I Am Reminded

It is amazing that no matter how prepared I think I am, regardless of what I think life is going to bring me, what actually awaits me around the corner is a total and complete surprise.

I delivered my third child a little over seven weeks ago. Adding her to our sweet family was the happiest of all of my life’s surprises, but my pregnancy felt long and agonizing. I was so happy to have another child, but as much as I appreciated having a healthy pregnancy, I felt physically and emotionally drained…especially in the last three weeks (little Miss decided to come over a week late!). I was happy one moment, crying the next, and trying to continue to move forward in my career, while raising a six- and ten-year old. I was ready for this pregnancy to end so I could enjoy my maternity leave, and run immediately back to work.

I love my career, and I would readily call myself professionally driven. When I found out I was pregnant with my third child, one of my first thoughts was of how the timing of the pregnancy would affect my career. I had decided our baby-having days were over, and I was fully focused on advancing in the workplace. So when I became pregnant, I was ecstatic, but also sure that my career-focus would remain strictly in place. While on maternity leave, I had planned to read professional books, listen to my Human Resource podcasts, and go to several work-related meetings. I thought I knew how I would feel. Heck, I had done this “momming” thing twice before…right???? I should know what to expect.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time with my first two children…but I felt very ready to return to work when the time came. I missed the challenge that my career offered me, I missed the routine…probably most of all, I missed talking to real, adult people…I had some great conversations with my tiny little tots, but they didn’t add a lot of content aside from a few giggles, gurgles and bodily gas sounds. So I thought this maternity leave would be the same. I thought I remembered how I felt and what I thought. I was wrong.

I love my job, and I am so extremely grateful to be working where I am and in the position that I am in. I know that when I return to work, I will fall right back into that excitement and passion that drive me to do what I do professionally. But in this moment, this moment only a few short weeks out from dropping my baby off and leaving her every weekday for nine plus hours….for the rest of her life…I don’t feel excited. I feel sad. The overwhelming thought that I keep having is of the first time she opens her eyes from a nap, looking to see me, and I won’t be there, and the thought gives me a tremendous guilt.

And this experience…this mix of reality, joy and heartbreak, is exactly what it is like to be a mom. I’m wondering if maybe I did have these feelings with my first two children, and much like the pain of childbirth, those memories faded with time, and all I remember is the happiness of the time with my children and the satisfaction I found in my work when I returned. Could that be? How do we forget the feelings that come with this stage in life?

I am so passionate about supporting women, whether it be in the workplace, at home, or in the community. But I must admit that I had forgotten about the difficulties of pregnancy. I had forgotten about the physical exhaustion and sickness that comes with the first trimester. About the sleepless nights in the third trimester when you can’t roll over and have to take a bathroom break every thirty minutes. About the absolute inability to think of anything but your child’s arrival in those last few weeks before baby comes. And now, about the absolute joy of having a newborn…and the pain that comes from separating yourself from them to return to life….my life outside of being Mom.

I had no idea I still had nearly two weeks of pregnancy left!

Now, after this unexpected third maternity leave, I am reminded. I am reminded of the beauty and difficulty that comes with having children…actually birthing, nursing, diapering, rocking, bathing…whispering sweet songs to, stealing midnight smiles from, holding close to your chest, living in your bubble where all that exists is you and them for just a moment…I am reminded.

In a few weeks, I will return to work. I will return to my routine of working mom. I will find joy in my work as I always have. My baby won’t remember this time we’ve had together, so she won’t even know to miss me two weeks down the road. I will provide for my family financially. I will set an example for my children of what hard work and dedication can bring them. I will soak up every free moment that I have with them after work and on weekends and vacations. But I hope not to forget this feeling I am having right now…and all of the feelings I’ve had over the past year. I hope I can use these memories to lift up and support my co-workers as they go through the same moments, that I can be a better friend and mentor because of my experiences.

It is impossible to understand the feelings that a parent experiences until you’ve walked in their shoes…and even after that, it is easy to forget and minimize these moments. But these moments matter.

As for me, I hope to enjoy every sleepy grin, every midnight feeding, every unintelligible jabber while this time slips away. I will be thankful for this time that I never expected, my third maternity leave that I never hoped for, and now could not live without.

