Women - just get on with it.
This was something that a potential client said to me recently. She’s feeling stuck in her current career, and with three children, she’s exhausted, has lost motivation and is wondering if she needs a career change. Or maybe, she just needs to get on with it?
The cycle of just ‘getting on with it’
It struck me that so many women end up ‘getting on with it’ in a variety of situations. Either because they’re worried about the impact on the people around them if they stop ‘getting on with it’ or because they haven’t, frankly, got the energy to do something new. And what would they do anyway? And so they loop back to just ‘getting on with it’.
The feeling of stuck-ness
When people are stuck, they are stuck for a reason. It’s just that in the midst of a busy life of working and parenting, they don’t have time to stop and ask themselves the right questions and to figure out where their feeling of stuck-ness is coming from and what it is that needs to change.
Maybe they just need some friends, a cup of tea and some space to explore their thoughts and feelings. Or maybe they need someone who can ask the questions they don’t want to ask. Someone who can hold up the mirror and who can really push them to examine the bits in their life that need to change. As mothers, we are so used to putting our families above our own needs. And as women, we are masters at carrying on regardless (Beautiful South for anyone who is my age-ish!).
Women’s priorities often change once they are parents. For some they become more ambitious, for some they want less of a challenge. For some they want to be at home more, for others they want to take over the world, which means being away from home more. None of these things is right or wrong. But working out what your priorities are is a good starting point for what comes next. If you want to be at home more and more present with your kids, taking on a role that pushes you really hard and takes you away from home probably isn’t the right path for you. But what if the job you’ve always had; the job you are returning to isn’t right anymore? It’s one thing to turn down a new opportunity because of your new priorities, but it’s another thing to walk away from something you know, that you’re good at and that you’ve done forever.
Stuck in the loop of ‘perhaps’
Loss of confidence, doubt that you can do something else, overwhelm at the thought of finding the new ‘thing’, are all things that keep women stuck in the loop of ‘perhaps I just need to get on with it’. And then we get angry with ourselves for our lack of motivation to do the things we need to do to ‘get on with it’ and so the cycle of frustration and stuck-ness continues. Is it any wonder that 28% of women end up leaving the workplace? But even then the feeling of being stuck doesn’t go away. It just takes on a new shape and becomes a pressure to find a new path or direction.
The power of coaching
Coaching at any point in this journey can help women to hit the mental pause button and to have some support as they navigate these feelings of doubt, loss of identity and lack of motivation. Trying to solve a complex problem on your own is a big ask. Solving it with someone who can challenge, support, push, hold back and even offer up thoughts you’ve not considered is much more productive. Being willing to get it wrong is also crucial – making a change doesn’t always work out first time, but it gives you more information about what you do and don’t want.
So if you find yourself feeling stuck and want to stop just ‘getting on with it’, give me a call. I’d be happy to explore how we could work together.
