Have you ever felt absolutely exhausted, even after getting a full night’s sleep? Do you feel like you can’t quite seem to recharge your batteries, no matter how many #selfcare threads you post on social media? Has the pandemic made it even worse, especially as a working mom juggling working from home, childcare and household chores? Not to mention new COVID strains, vaccine rollouts and an overall stressful “new normal”…
I was recently both surprised and relieved to discover we need more than a full night’s rest to actually recharge. While the common misconception around rest revolves around sleep, it’s a relief to learn there are other ways to recuperate from the strain and stress of daily life, especially as working women and moms during this pandemic.
If you’ve wondered about getting more quality rest, you may want to consider these seven types of rest:
If you happen to constantly juggle a flurry of thoughts in your mind, you may need more than just a good night’s sleep. You may also need some serious mental rest. Developing the habit to take short breaks throughout the day can go a long way toward helping you to recharge mentally.
I’ve learnt to take mental breaks throughout the day, and rewarding myself with a special treat such as a delicious cup of Simplicity tea.
Sensory Rest
If the COVID-19 pandemic has stolen one thing from us, it’s definitely our ability to get as much sensory rest as we need. Working from home and homeschooling kids has forced most of us into a daily habit of staring at screens, thus putting our senses at work constantly. Just allowing ourselves to close our eyes for a few moments every day can help.
After so much time spent in front of electronic devices during the pandemic, I’ve started shutting down and banning all laptops and phones at a specific time every day.
Creative Rest
Creativity is an amazing gift, but it also requires significant amounts of energy, which can leave us depleted and drained. Remembering to take a pause and doing absolutely nothing at times can not only provide us with the creative rest we need, but it can also let ideas marinate and mature.
Sundays are my creative rest days, when I try to do the least possible intellectual work and instead let my brain observe a break.
Emotional Rest
Emotions can be powerful. Yet, most of the time as working women and moms, we’re so accustomed to being strong that we fail to acknowledge the way we feel. As a result, we end up exhausted as we strive to wear a mask of perfectionism and constant self-reliance. Giving ourselves the space and time to take off the “strong woman” mask” and show up in our vulnerable authenticity can go a long way towards helping us feel more rested.
For me, getting some emotional rest has been using therapy as a healing and self-development tool, and allowing myself to rely on a group of trusted friends.
Social Rest
Social life is both fulfilling and draining. This is especially true for working women and moms who act as caretakers, and wear so many social hats. With the advent of social media, our social life has expanded into virtual spaces that pull us down into abysses of extra busyness and over-stimulation. This is where taking a break from social activities and social media is a powerful self-care and healing tool.
As an introvert, the need to take serious social breaks is very real. Cultivating relationships and developing a schedule that welcome these breaks has been key.
Spiritual Rest
Last but not least, we all need to be connected to something larger than us. Something that makes this life meaningful, and provides us with a deeper sense of purpose. As such, it’s crucial that we find time, in the midst of our busy everyday lives, to keep this spiritual connection alive. It may be through a walk in nature, a meditation practice, or just a few minutes of quiet every day.
Prayer is my favorite way to get some much-needed spiritual rest every day. Making it an integral part of my schedule has been instrumental to not losing touch with my spiritual side.
As working women and moms, unexplained exhaustion does not have to be our normal. Instead, better understanding the types of rest we need can help us acquire and practice the right habits to gain our energy, strength and motivation back.
Could you identify with any of the types of rest listed above? What can you do to increase the amount and type of rest you get?
How do you teach confidence when you have to learn it yourself?
How do you show up confidently in your personal life, especially as a mother, when you struggle with confidence in your career?
What do you do to fill up the gap between being your most confident self and teaching your kids to be confident as a working mom?
If you’re a working mom who’s ever struggled with a lack of confidence, you may have asked yourself one, or many, of these questions. You may especially be asking yourself these questions during current times plagued with a global pandemic, social justice and racial discrimination concerns. As a minority mom, modeling self-esteem can be even more of a process, as you’re trying to heal from the trauma of racial events happening across the world.
As a minority working woman, becoming a mom not only exposed me to my own lack of confidence at the time, but also encouraged me to address and work on it. Over the years, it has become a blessing in disguise, as I have had the opportunity to learn more about confidence, so I could in turn teach and pass it on to my own children.
