Careers
Back To Work
Motivating yourself to go back to work
As in all things, we women are a varied bunch and none more so when it comes to the issue of going back to work. It is common to think that women return to work for strictly financial reasons and, it’s true, this is often the main motivator. But it isn’t quite as simple as that and if YOU are at this point in your life, there are many questions to ask yourself to help you make the right decision.
Why do women go back to work?
Let’s face it, very few people work just for love; most of us need some income in order to pay the rent, clothe the children, feed the cats and so on. So let’s take it as read that one of the motivators will probably be financial. What other reasons could there be? Well, lots actually! It may be that you left your job in order to have your family and would now like to return to your career and advance in the corporate world. You might want to get back to the responsibility you had in the old days. Perhaps you’ve been trying something different but now wish to return to your ‘first love’. Or you might want to try something completely new; you might want to try out some new skills you have acquired.
And how about escaping from the kids? I was on the ‘phone coaching a woman the other day at 9am and asked her if she was comfortable and ready to go ahead with the session. She breathed a deep sigh of relief and said that this was the very best time of day for her as she had got her husband off to work and the children off to school, had arrived at work and was sitting down with her first cup of coffee of the day. “I know it’s awful” she explained “but I’m just so relieved to be able to be at work, away from the family and to be ME for a few hours!” There is nothing “awful” about this of course; it is understandable and if this has happened to you, you will empathise! Sometimes we are so busy being Mum, Wife, Daughter, Partner, Big Sister, Friend or whoever that we find it hard to be ourselves or even remember who that person is. So going back to work can be a means of getting your own identity back or a means of creating a new one.
The importance is to be clear about your motivation, and be honest, at least with yourself, about it.
How do you feel about this decision?
You will probably have a myriad of feelings and knowing women (we are so hard on ourselves), the first ones will probably be negative: guilt, apprehension/fear, selfishness, lacking confidence, resentment (perhaps you don’t really want to go back to work?). Maybe you can even think of one or two positives: excitement, relief, anticipation…
If your ‘self talk’ is negative, you are setting out on a hard road. You know the sort of things we say to ourselves "I’ll never find anything" "I’m out of touch’ “I’m too old’ “I don’t have the same qualifications as everyone else” “I can’t do that" "I don’t have enough experience" and so on; you get the idea! Don’t talk yourself out of the job before you go for the interview!!
I’ll be coming back to this in a future article but for now, try really hard to see the positive things you CAN offer and do some work on your negative feelings. Take the heat out by acknowledging them to yourself (and maybe others), for instance "I’m going to feel guilty at not being a stay-at-home mum anymore but I am a sensible, reliable and mature candidate and I’ll make sure that my children won’t miss out” or “I feel selfish that I won’t be able to pop in on my mum so often but I’ll explain to her how important it is for me to get back into my old field of work again and I’ll make sure I organise a rota of lovely people who can help her during the day if need be.”
What do you ideally want to do?
Just as we’re good at putting ourselves down, we are also good at settling for second best! For once, take charge and DREAM! Write down every aspect of your ideal job, you could even write the perfect job description for your perfect job. Start with the ideal and only then move onto possible compromise areas.
Review your criteria – is it more important that you work within easy reach of your children’s school or that you get school holidays off (or both)? Is it more important that you work for a small company that specialises in your line of work rather than work for a multinational where there are lots of promotion prospects?
Make a list of your ‘bottom line’ in pay, distance from home, hours of work, sector, training opportunities, autonomy, level of responsibility and any other aspect that is important to you and decide how far you’re prepared to compromise. Prioritise each aspect; give it 10 if it is ‘must have’ down to a 1 if it is a ‘could do without’. Don’t miss out this step by falling in to the trap of “I’ve always known what I want”. As we mature and experience more of life, the things we want change also; as you identify and prioritise your criteria, you will probably find they are rather different now from those you had when you were 21.
Once you have the bottom line, you can start looking around to see what’s available. Even then don’t be too quick to compromise too much and think laterally. You might really want to stay at home but need to earn some money so rather than force yourself to go out and get work, find out if there is any home working you could do to earn your minimum salary, or is there an idea you can turn in to a money making venture. There are many stories of highly successful businesses which were started by women from home using the internet and just grew and grew!
Get yourself organised
Either before you start looking or soon after, make sure you get organised so that your life becomes as easy as possible. When you go back to work, things will change and hopefully all for the better but it might take a little while for those around you to get accustomed to the change. Accept the fact that YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING –housework, children’s homework, voluntary work, see friends, go shopping AND work! Most women have been brought up to aspire to Superwoman-hood but it just isn’t practical so accept it, don’t feel guilty and move on!
I’m sure if you have children or caring responsibilities that you have already thought about what you need to do to ensure care whilst you are at work. What will you do when the teachers go on strike? What happens during the period of convalescence following your dad’s operation? You’ve probably already got a strategy sorted out or started to think about it. Many of us are here in the south of France without the network of helpers (grandparents etc) who could baby sit or be called on in a crisis, so it is more difficult and thus needs more organising.
Generally the practical housekeeping issues cause problems for many women. You may need to negotiate some help in the house and it’s better to involve your partner from the outset in this and not wait until 2 months after starting the job and finding you can’t cope! Think about your household chores, are they all strictly necessary? I’m currently coaching a woman who methodically worked through a list of her daily housework tasks to see what could be eliminated altogether and which could be left 'til the weekend; you might like to try it! You may decide that the things you did in the house up to now are not so important. Your partner may decide that it’s a good idea for you to employ a cleaner to take on the chores; I have seen this happen more than once and it works really well! I even know some women who have gone back to work because they needed the stimulation of working but only just earned enough to pay the cleaner and not much more, but they were fulfilled and happy and became much more satisfied human beings. If you don’t want to pay out money for someone else to clean your house, then maybe you can swap a skill with someone else. To save yourself time shopping, you might want to spend the 5 euros delivery charge or whatever it is, to benefit from shopping online. Look out for other opportunities to get your life organised the way you want it.
What to do next?
So you’re clear on your motivation for going back to work, you’ve decided on your ideal job, you’ve dealt with your feelings, organised your nearest and dearest and you’re ready to go. What next? Again we’ll look at job seeking in another article but let’s just brainstorm a few ideas. You could:
- Check out the specialist press in your job field
- Join LinkedIn or a similar networking site to see if there are people you could contact ‘on spec’
- Write to your ideal company to propose yourself
- Register with on-line vacancy sites
- Go to the ANPE ( employment agency)
- Find out about and attend networking evenings
- Post your CV on a job websites
- Work on a great CV
- Tell everyone you know what you are looking for
- Read the ads daily and start applying
Complete this Returning to Work checklist to help your thinking:
Returning to work checklist
- Why do you want to return to work? Primary reasons & secondary reasons
- How do you feel about this? How will you turn these feelings into positive ones?
- What is your ‘self talk’ about going back to work?
- What do you ideally want? Sector, Level, Location, Hours per week, Day of the week, Pay? How far are you prepared to compromise this ideal?
- What needs to be taken care of before you start looking? What organisation do you need to do?
- List at least 5 things you’re going to do to find the ideal job and when you’ll do them. Then DO them!
GOOD LUCK!
Kate Cobb
04 93 20 68 94
www.executive-onlinecoaching.com
Look forward to Kate's next business article - Planning a Career Path.