Working Moms and Problems They Face

Eternal Struggles of Working Moms

Switching from a big company to a series of startups can be intimidating. After getting to know the company culture, it did not feel as bad as I thought, and I could adapt much quicker. However, with everything changing at a fast-changing pace, I felt more and more stressed. Amidst the Covid-19, I felt the most overstretched because I was getting used to the remote working environment, whereby I found myself working 12 - 13 hours a day. What added to that was having two kids at home 一 aged 3 and 6 years old. Being a working mom, I felt guilty a lot of the time for not being able to give proper quality time to my kids.

Ways to Overcome Such Challenges

Have a Coach:

I had a coach who helped me during these times. She helped me establish my mindset, starting from how I needed to take care of myself to put thoughts into what was most important to me. Of course, family is essential, and work is equally important, but I needed to set some boundaries.

Dedicated Time for Everything:

I started setting dedicated times for my well-being, work, and my family. I found this very effective because if I woke up early, I could have some time to do some exercise that made my whole day very energetic. Then when I sat down for work, I focused entirely on work, only to shut down everything by 5 - 6 pm. Such a routine helped me address my stress and deal with different scenarios.

Dealing with Emotional Agility:

Sometimes I found myself getting hooked, and it added a lot of anxiety, unnecessary worry, and other kinds of negative emotions that held me back from moving forward. Working with my coach, I found out that it’s actually imperative to deal with these kinds of negative emotions as soon as possible. Without coping with those emotions, I wasn’t able to be productive.

Lessons learned

• The best way to be productive is by bringing inner peace to yourself. Before you do anything else, first take care of yourself, and your well-being and everything else will fall into place.
• Set clear goals for yourself, and try to think about what you want to achieve. The biggest mistake that most people make is not being sure about what they are looking for.