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Letting Go

Happy 2019, Folks.  I pitifully spent much of my evening last night watching everyone’s celebrations from the comfort of my cozy bed in my pajamas.  I also sat and timed contractions for 36 minutes that were around seven minutes apart and lasted for 45 seconds at a time.  I waited anxiously for the contractions to get closer together, more painful or last longer…but to no avail.  At 40 weeks and five days pregnant, I am truly beginning to feel like round, uncomfortable and tired is my new permanent state of being.  I’ve actually googled to see if there is a possibility that I will never go into labor.  The internet says no, but I’m having my doubts.

I’ve spent the last few days trying to get a handle on the past year, and what this particular new year means to me.  I have always been a big fan of the new year season with all of its potential and promise, but this year, I’ve had a difficult time coming to terms with what the previous year meant to me and what I want the coming year to be.  For me 2018 is a bit of a blur with both tremendous moments and terrible heartache.  Such is life.

When I focus on the good, I see that I graduated with my Master’s Degree, I made a career move that I’m ecstatic about, and I made a human being (who is currently stubbornly refusing to be born).  These are big moments which I should be excited and proud of….and I am, but I find that I feel a little detached from these accomplishments, as though they  happened to someone else.

Maybe that is the true value of reflection.  We work incredibly hard to reach our goals, and then when all of that work translates to the end goal, we’re done.  It’s over.  We move on to the next thing and the past months or years of focus and dedication fade quickly to the background as life’s next dilemma or joy takes over.

As I move into 2019, I will take the time here to reflect not only on my successes, but also on what those successes taught me:

• Finishing my MBA taught me that I have a unique kind of perseverance that allows me to stay the course when things become especially difficult.  I learned that I truly love to learn, and without a learning process of some sort in my life, I feel stale and stagnated.  I learned that to succeed, I need the support of my friends and family.  I learned that even when it feels impossible to do, I have to make my children and family my number one priority.
• Moving into the Recruiting/Human Resource Field taught me the importance of living for the experience, not the final outcome.  I experienced some bumps and bruises along the path to my current position.  There were moments that I felt angry and bitter about the process, and I could have allowed myself to sit in that moment.  Instead, I chose to value what each experience taught me and move forward with that sentiment in mind.  Although I couldn’t see how things would work out, I had faith that they would.  That faith carried me through to the place where I am today, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to start a new professional adventure this year.
• I made a human, ya’ll. 2018 has brought the unexpected, and the greatest of all of my 33 years of life’s surprises has to be the blessing of my third child. This pregnancy has taught me that my plans don’t matter.  Talk about a humbling experience.  My 2018 plans included maintaining a healthy, vegan diet, completing a half marathon, and focusing 100% on my career.  My 2018 reality included pregnancy food aversions so severe and pregnancy induced anemia which made me so sick, that I became desperate enough to eat anything my body would tolerate, including meat, dairy and eggs.  The year included fifty pounds of weight gain that have made walking to the refrigerator a challenge, let alone the thought of running anywhere.  2018 brought the realization that my career will never, and should never, be the center of my focus.  I am a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend.  My career is important to me, but none of that success matters if I’m not the person I need to be at home.

Even as I write this, I am coming to terms with an epiphany that what this year has really taught me is that I need to appreciate the moments in life and spend less energy in a future that isn’t promised.  That for all it’s worth and although I will always be a “planner”, this life is not a planned event.  That I have no control over what is next or what 2019 will bring (although I’m hoping that the most immediate arrival for the new year will be this baby!).  And that while this life is difficult and beautiful at the same time, the very best thing I can do is to get down on my knees and put it all in God’s hands.

I need to appreciate the moments in life and spend less energy in a future that isn’t promised

For the New Year, for 2019, my resolution will be to trust, to pray every day to let go and let God, to focus on the moment and enjoy each second for what it is.  I hope to get back into shape, to put some energy into my art work, continue to write and journal, continue to find those parts of myself that have taken a back seat while I’ve worked to build a career and family over the past decade…but most importantly, I hope to remember and be thankful for the fact that I am not in control.  I certainly lost sight of this in 2018, and it is liberating to let it go in 2019.

