Career Women Coaching

Weary Women Don't Get the Life They Want

Instead of having the freedom to enjoy life, women get weary from all the tasks they think they have to do.

Do you recognize the weary and the whiny?  Do you recogize weary women will often wield their tongue like whips? 

During times when it is most important for women to be well balanced and wise, women may lash out or become aggressive, sullen or unreachable.  This is not what they intended.

Isn't it time women recognize that they are doing too much; too busy, too tired?  As Dr. Phil would say, "How's this working for you?"

If it isn't, then it is time to focus on what is important to you.  Never let the things that matter most be taken over by things that matter least.

Your life is not a dress rehearsal.  Life is the real performance and you need to allow yourself to enjoy the journey.  Shut the door on "superwoman."   Open the door to the life you want.  Several times during the day, ask yourself if what you are doing is the best use of your time and talents.

Stop blaming yourself.  When you fail to get everything done, there is always another day.  Things are never so urgent that you need to put yourself under all that pressure.  Say goodbye to stress by not thinking that every problem you encounter is your responsibility.  Remember, choose what is important and what needs your attention.  Decide what others can do for you, for themselves, and for others.

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time. 

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 

What is Happiness?

"Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by the little advantages that occur every day."  Benjamin Franklin

"I will be happy when..." is the way many people go about living their lives.  Happiness is being aware, not only of the positive events that occur in our lives, but that we have choices in how we respond to unfortunate occurrences such as illness or accidents.

Happiness isn't off in the future. 

It is living in the "now" and loving the moments of our daily experiences.  We form an impression in every business or personal interaction.  In the business world, we don't speak much about the heart.  Yet, the purpose of doing our life's work should come from the heart--since all businesses are ultimately people serving people.  We all need connection, belonging and meaningful contribution.

Happiness isn't something that happens to you. 

Happiness is inside you now.  We are all motivated from within.  You only have to allow happiness to surface.  You can use the power of your thoughts to focus on potentially positive outcomes, instead of potentially negative ones, and change your life.

Math matters when it comes to happiness: H = K x D x L

The Happiness Formula = K (knowing who you are) multiplied by D (discovering your life's work) multiplied by L (learning not to tolerate what's not important).

Source:  An ideal gift for you or your career women friends, employees and business associates.

Just order this self-coaching paperback book, "When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women" Workbook Edition. 

 

Differences Between the Sexes

"You don't have to act like a man to succeed in business for you will always be judged as a woman."  Pat Helm

The differences between men and women are more profound than anybody previously guessed.  Here is what Dr. Leonard Sax, MD, PhD says we now know for sure:

The female brain develops differently.  In women, the language areas of the brain develop before the areas used for spatial relations and for geometry.  In men, it's the other way around.

The female brain is wired differently.  In women, emotion is processed in the same area of the brain that processes language.  So, it's easy for most women to talk about their emotions.  In men, the brain regions involved in talking are separate from the regions involved in feeling.  The hardest question for many men to answer is: "Tell me how you feel."

Men and women respond to stress differently.  Not just in our species, but in every mammal scientists have studied.  Stress enhances learning in males.  The same stress impairs learning in females. 

Interesting isn't it?

Add hormones to the mix and you can readily see the importance of recognizing the differences between men and women, particularly when they are under stress or multi-tasking. 

Recognize that ingrained behaviors can create a "gender gap."  Prefacing your comments, with "I'd just like you to hear me out" or "I just need your help in thinking this through" may help.

Source:   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

Professions and the Pill

Five years after the introduction of the pill in 1960, 41% of "contracepting" women had a prescription, according to The Power of the Pill, a 2002 analysis by Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz.

Today, 4 out of every 5 sexually active women in the U.S. have taken oral contraceptives at some point in their lives.  As birth control became widely available, women began delaying marriage and investing in their education without fear of pregnancy or commitment to abstinence, which led to higher female employment rates and better careers.

Bottom Line: The pill has had a singularly profound effect in advancing women's economic freedom.

Share of U.S. working women in management or professional occupations:

1970 = 19.9%

1980 = 27.4%

2000 = 37.5%

2011 = 51%

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, December 8, 2014

 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time. 

 

Ready for a Career Change?

Nearly one in two (48%) employees believes they are ready right now for a career change, according to a survey by global talent mobility consulting firm Lee Hecht Harrison. The study found that 13% are nearly ready and only 13% are not prepared at all.

Lee Hecht Harrison surveyed 404 employees via an online poll in November and asked: “How prepared are you to make a career change?” The respondents reported:

Ready right now	48%
Nearly ready	13%
Need development	26%
Not prepared at all	13%

“With job creation and wages on the rise, now is looking to many like a good time to find a new job,” noted Jim Greenway, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales Effectiveness for Lee Hecht Harrison. “A New Year always brings a degree of optimism. However, employees need to meet opportunity with preparedness.  An improving job market will increase worker mobility. Employees should reassess their outlook, align skills with gaps in the market or within their company, and prepare to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.”
 
Greenway stated that for many workers, careers aren’t planned, they just happen. 

“Life is too short to be in the wrong career. We spend so much time at work that it needs to be rewarding, stimulating… and I’d even go as far to say—fun!  Have a career plan that sets a vision for where you want to be and know the methods you’ll use to get there.   We coach workers to be proactive in managing their careers—so that when an opportunity presents itself—whether within your current organization or with another employer—they’re ready.”

