your work and vice-versa. When making a career decision, you’re really making a life decision. It’s one that’s bound to impact your well-being as well as your family’s well-being.
Is this career or job going to allow you to care for yourself and yours? Will you be able to build some margin in your schedule? Will you be able to have a sense of balance?
You develop more in an environment that’s a better fit for you
Getting an offer letter from a multi-million dollar corporation with a salary cap in the six-figure realm is flattering, appealing and frankly borderline irresistible. However, these same multi-million dollar corporations can also be labyrinths of bureaucracy and administration where you may not be able to fully develop and come into your own, professionally and personally, unless you’ve found a right fit in these.
The larger the professional environment, the more chances your voice may be drowned in all the surrounding noise. If developing your voice and growing in your career is a priority, it’s crucial to pick the career or job that allows you to do so. After all, it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a large pond
In the end, your fulfillment and happiness is what matters.
At the end of the day, you won’t remember the perks or the multiple zeros in your salary. Ok, maybe a little… But what is really going to stay with you, is how much fulfillment you’ve had, how many memorable experiences and people you’ve come across, and what difference you’ve made. This is where fit or the lack thereof can create the best or the worst of careers or jobs.
Are you choosing an environment that’s the right fit for you?
As I’m drafting this email, I’m reeling from the last Women of Color in the Academy Conference I attended last week. The theme of this year’s Women of Color in the Academy conference in Boston, held at Northeastern University, was all around self-care as women of color in academia. From dealing with micro-aggressions to developing negotiation skills, aligning with our vision, and growing as a scholar and academic, the topics covered were deep, vast and overall extremely empowering.
While the content of the conference itself was top-notch, it was more so the fact that so many professional women of color within a profession were gathered together in the same rooms. To be able to see familiar faces in a career and business setting was nothing short of amazing. As women of color, we’re most often in working environments with very few of our counterparts, if any. This reinforces the sense of isolation many, if not most of us, may feel in the context of our work, which in turn exacerbates negative patterns such as Impostor syndrome, lack of self-confidence, poor negotiation skills, and so much more.
There is something about representation that strengthens one’s ability to perform at optimal levels. Studies suggest that women of color are unfortunately less supported at work.According to this 2016 Catalyst report, the latter even tend to pay an “emotional tax” translating in a constant sense of being under-valued and having to be cautious at work. These hurdles due to lack of adequate representation, among other factors, have proven to be extremely detrimental to women of color.
As such, going from environments sorely lacking in diversity to having the opportunity to enjoy and leverage this diversity during women of color conferences goes a long way. This is the main reason why women of color conferences are critical to the latter’s growth, balance and flourishing, both professionally and personally. Aside from this, these conferences are also needed to:
Women of color conferences do provide the advantage of creating a platform to share common experiences and find tools to grow through these. They are also a powerful source of networking, in addition to nurturing a wider pool of diverse talent. Imagine if each woman of color could recommend another woman of color for opening positions across organizations and institutions?
Share and develop best practices
Women of color face unique challenges and situations that require unique solutions. These are the types of solutions and best practices that are discussed and developed during these conferences. In turn, these best practices can help improve organizations as a whole.
This is the reason why women of color conferences virtually act as masterminds to craft best diversity and work practices in general.
Start a conversation that can be continued in our workplaces
Last but not least, women of color conferences have the advantage of starting important conversations on diversity and equity. After these conferences, attendees tend to go back to work more open and willing to continue the conversation.
What has been your experience attending women of color conferences?
I remember as a younger girl, looking at successful, high-achieving women around me and dreaming of being just like them, down to their seven-inch stilettos and perfectly polished hair. Even as a little girl, I was already in awe of all that women could do. In my then-lack of maturity and experience, I believed that if only I could replicate exactly what these women did or said, down to how they laughed, sat straight, and drank their mint tea, I would also be successful. Just like them…
Fast-forward a few years, a few jobs, a couple of kids, and this one grey hair that for some reason keeps popping up in the middle of my head, and this little girl has learnt (and is still learning) a thing or two about success:
That success is well-being first, and has nothing to do with status, position, title or money;
And that most importantly, success is not replicable. We may be inspired by others, but we’re not them, and they’re not us. You can only be successful like you, and you get to define what that is.
However, it can be easier said than done. As working women and moms, we deal with so many demands and expectations on our time and energy, from well-meaning family members to colleagues at work and business partners. We have to be good moms, wives, partners, friends, sisters, ace our careers, make time for fitness and oatmeal face masks, while still keeping our sense of humor intact. If you add to it the highlight reel that is social media, you quickly realize how tempting it can be to fall into the mold of society. To look to others not just for inspiration, but for models to replicate, instead of following our own path.
In my own experience, here is what choosing to be successful like you and build your own lane requires:
Unlearn society’s negative messages
We internalize so many messages from society, from early childhood on, as to what we should do and not do. Most of these are aimed at satisfying the people around us. If you have African or Indian parents, you know you may have been expected to become a doctor or engineer. As a little girl, you may have been expected to keep your voice quiet or not discuss your accomplishments.
A big part of building your own lane of success is to un-learn these messages, which for most of us, have become entrenched in our beliefs. Replace them with positive and uplifting affirmations that speak to your power rather than your limitations.
Ask yourself: What does success mean to me?