I hope to remember and be thankful for the fact that I am not in control

I am wishing my readers a blessed year full of love and all of life’s happiness.  I hope that faith and family carry you through the difficult times ahead, and that you are present and engaged for all of the joyous miracles that are in store for you.  Take the time to reflect today on what has been, and how it has changed you.  Every experience holds a lesson for us.  My hope for you is that you take those lessons and spend a moment in thankfulness for them.  Happy New Year!

I leave you with some of my happiest 2018 moments:

Learning to Lean In

Six months ago, to our surprise and joy, my husband and I discovered we would be bringing our third child into this world.  I had just finished my MBA (we actually found out we were pregnant the night before I walked for graduation…talk about one door shutting and another opening!), and I was laser-focused on my next career steps.

My first instinct was to take a step back from my career, to back off from my goals, to wait until after pregnancy, until after maternity leave, until after the re-balancing of life following our newest addition.   I didn’t want to, but rather thought I had to, lean back from my career in order to be a good mom, a good wife, to take care of my family.

I was wrong.

I shared my thoughts with a good friend.  I had been vying for a promotion, and I thought I should bow out now.  I thought that I couldn’t balance both a pregnancy and growth in my career.  Thankfully my friend said, “Don’t do that…don’t leave before you leave.  Lean in.”  My friend, a career-loving parent herself, had started reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandburg.  I know this book impacted my friend, but the timing of her advice and the introduction of this thought into my life in that particular moment was life-changing.

I listened to my friend.  I did not slow down.  I did not lean back.  I pressed full force on the gas pedal, and I leaned all the way in.  I was sick, physically sick from the pregnancy.  I could barely eat for the first few months due to crazy food aversions and nauseousness.  I was utterly exhausted all day every day due to anemia brought on by my pregnancy.  I was stressed out between prepping for job interviews, prepping my current role for the next person, showing up as my best self every day for my current job, caring for my two children and husband, and running my household…and dealing with pregnancy hormones (you mommas know what I’m talking about!).  And in that time, we faced a serious illness within our family.

So here I am, six months down the road.  I pushed forward when things were not ideal, and I got the promotion I have been working toward for years…I got my dream job.

The stress isn’t gone, if anything it is now crunch time.  Baby three is due in eight weeks and four days (but who’s counting???).  In those eight weeks, I will train my replacement for my current role, I have taken on a special project within my company that will take place in two weeks (another lean in moment for me), I am continuing to work to excel in my current role until I move, I am beginning to train and work in my new role…and I’m nearly eight months pregnant.  Let’s not forget that I have a family and household to care for, and we’ve tried to make the most of this fall season with Halloween fun, field trips, lots of quality time, prepping the house for baby, along with the usual homework, laundry, baths and daily routine.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m totally looking forward to my maternity leave with my new little nugget.  I’m counting the moments until my sole focus is my newborn and my other two children, until I can be just mom for a bit.  But also, and this part is so vitally important, I am already looking forward to going into my dream career when I return to work after maternity leave.  I’m so thankful that I’ve leaned in to arrive at a place that I am truly excited and ecstatic to be.  I’m so thankful that I’ll be doing work that I find meaningful, setting an example for my children that hard work pays off in the best of ways, that I’ll be providing for my family while fulfilling my own individual goals.

I thought this morning about what my life would look like right now if I had leaned back in that moment six months ago.  I enjoy my current career, and I would still be thankful to work for a company that I believe in and within a role that is challenging every day.  But I would also be watching someone else step into the promotion that I know I am made for…and it would hurt.  I would not have taken on the special project that I’ll be completing in two weeks, and I’d be watching someone else in my spot…and again, it would hurt.  It would hurt for my pride, but it would hurt more so for the opportunity lost.  When I factor in the last six months I’ve spent full-throttle careening toward my goals, the next two months executing the final steps before baby, and my upcoming maternity leave, I would have missed nearly a year out of my career progression had I not leaned in.  A year of my career would have been stopped, stalled, at a standstill.

When we look at professional women and we wonder about things like the pay gap or the glass ceiling, I am convinced it is in these make-or-break moments in life that determine if we continue to advance or stall.  These are the moments that we easily fall behind our male peers, and while it is for a wonderful and fulfilling reason, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make up for.  It would have undoubtedly been easier to stall in this year’s time; however over my lifetime, I will look back and be so thankful for the advice I was given to “lean in” when I was afraid to push myself.