Right Management’s latest online poll reports 86% of employees in North America plan to seek new career opportunities next year.  Although actual turnover rates are much lower, the poll points to a workforce that is dissatisfied with their careers.

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time.  

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 

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Time Management is Only the Symptom

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time.

We live in a busy, noisy, complex and exciting world: where almost no one has enough time to make and act on their personal choices.  In this 24/7 global economy, feeling frequently rushed and impatient, becoming easily distracted and forgetful can come from environmentally induced attention deficit disorder.

Working effectively, by prioritizing, planning ahead and scheduling without creating a stressful mindset, can be grouped under the heading of time management.

Technology and activity overload tend to be the consequences of living where everybody is trying to do more in less time.  Yet, we must be able to maintain our focus and restore our energy as we bend, stretch and bounce around at work and in our personal life.  We know that if we don't prioritize our life activities, we'll find ourselves spread so thin that we won't have time for those people and things that are important to us. 

Today, we have more timesaving helpers and systems than ever before. So, why isn’t there enough time to juggle all the things we must do in our day?  We have an enhanced quality of life, but we’re also adding to our stress levels by taking on more tasks than we have resources to handle.   There’s a tremendous need for new methods, systems and, above all, habits to keep us on track. 

The outrageous tips we present in this book are geared to help you de-stress, re-energize and channel your time better.   However, the heavy lifting to re-engineer your daily rituals and develop time management habits that work better will be painful while rewarding.  Clarifying your time management intentions and paying daily attention to them must happen before a positive and permanent behavioral change can occur.  

As professional coaches, who help people to live a better life by taking control of their behavior, we know that these outrageous tips are only the beginning in allowing your perceptions to evolve….so you may get to where you want to be in life and at work.

Sources: "When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women" 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time. 

Manage Your Default Behavior

As people become more self-aware, they are usually amazed at the abilities of the conscious mind to choose, handle situations with deliberation, and behave appropriately for different occasions.

On the flip side, the unconscious mind is a powerful force driving our behavior. Within our unconscious lie veiled assumptions and beliefs that formulate what is called default behavior.

The dictionary defines default as the “failure to perform a task or fulfill an obligation,” which means that default behaviors are reactive responses that occur when we fail to consider the appropriate response. 

Becoming aware of our personal reactive tendencies is crucial if we want to make sense of our toxic behaviors, understand why we have permitted these gremlins to continue, and develop a plan for taming them. 

Our attitudes are choices, some of the most important choices we will ever make. Attitudes are reflections of what goes on inside our heads. They affect everything we do—positively or negatively. A negative attitude acts like the accelerator of a car. When we put our pedal to the metal, we learn very quickly that driving can indeed be dangerous to our health and to our career aspirations.

Default behaviors occur when we decide not to act, but to react.  And default behaviors may not represent our best side or our ideal self.

Deciding how best to approach a situation:

Allows us to control impulses and select the most appropriate behaviors.

Shows us how to avoid reacting in negative and potentially self-limiting ways.

Makes us more understanding of others.

Reduces conflict, within ourselves and with others.

Becoming aware of the effect our personality and default tendencies have on the people in our lives helps us engineer better communication and leadership styles.

Source: "When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women" 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

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Google doesn't stress out about work/life balance among its employees: work this meaningful and fulfilling isn't just "work." 

Almost nobody is interested in working a mere forty-hour week.  The Gen Y/Millenials look for meaning in their work.

 Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time.  

 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

Put Your Signature Talents to Work

Look at each talent individually and consider how and when you’ve applied it successfully. Then brainstorm about occasions when you can pull that talent out of your tool kit and put it to work for you and those around you. 

Our advice is to leverage your talents. When problems and challenges arise, mentally refer to your talent list and select which ones you can put into play to help solve the problem. Take time to think that question through—it will save you countless hours and provide you with immense satisfaction. 

When you apply your strengths to the areas and issues that are important in your life, you will automatically adjust your focus toward positive outcomes, not negative ones. 

Knowing who you are and what you do best—and then applying that knowledge—will propel you forward faster than you would think possible. 

Begin by reflecting on your innate signature talents. As you build and develop these talents you will experience a new-found sense of well, being peace, and satisfaction.

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

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Discovering Your Signature Talents

There are a number of ways to identify our signature talents, but let’s start with a journey down Memory Lane. 

Go back in time and trace when and where you’ve felt fulfilled, happy, and accomplished. List the talents you associate with that success. This is not the time for modesty. On this page, you are invited—actually, you are required—to blow your own horn. Celebrate your successes at all stages of your life, and identify what talents and skills were at their base. Feel free to add more lines—or even pages—to this worksheet if you need them. 

My talents:

 

 

Occasionally, this process will bring even greater surprises.

One of the youngest female partners in a Big Five consulting firm had decided to take a general management position in an industrial company to further her career.  Unfortunately, the job didn’t align with her signature talents and she became very uncomfortable about her career path. Through self-assessments, she realized that her results-oriented personality was much more in tune with consulting projects than in a caretaking management role. She decided to return to the path where she had been most comfortable and successful. She now leads teams of consultants. 

Still Unsure? 

To complete your list, ask friends, family members, former employers and employees, and associates to be honest and give you feedback. Then check out on-line resources. Here are a few that will offer valuable help—and a fun and intriguing experience: 

http://www.StrengthsFinder.com 

StandOut Assessment

http://www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com 

http://www.AuthenticHappiness.org 

http://www.HappinessHypothesis.com 

For more reading, go to:

  Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. 

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback 

 

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