Through my conversations with other working women and moms who have also struggled with confidence in and outside of work, as well as my own experience, here are 7 tips to teach confidence to kids as a working woman, even if you’re working on your confidence:
Be self-aware
Being self-aware is the first step to building and teaching confidence, especially to children. Children can see right through the human façade, which makes it even more important to better know yourself.
Work on your own mental health
Beyond being self-aware, working on one’s mental health and sense of self-esteem is crucial to building, and modeling a growing sense of confidence. From prioritizing self-care to investing in therapy, protecting and enhancing one’s mental health is central to raising confident and healthy children.
Allow your kids to be who they are
Being confident also means accepting yourself as you grow and evolve. It also means teaching our children to be exactly who they are instead of boxing them into an idea of who we want them to be.
Make love and acceptance the center
Modeling love and acceptance by accepting ourselves first, is at the center of educating children into being more confident. Motherhood is a road paved with mistakes, do-overs, failures, but also with incredibly fulfilling and rewarding opportunities to grow, learn and evolve.
Embrace imperfection
Through our own journey of motherhood, imperfection is par for the course. Embracing this imperfection, both on our part and that of our children, is key to passing along the message that the goal is not perfection but progress.
Show don’t tell
We teach our children confidence by modeling it, rather than telling them about. It’s through our actions, more than our words, than kids learn. Doing the work that allows us to show up as our most authentic selves is also the most effective, and powerful, way to teach our children to trust and esteem themselves.
Follow your own motherhood path
As working women often subject to society’s sexist and often antiquated messaging, learning to truly know, appreciate and trust ourselves is a process. It’s one that requires shedding many of the layers of conformism imposed by societal groups and the environments we are exposed to.
Overall, teaching confidence to our children starts with doing the work ourselves, and modeling it in the best way possible, especially when still struggling with it.
How are you managing to teach confidence to kids as a working mom still learning to be confident?
If you’ve ever considered a career change, or have been through one (or many), you may have asked yourself these questions numerous times. You also know that making such a drastic professional and personal decision directly affects your sense of self-esteem and confidence. I know it certainly did for me…
Research statistics show people change careers an average of three to seven times in the course of their lifetimes. While opinions differ as to what constitutes a career change, it remains that any career transition or change is one that can pose challenges and certainly requires a great amount of confidence, especially for working women. Considering the many barriers facing women in the workplace, and the lack of support women often face when displaying confidence at work, mustering the confidence to change careers can seem like an insurmountable feat.
This is especially relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted so many individuals to question and re-consider the purpose of their work. Working moms more specifically, who have had to bear the brunt of the childcare and work crisis, are at the forefront of the career change wave. Recent statistics show 61% of women are planning to change careers after the pandemic. Among these, 60% are planning to completely pivot in their careers, while 25% are turning to entrepreneurship. More than ever, it’s becoming increasingly important to learn to muster the confidence to tackle career changes.
Here are 4 tips that can help:
Be realistic
Any career change is a turning point in anyone’s career, and by extension, in anyone’s life. As a working woman in particular, it can be a significant transition that can bleed into other life areas, including family, finances, marriage and parenting. Being realistic about the seriousness of such a transition, along with the associated costs, sacrifices and obstacles, can go a long way towards minimizing the frustration and difficulties that may come up.
In my experience, every time I’ve had to face a career transition, taking into account the financial aspect of the related change, as well as any logistical requirements, from scheduling to childcare, was key.
Use what you have
Changing careers supposes you already have a career to begin with. In this sense, you’re not starting from scratch, but from valid, worthwhile and solid experience. This experience can in turn be leveraged to facilitate your transition into a new field, company or even industry.
One of the most precious and impactful realizations I made when transitioning careers is that nothing from my prior professional life was wasted. Every single thing I learned in my entire career path served a purpose and prepared me for the next step, whether in terms of what to do or what not to do.
Think in terms of value not credentials
One of the biggest obstacles when it comes to changing careers is often the perceived lack of qualifications or experience. Rather than thinking in terms of credentials, focus instead on the value you bring to your new career, field or industry. Coming from a different path also means you’re bringing in a more diverse perception, view and skillset into your work, thus increasing your value beyond just credentials.