I didn’t ask myself this question until I became a mom and simultaneously started hitting a professional and personal wall. I was no longer excited about much (part of which was due, as I realized later, to post-partum depression), and wasn’t sure which way to go in my life or career. That’s when I started re-defining what success meant to me. Did it mean being a good mom, getting the next promotion, making lots of money, or a combination of all these?
It’s only when I started defining what my own brand of success means to me that things truly changed for the best. For me, it meant then a series of small and big things, such as being able to spend time with my kids, finding time to write, teaching and learning, for instance. What I also realized is that my definition of success keeps evolving as I grow and continue to shift as an individual. And that’s ok, as long as it’s still MY definition and not anyone else’s…
Who do you have to become in order to achieve your own version of success?
We talk a lot about achieving goals, fulfilling objectives, as we keep our attention turned towards something to happen in the future. Then when we achieve these goals and objectives, we bask in their glory a bit, only to crave more goals to go after. Does that sound like a rat race to you? Because it is…
It occurred to me a few years back that it’s less about WHAT we want to get, than WHO we we were made to become. That it’s really about feeling happier and fulfilled, more than it will ever be about stuff, titles or positions. Nowadays I try to replace as much as possible the question: “What do I have to do today?”, with “Who am I becoming, and what does that require me to do?”.
So yes, I still hang out with this little girl inside of me who used to revel at the sight of these well-dressed, impressive, high-achieving women around her. And I still am tremendously inspired by all the wonderful ladies surrounding me…But what that little girl has started saying instead is: “ You know what, I want to look like ME when I grow up”…
I remember when I first dreamt of studying abroad as I was nearing the end of high school in my native Senegal. Despite being a stellar student and coming from a comfortable middle-class, single parent family, achieving my dream of an elite higher education, especially in the US and without the governmental assistance which had gone missing as I came up, seemed far-fetched. Like most of the intentions I would set in life…
I was always a dreamer. A Big dreamer at that. I guess that would be the predictable outcome of being an only child for the first 10 years of my life and developing too fertile an imagination as a result. But the question always was, where do I start? What do I do with all these big dreams?
As you’re contemplating your own BIG dreams, you may be asking yourself the same question. Where to start? What to build on? In the worst case scenario, or what you may perceive to be the worst case scenario, you may even ask yourself if you’ve got anything to build on. What if your dreams, goals and objectives seem to have nothing to do with your past or current reality? Maybe you have a dream of starting a business yet have no entrepreneurial background, come from a family of conservative bureaucrats and have been raised to be risk-adverse? What if your goal is to be financially free, despite being thousands in debt, not having any financial knowledge, and being your household’s sole provider?
I was ok starting where I was, but where I was did not look much like of a start. At least not in the direction I was aiming to go…Until a dear mentor of mine got me out of my own head and into the vast immensity of Possiblity we often all but ignore…
Any experience is a teacher. Make an inventory of what you’ve learnt
Look around you. Mark Zuckerbeg dropped out of college to start Facebook. Spanx founder Sara Blakely was working as a door-to-door salesperson before starting her multi-million dollar company. Everywhere, high school and college dropouts are starting businesses and changing the world. Moms are creating solutions to daily life problems the savviest of inventors could not come up with People with no formal training in a discipline are revolutionizing fields they had limited exposure to. And how is that happening?
These people are simply starting where they are. They’re gathering their own experience, their own education, personality, intuition and feelings, and drawing questions and answers from these. If you’re a mom, you know how to manage chaos, how to prioritize your tasks, what problems you face and possible solutions to these. You don’t need a formal degree to know these things. It’s part of your DNA. As a writer trained in business and accounting, I’ve gathered years of experience in both fields, to which I can add the fact that I speak different languages, am a mom and a wife, and navigate this world as an introvert. All these various part of my experience and personality make me uniquely skilled to tackle challenges and problems someone else could not.
What do you have in your experience, personality, journey, connections and all areas of your life that you can use? Look at how far you’ve come, and how much you’ve gathered in terms of skills, abilities, and knowledge. This also includes the failures, mishaps and mistakes…
That’s where you start…
Now look at re-purposing all that you’ve acquired
Managing a team at work is quite similar to managing an entire household without missing a beat, which moms do day in and day out. The same skills you may have used selling lemonade in your little stand at 4 or 5, will come in handy when you start your own business. The determination and perseverance you displayed after losing that job is what will keep you going after receiving that 20thletter of rejection from publishers.
It’s in my earliest days, in some of my hardest experiences, when I had no idea what I was doing, that I learnt the most. Those are the days of small beginnings that have taken me this far. When I start doubting my ability to continue, take on a challenge, or pursue my dreams, I go back and remember all that I have learnt. Most of the time, I find that I’ve been through a similar situation, and am able to re-use what I’ve learnt, whether positive or negative. Even failures are there to point me towards what I would rather manifest.
Can you remember experiences, events, skills that you may have buried in the back of your minds that you can re-use to serve your path forward? These do not have to be related to the filed you’re looking into, but can still be used,
Create a plan that is customized to you
The way you achieve your dreams and accomplish your goals and objectives is unique to you. This is precisely because you have been through experiences, accumulated knowledge and skills, and have a one-of-a-kind personality.
This is why there is no point comparing your process to anyone else’s. Your path is uniquely dependent on who YOU are.
