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What Working Moms Really Want

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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If I could write a letter to Santa for Mother’s Day on behalf of all moms out there, I’d ask for just these ten things:

1.  An end to the “mommy wars” and universal gratitude for the moms who’ve opted for full-time parenting, because without them there would be no Teacher Appreciation Days, no booster clubs, no cookie sales, no field trips (duh, no chaperones), no one to take an aging mother to the doctor, and no rides home when a neighborhood kid misses the late bus.

2.  A boss who values quality over quantity, and who understands that someone who gets all of her work done in six hours might just be hugely efficient and smart, rather than underemployed and, therefore, overpaid.

3.  Co-workers who support a mom’s priorities, such as getting to the game before kick-off, or being assistant Girl Scout leader, rather than begrudging her the “time off”. [see the quality vs. quantity idea above]

4.  HR professionals who see an employment gap as something to be lauded and praised, rather than as a bar to career advancement.

5.  A supportive and true partner who sees socks that need picking up, and picks them up; who cooks regularly; who cleans without prompting; who changes diapers; who fetches a teenager who calls from a party after midnight; who thinks the mom in the house is the most amazing, gorgeous woman on the planet. And tells her so. Frequently.

6.  Equal pay for equal work.

7.  Sensible yet stylish shoes that can go from pre-school drop off to the office and on to evening ballet lessons without prompting bunions, callouses or plantar fasciitis. [dreaming big here]

8.  Girlfriends who support the mom-part of their friends, and who willingly allow children to call them “Aunt”.

9.  Space and time for moms to learn, grow, rest and rejuvenate. Space and time for them to receive as an antidote for all the giving they do.

10.  A communal sense of pride, meaning and purpose in the life of a mother, who manages to work/start a business/run a family/bake cupcakes at the last minute/smile/love/find the shoes/plan the summer camp schedule, and do it with grace (most of the time), flair (some of the time) and true genuine caring (always).

Yes, it’s Mother’s Day, but you can play Santa by simply checking off one or two of these items for the mom in your life – and you might want to start with the picking up the socks thing.

You can trust me on that one.

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The Roots of Shame

April 29, 2012 By 6 Comments
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Let me throw some stats at you:

The average American woman stands five foot four and weighs 164.7 pounds. She wears a size 14. Her waist measures 37 inches.

The average American man stands five foot nine and weighs 195 pounds. He wears a size 44. His waist measures nearly 40 inches. (CDC stats)

And,

The recent economic downturn hit men harder than women. Forbes says, “The share of men in the United States with a job is at its lowest point ever.” And forty percent of working wives are the family breadwinner according to the Chicago Tribune.

Now, allow me to pull in some other interesting data for your perusal. According to research at Boston College, the accepted societal norms for women are to be:

Nice.

Thin.

Modest.

Use all available resources on her appearance.

Men are supposed to:

Be in emotional control.

Put work first.

Pursue status.

Be violent.

I learned this from a powerful and straightforward new TED talk by Dr. Brene Brown on the subject of shame, and vulnerability.

What got me thinking while viewing Dr. Brown’s new talk is the wide gap between what we expect ourselves to be and who we really are.

Women should be thin – but the reality is that most of us are not a size zero.

Men should put work first, and pursue status, but the recent recession put more men out of work than ever before. Hard to put something first when you don’t have it, huh?

Women should be modest, which I figure means quiet, self-effacing and non-confrontational. Exactly the recipe for career success, don’t you think?

And speaking of time, what working mom has the time or energy to put all available resources on her appearance? I don’t know about you but I find it’s easy to spend money on my kids’ clothes, shoes, haircuts, dermatologists, orthodontists and dentists, and if there’s any money left maybe I’ll get myself a new t-shirt on sale at Target. Maybe.

Yes, the gap between who society says we should be and who we are is often quite large.

And it’s right in the gap that shame nestles.

Shame keeps us a far distance from feeling real happiness and fulfillment. Because it’s shame that says, “There is something profoundly, critically wrong with you. You should be different than you are. ”

[There's that word again - Should.]

You all know I have no fondness for that particular word. Because The Word That Must Not Be Named usually comes from an external source, and often is in conflict with what’s truly best for us.

“You should be a doctor.” says your father, even if you have it in your heart and hands to be a glassblower.

“You should be thin if you ever want to catch a husband,” says your mother, even if she’s heavy herself. And her sisters are heavy. And her mother was heavy.[ And they're all married, btw.]

If shame has roots in the conflict between what’s expected and what’s real, then shoulds are its potting soil.

Now, here’s what I know – if you can break the Should Habit, you’ve got a shot at breaking the round-and-round shame circle.

And it’s easy. Stop shoulds by simply substituting a wonderful word – choose.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that happy, outspoken size 14 bread-winning woman that you are.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that fantastic at-home dad whose size 44 suits found a new home at Goodwill.

Without shoulds, you can be you. Finally. Without any shame.

That’s what I choose. How about you?

 

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 6 Comments

“Is It Fun?”

January 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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A few months ago, I made a commitment to myself to start doing the Washington Post crossword every morning. I thought it would be good for my brain, and to up the ante, I made a few rules.

You know me: Michele Woodward, Rules Girl [when you know the rules, you also know how to bend them. I am just saying.]. Here are my crossword puzzle rules:

Rule 1:  Use only pen.

Rule 2:  Take only 15 minutes.

Rule 3:  If I’m not done in 15 minutes, drop it.

Five times out of six, I complete the puzzle under the rules. Which is surprisingly fulfilling. Ups my general Happy Quotient, if you want to know the truth.

And, there are one or two things I have learned from this exercise:

A. My intuition about a word is almost always right (except the other day, when the clue was “John Paul II, e.g.”  I wrote “POPE” when the answer turned out to be “POLE”. Ah, well.)

