Are You A Worn Out Woman?

The women I speak to and read about often say that they feel overwhelmed with their lives. Career, kids, partner, home. Where is the time for me they ask? But is this question really a call for change or is it a rhetorical question?

Could it be similar to the way many women respond to perimenopause issues? In the fall of 2007 a local retailer of women's clothes called me. She told me she advertised a menopause support group in the newspaper so she could share what she had learned and help other women. But not one woman replied to her ad! She just couldn't understand it because women were constantly speaking to her in the store about their issues. (This didn't surprise me at all as women had not responded to my call to Embrace the journey of menopause, but that's a story for another time).

We concluded (and I know this is a simplistic analysis), that (some) women wanted to complain about what was happening to them but not initiate change. Is it the same with feeling worn out?
How we blend our personal and work lives is a matter of choices. I'm not saying it's easy. I am saying that it's imperative that we give this subject careful thought. Because there are only so many hours in the day. And one woman has only so much energy to go around.

Where is it written that we must succumb to a grueling, joyless schedule? Is it true that women must put everyone else's needs before their own? (think boss, coworkers, kids, partner, service clubs, church, etc.).

Listing everything we are doing in our personal and work lives along with amount of time spent on it and carefully examining the items may yield surprising results. If you want to take it one step further, quickly, without monitoring, rate each item from+10 down to -10 (with +10 being 'I love it'; and -10 'yuk!'). With your lowest-numbered items you have 3 choices:
* Don't do them at all
* Do them for shorter time periods or
* Do them less often

This clever exercise was designed by Martha Beck. I use it often with my clients. You may be surprised at the answers that emerge. And you will definitely be pleased with the time you have freed up.

Brenda Lautsch, Associate Professor of Business at SFU in Vancouver, BC, and Michigan State U professor Ellen Kossek, have co-authored a book called: CEO of Me: Crafting a Life that Works in the Flexible Job Age (Wharton Press).

It's filled with tools for taking charge of and organizing a life that works on your terms. Their most startling discovery was that a flexible job (such as telecommuting, flex-time or self-employment) doesn't automatically improve your work/life situation.

Lautsch was interview on CBC radio yesterday in Vancouver. She said that we have to make choices and consciously take charge of how we manage the boundaries between work and family.
The book helps people clarify their values and learn new ways to self-manage work/life issues. It also profiles people who have succeeded and gives strategies for negotiating change. “People have more choice than they think,” says Lautsch, herself the mother of a four-year-old and a 10-month old.

I guess that last point "people have more choice than we think" is what I'm trying to say here. So let's think again before we just accept our worn out status.