Transitioning careers has allowed me to witness first-hand the power of repurposing one’s skills, knowledge and experience from one area to the other, thus spurring innovation, creativity and renewal in the process.
Bring your passion
Career changes can be extremely rewarding. They can also be hard and demanding. What makes the process more bearable when the going gets tough, is the amount and depth of passion you can bring to the table. That’s also what makes the difference between a successful and a laborious career transition.
For me, passion is the fuel and the salt of work. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to follow the often winding , transitional in nature, road of purpose. It’s also how I recognize whether I’m on the right path or not.
Overall, mustering the confidence to change careers is a process. It is one that requires being aware of the value you bring to the table, leveraging what you’ve already accomplished, arming yourself with passion, but also being sober and realistic about the challenges ahead. Yet, it is a process that in and of itself, offers the invaluable rewards of positive re-direction, enhanced innovation and continued resilience.
Are you mustering enough confidence to change careers?
Have you ever wondered if you’d ever had to choose between motherhood and your career? If you’d ever had to roll the dice to decide of the best time to have the baby, or go for the promotion, or even change career paths to have more flexibility? Like many, if not most working mothers, you may have had to ask yourself these harsh, heart-wrenching questions. If you have, then you may have very well deal with the proverbial motherhood penalty. I know as a working mom, I certainly have…
In honor of International Women’s Day this year, I’m shining the light on the motherhood penalty, or the high, and highly unfair price working moms have to pay to simply be…well, working mothers. Now more than ever, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, women are having to bear the burden of being both caregiver and having full-time jobs. In addition, they’re also faced with escalating childcare costs, limited maternity leave, and general caregiving costs that keep climbing as time goes by. As a result of the worsening of these conditions through the pandemic, too many working moms have had to drop out of the workforce, at a record tune of 2.2 million women leaving their careers in 2020.
In this context, I’m honored to partner with the Mirza platform, dedicated to educating and empowering working parents around the cost of raising families. In a survey conducted last month, Mirza found 73% of women thought having a child would hold them back in their careers. Furthermore, Mirza just released a research study entitled Rolling the Dice: Breaking Down the Motherhood Penalty. This research is based on a 2018 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, accurately titled Still a Man’s Labor Market, which investigated the gender pay gap over 15 years for the same men and women. By using a multi-year analysis, Mirza’s study found women actually earn $0.49 for every $1 that men make. Women who only took one year out of the workforce over this 15 year span saw their earnings dip 39% lower than women who worked straight through. This study confirms that women are literally rolling the dice professionally and biologically, at times having to start businesses or delay motherhood, which in and of itself can be a significant gamble.
To discuss the motherhood penalty in more depth, I’ve had the pleasure to interview Mel Faxon and Siran Can, co-founders of the Mirza Platform, on their journey creating the platform and their thoughts on the motherhood penalty:
Can you tell us about yourselves in terms of your professional background?
Mel: I am what you might call a “jack of all trades.” I graduated with a French and Foreign Affairs degree from UVA. I started out working in sports marketing, moved to a travel startup in Barcelona, worked at a James Beard award winning restaurant in Boston, worked for an EdTech startup in Denver, then was at a luxury travel startup for a few years before moving to London to get my MBA at London Business School. I’ve done sales, product management, process improvement, portfolio management, events, marketing – that’s the beauty of working in startups! You always get to do more than your job description and it’s a fantastic way to learn.
Siran: I was a Gender Studies major at Harvard and had expected to go into academia or nonprofit, but wanted to get some “real world” experience to bring to my work. What started as a short skills pursuit, learning management and operations, turned into a career. I built the driver support organization for Uber in New York and oversaw the support business for the US Northeast, was loving it, then life got in the way. My husband’s job moved us to London, where I got my Master’s in Social Business & Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics. Hopefully Mirza is bringing it full circle now: integrating the work I wanted to do in women’s empowerment with the work I’ve enjoyed so much in my career.
2. What prompted you to start Mirza?
We are both of the Millennial generation of women, who have grown up being taught that “women can have it all.” But we’re also in a place where experts are projecting that it will take us another 108 years to achieve gender equality. Last January, we were talking about the obstacles that we and other women we know have faced, and really came down to “how can we be part of the solution?”