B. Sometimes an Across word is best solved by looking at the Down words that make it up

C. Challenges can be fun

That’s right, fun.  Look at me – I used the f-word.

Maybe you were raised with that wonderful work ethic that says “anything worth doing has to be hard”, which leads quite handily toward “work is hard, fun is frivolous; ergo, no fun for you, bucko”.

So you equate fun with anything but work.

Fun is tubing down the river with a cooler of beer trailing behind you.

Fun is a yo-yo tournament.

Fun is running a marathon (except for that pesky mile 21 where everything gets a little wobbly and you wonder where the fun is. The fun comes at mile 26.375, baby).

Work is a grind. Work is hyper-competitive. Work is eat-what-you-kill, dog-eat-dog, scarcity thinking writ large.

Fun and work, therefore, can never be equal.

But maybe think about it this way: work is just a challenge.

And crossword puzzles are challenges, right?

And some challenges can be fun and rewarding, and even fulfilling.

Especially if you know the rules and work within them. Kinda.

So, if my math is right, work can be fun and fulfilling if you turn the grind into a a kind of game, and you create some rules for yourself – rules you stick to.

[You may have heard of this idea of rules before. We also call these "boundaries".]

Such as:  “I will not work on weekends.”

“I won’t waste a minute in malicious office gossip.”

“If something doesn’t go my way, I will drop it and move on rather than obsess, stew and fret.”

These are just some of mine. Just like using a pen to complete the crossword in less than 15 minutes.

You have a choice, too. You can make your own rules.

Really.

Start by asking yourself, “Is this thing I’m doing fun?” And if the answer is no, then figure out a way to make it fun. Make it a game.

Your game.

And I’m thinking you’re going to win because you made up the rules.

You winner, you.

 

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Listen

January 8, 2012 By 6 Comments
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I believe that listening well is the greatest honor you can pay another person.

When you listen, you tell another person that you value them. That you respect them. That they matter.

And if you are someone who needs to work with other people to get things done, then there is no better way to lead than to listen.

This is true in the workplace, and it’s true with toddlers.

I imagine you’ve heard of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, haven’t you? Probably no surprise to you – I only really like two and a half of the habits.

The one I half-like is “Sharpen The Saw”, which in principle – to continually learn – I am totally on board with. “Sharpen” and “Saw” strike me as a little too chest-thumping lumberjacky macho macho.

That being said, another I really like is “Start With The End In Mind”, which is all about vision – vitally important.

But the best habit is: “Seek First to Understand, Then To Be Understood” which is a succinct endorsement of the power of listening.

Listen first, understand what the other person is saying, and then say what you need to say.

Sounds easy.  Can sometimes be hard.

Let’s make it easier with just a few tips:

  1. Turn off the phone
  2. Stop texting
  3. Do not check your email
  4. Move to another room if you can’t pretend the game is not on
  5. Let the other person have uninterrupted space to say what needs to be said
  6. Make eye contact
  7. Repeat or rephrase what you’ve heard – this is called “Active Listening”
  8. Ask if you’ve understood their point or argument
  9. Clarify as needed
  10. Now, say what you want to say -without judgment and ego

It’s that last bit that makes most of us grind our teeth. Having a staff person tell you what’s wrong with the roll-out may feel like a challenge to your expertise or planning skills or authority, but unless you’re Steve Jobs you might want to listen in case the kid has a point. Could save you some time and money. And maybe even guarantee the success you’re aiming for.

Plus, that kid could end up being the next Steve Jobs – wouldn’t it be cool to have been his mentor?

Even if the listening you’re doing is with your child who is telling you something you’d rather not hear – and, trust me, if you have a teenager this happens frequently – separating what is being said from your own ego is key to building a stronger relationship.

Which is the point, right?

In this fast-paced, go-go-go, multi-media, multi-input, multi-stimulus world, taking time out of time to really listen can shift a relationship from superficial to rich. And results from ho-hum to amazing.

Real, connected listening builds respect, which – in my opinion – we could use a lot more of in this world of ours.

So, ready?  It’s time to listen up.

 

 

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 6 Comments

Be It Resolved

December 31, 2011 By 2 Comments
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WHEREAS, 2011 was a bad year for tyrants, terrorists and repressive regimes around the world; and,

WHEREAS, sometimes offices and workplace settings can mimic authoritative empires; and,

WHEREAS, the world of work has radically changed, making it even more important for you to see yourself as fully in charge of your career and future; and,

WHEREAS, the thing that has often challenged you is being a good enough advocate for yourself; and,

WHEREAS, you might also just be a little bit of a people-pleaser, which only means something you learned at one time in your life no longer suits you at this point; and,

WHEREAS, breaking a life-long habit can be a big challenge; and,

WHEREAS, you know breaking that habit is the only way to get ahead and live the life you envision; and,

WHEREAS, surprisingly enough, you can easily get all the help and support you need to make this change simply by asking people you trust to give you a hand,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that you will begin to shift your situation by taking small steps to learn be the self-mentor, self-advocate, self-champion you need to be

  1. You will say no, and
  2. You will honor your own preferences and assert them appropriately, and
  3. You will take the risks required to grow, even if they feel way too big, and
  4. You will not be afraid to be a person of integrity and authenticity, and
  5. You will find that by doing so you will actively move to reduce your stress, and
  6. You will stop feeling like you continually lose.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that you will stand up to office bullies and authoritarian tyrants, armed with integrity, confidence, candor and focus, thereby giving yourself the relief you deserve, and the kind of life you want.

RATIFIED BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT this 1st day of January, 2012.

[Your signature here]

 

 

 

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