You haven’t seen me here for a while. In fact, the last time I wrote to you I talked about the importance of making realistic goals as the kids went back to school and mums everywhere were clamouring to get their lives back on track after an unusual summer. Remember that?
The very thought of setting goals now seems like a luxury and as for the kids being at school, who knows how long it will be till that happens again. We are all living day by day, moment by moment. An unusual summer has become a surreal year.
As a career coach you would expect that I would be very busy right now as the world implodes and millions of people are losing their jobs and shutting down their businesses. As someone who believes wholeheartedly in the importance of work and its intrinsic link to health and happiness, I have found myself in tears looking at the headlines. I have also beaten myself up because I know that now is the time that I ‘should’ be producing lots of free tools to help you. I ‘should’ be out there on social media giving you job hunting advice and telling you about the things you ‘should’ be doing to keep your career on track.
I recently posted about my guilt on a local mums facebook group. I talked about how much I wanted to be out there, doing all of the things to help people but that I had been really struggling myself with the massive upheaval in my life in this Covid-19 landscape. I confessed that my business had become a hobby as clients put their career change coaching on hold and potential clients decided this was no longer a priority in their lives. I admitted that I had barely any time in this business that I love because my young children are always at home. Because I am trying to home school my eldest at the same time as holding down my day job. I used to work every evening when the kids were in bed but lately I have been too exhausted.
And the response to my post was astounding, as the wonderful mums in my community heard my concerns and told me to go gently. They shared that they were struggling too with the change and the demands. They were also going day by day. Career was, sadly, the last thing they were thinking about.
With this in mind, I know you are not angry with me for disappearing from your inbox. I have likened these past weeks to those early days of motherhood. We have all been struggling to adjust to the new role. The demands are constant and in order to adapt we have had to leave our old lives behind somewhat. That is likely to include putting off concerns we had about our career.
Women are being hit hard by this virus. We are picking up the pieces in our homes, schooling our kids and being laid-off from the casual, part-time jobs that we were more likely to hold in the first place because of our caring responsibilities.
BUT we will get through this. We will find ourselves again. And I believe we will find an even better self. Just like we did after those early days of parenting.