Our research brought us to the fact that the motherhood penalty is the leading cause of the gender pay gap, and after speaking with over 100 women, we realized just how much of a lack of resources there are around financial and career planning with this lens. By providing a tool for all parents, we are involving men – and that’s essential for actually changing things. We can’t keep continuing to put the onus on women to change things that are out of their control.
3. Motherhood penalty is the lesser known part of the wage gap. Can you tell us what the biggest issue with it is, and how it worsens the wage gap?
Absolutely! The motherhood penalty, or the steep decline in earnings a woman sees when she has a child, makes up 80% of the gender pay gap. What causes the motherhood penalty? A couple of things. The fact that we only offer maternity leave, instead of parental leave, so women default as the parent who takes time out of the workforce, and that compounds into huge financial losses in the long term. Women who took only one year out of the workforce earn 39% less than women who continue working straight through. We also don’t have PAID parental leave, so that’s a huge contributor. Infant care is also more expensive than public college in 33 states, so that financial strain on families tends to force one parent (usually the birth parent) to stay out of returning to work longer. Lastly, we still have a lot of cultural norms to overcome. The nuclear family dynamic is INGRAINED into the American psyche, and until we can get men on board to split parenting duties and household responsibilities equally, there’s only so much that structural change can do.
4. Would you agree the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the motherhood penalty? If so, how much and do you think we can recover?
Unfortunately, yes. Studies are showing that we’ve lost 30 years in progress towards gender equality. And studies are also showing just how hard women have been hit during COVID. 17% of working moms quit during the pandemic, and 1 in 4 of those still working plan to quit or downshift due to childcare needs.
The childcare piece is a key factor; so many centers were forced to close during the pandemic, and many of them closed permanently. Working parents are struggling to work, parent, and homeschool all at the same time – it’s why we’re seeing countless articles on burnout. The New York Times did a great series called The Primal Scream that really encapsulates this.
We’re facing the first “she-cession” and unless we pass litigation geared towards helping working moms and working parents, I don’t know how we do recover fully. Biden has proposed 12 weeks of paid parental leave, universal child care for three and four year olds and sliding scale childcare subsidies – we fully support this! But we need everyone to lobby behind it and get these proposals passed.
5. What were your findings in your research study entitled “Rolling the Dice: Breaking Down the Motherhood Penalty”?
So while we didn’t do our own research in this paper, we broke down and analyzed previously done studies to explain the motherhood penalty and the ramifications of delaying children. A 2020 study by Modern Fertility found that 49% of respondents were delaying having children, with many of them wanting to hit a certain milestone in their career – salary or level – before kids.
The main study we analyzed, by Liana Christin Landivar in 2020, was on the motherhood gap and first birth timing. The key takeaway is that for a select few, high wage, white-collar jobs, delaying children actually CAN help mitigate the motherhood penalty. However, for the majority of women, delaying children can actually cause more of a penalty. We flushed out the variance for four different professions, or the loss over a career of income based on delaying a child versus having one early.
We also wanted to highlight that while delaying a family can sometimes help professionally, it can also come with a very high physical cost. Our bodies are still made to have kids earlier, and the physical, mental, and financial toll of IVF is a serious side-effect of delaying.
At the end of the day, the most important thing to know is that this gamble women are making is NOT the answer. The answer lies in the structural changes we’ve already mentioned, and increasing labor force affiliation (i.e. telling women that it’s ok to love working).
6. How is Mirza helping working moms and working parents in general deal with the motherhood penalty and the wage gap in general?
Our app democratizes financial planning, the way it should be done: helping employees explore long term financial and family goals, with the compounding impact of years out of the workforce in mind. Parents access affordable childcare through our financial vehicle innovation (still in stealth mode!), and paired with our app to guide maximizing this new vehicle, unlock long term financial health.
On an individual level, by facilitating conversations between couples, we can help couples understand the long term impacts of their decisions around growing their family. We can help them visualize childcare, parental leave, and other decisions together, rather than defaulting to the birth parent taking time out of work/being the primary caregiver.
On an employer level, we can provide essential data to help improve retention of working parents as well as to help improve workplace policies for parents.
7. What is your best advice for working moms out there who may be afraid of rolling the dice between motherhood and career?
Remember that you and your partner are a team! Reframe the mentality that “it would cost more than my salary after tax to pay for childcare.” You have a household income, and you both contribute to childcare
Take the time to sit down and go through your values, career goals, life goals, on your own, then talk to your partner and build a plan to support each other as you grow your family. We made a great guide for this
Plan ahead! The motherhood penalty is real, but having plans with your partner around who takes leave when, your childcare plan, and a plan with your employer BEFORE you take leave is essential. We’ve also made a great guide for that, here
Talk to someone! We’ve built a community for parents, Mirza Connects, specifically for this – the ability to chat with other working parents about how they’ve navigated the same things. Your readers can join (for free!) here
It was such a pleasure learning more about the Mirza platform and its co-founders Mel Faxon and Siran Cao. For more information on the astounding and so necessary work they do, please visit Mirza and access their research report on Rolling the Dice: Breaking Down the Motherhood Penalty.
Growing up, I used to hear from the women around never to put all my eggs in one basket. At the time, they were referring more to my predilection for sky high, uncomfortable heels. While I recently (finally) started investing in sensible shoes, the advice still holds true, whether it’s diversifying stock portfolios or career choices. Diversifying your career opportunities like you diversify your stock portfolio is not only possible; but it’s also a great alternative to staying stuck in one field, instead affording you the opportunity to expand your knowledge, experience, network , and…streams of income too.
I didn’t consider the possibility of diversifying career opportunities until following some of my favorite business ladies and influencers on social media. Yet, the theme of career diversification has been quite prevalent for quite some time. In an age characterized by utter uncertainty and latent unpredictability, career changes and transitions have become the norm rather than the exception, as shown by research from the U.S. Census Bureau. Stemming from the need to establish multiple income sources and enhanced financial and professional security, career diversification appears to be one of the smartest professional decisions to make.
Here are 7 avenues to consider when diversifying your career:
1- Consulting
Can you serve as a consultant in your area of expertise, or a side area in which you may have developed substantial skills and knowledge? A consultant is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as “one who gives professional advice or services”. Depending on your field of expertise, being a consultant may require a professional certification or specialized skills. In most cases however, if you are qualified, like to network, and are organized and efficient enough to manage a clientele, consulting may just be for you.
2- Blogging in your field of expertise or a related one
Blogging basically consists in the production of media self-published online, whether it’s writing, journalism or photography. While it started more or less as diary-style entries published by individuals, it quickly grew into one of the main marketing and advertising tools used by entrepreneurs and businesses alike. Starting a blog is an inexpensive and potentially highly effective way to share information and resources around the area of expertise of your choice, opening the door to diversifying your career in a unique and authentic way.
3- Speaking:
Expanding your area of expertise into a speaking business can establish you as an authority in your field, and earn you additional income and professional opportunities. Serving as a speaker in a particular area requires honing your public speaking skills, gaining substantial expertise and experience in said area, and establishing a solid and trusting client base.
4-Teaching:
Turning your skills into teaching opportunities, whether in formal roles as adjunct professors, tutors or teachers, or into educational businesses and opportunities, is quite rewarding. Not only does it give you the opportunity to give back, but it can also create unsuspected outlets of creativity and innovation.
5- Side hustle:
A side hustle can take many forms. It could be putting a hobby into actual business practice, or leveraging one’s expertise or profession into an alternative source of income. Side hustling has become quite common in most recent years, with the advent of the freelance economy and the rise of entrepreneurship globally. While it requires an additional investment of time, energy and resources outside of your full-time job, it also has the potential of turning into an unlimited supply of income, innovation and creativity.
6- Writing books:
Another common way of diversifying your career is to leverage your knowledge and skills into books. With the rise of self-publishing, , it has become much more common to break into the literary industry and make a name for oneself. In addition, the self-help and advice industry has also been trending upwards, making room for more publishing by experts.
7- Creating products related to your area of expertise:
Last but not least, using your knowledge and insights to create products in your industry is also a valuable way to expand your career opportunities. From simple merchandise such as home and office accessories to more complex products, sky is the limit when it comes to creating consumer and business products.
All in all, we’re living in an age where career diversification is no longer taboo. Women especially have been at the helm of the rise in entrepreneurship, and as such, have been demonstrating the rewards and benefits of diversifying one’s career. From consulting to creating products, not to mention book writing, side hustles, teaching, speaking and blogging, opportunities are numerous.