I’m aware that this decision is not for everyone, and I admire and understand those whose choices are different than mine.  Every decision we make has an immediate consequence on our lives and the lives of our family.  For me, as I know it would be for many of you, leaning in was the right decision.

I encourage you to not be afraid, to give every single opportunity your absolute best.  I encourage you to stay engaged in those things you are passionate for up until the very moment that you can’t; I encourage you to not leave before you leave.  There are times that our personal lives take center stage and balance between family and career is impossible, so our focus becomes 100% our family, and that is the way it should be…that is wonderful.  But when that time passes, when it again becomes possible to have our families and continue to pursue our personal goals, it’s important that we’ve given ourselves every option possible, so that the decision to be made, the going back to work, is a happy one, because we’re returning to a career we love, a career that we’ve spent every available moment working toward, a career that we didn’t leave prematurely.

I also encourage you to be the friend in my story. I’m so blessed to be surrounded by strong, career-loving parents.  These are the women and men that help me to see all that is possible in my own life.  Be that driving force, that role model, that source of inspiration when those around you struggle with the work-life balance dilemma.  Be that kind, supportive friend that understands the struggle, but won’t allow someone to quit their dreams.  Be the person not only to say, but to show, exactly what leaning in looks like.

 

 

Slay that Interview – Climb that Mountain

Career advancement can be a tricky thing, and for us 20- to 30-somethings, it can feel like an especially painful process. We can clearly see where we want to go, but the road to get there can seem confusing at the least, and absolutely Mt. St. Helens-type of daunting at the most.

Well, hello there, beautiful career mountain.

So how do we get there?  How do we scale the career mountain?  It’s as simple as to just keep taking that next best step. Be active and intentional with your future.  Actively identify what type of opportunity you are looking for next, take steps in the present to acquire the skills and education to qualify for that opportunity, and when the opportunity presents itself, jump at it.

It’s as simple as to just keep taking that next best step.

We often discount ourselves for opportunities when we do not yet check 100% of the qualifications for a position. Don’t make this mistake!  Take the risk, know your strengths and shortcomings, and apply anyway.

Interviewing and starting conversations with your peers and superiors about your interests and passions is an essential power move in reaching that end-goal. Interviews can be scary, and it’s hard to put yourself out there, but it is absolutely necessary.

So when that opportunity arrives, and you find yourself staring down the next hurdle on the path to your dream job, here’s some advice to slay that interview and present your best self:

• Dress a level above what you imagine the position requires. If the position requires a casual professional dress, suit up (skirted suit/pants suit). If the position requires jeans, wear slacks or a dress/skirt. It sounds like the oldest advice in the book, but this one’s a keeper.  First impressions are lasting, and even when you’re interviewing with someone you’ve worked with before, allow them to see you in a new, more professional light.  On the same front, hair should be clean, and pulled up and back from your face. This allows the interviewer to clearly view your face and keeps you from playing/fussing with your hair if you get nervous.  Appearance matters.
• Be on time! Show the interviewer that you respect their time, and when they’re ready to begin, you’re ready and waiting.
• Stay positive! If your current position is a living hell, choose to take the high road. All of the negative things you feel and think about a current or past job may be true, but no prospective employer wants to hire an employee who slams their current employer. Be as honest as you can without going to a negative place. A great way to explain your move is to share that you’re looking for a better opportunity and/or striving for a position that aligns with your particular passions.
• Study your prospective employer. Use the internet. Google, folks.  There is no excuse for not being fully educated about who the prospective company is, what their mission statement is, and what they’re looking to give back to their customers. Have a superior understanding of who it is that you’re trying to work for, and weave that information into your answers during the interview.
• Practice. It feels awkward, but the old saying “practice makes perfect” is 100% truth when it comes to interviewing. Find a friend or colleague who will sit with you for an hour and give you interview questions. You may feel silly at first but you’ll warm up to the process quickly, and when the real deal comes, you’ll feel confident and prepared.
• Breath.   It’s okay to pause and think during an interview. It’s difficult to fight the urge to immediately respond with a quick answer. But know that it is okay to pause, fill the space with a thoughtful “That’s a great question” comment, take a moment to think, and then give a great, well-thought-out answer versus a gut response.
• Flip the interview.  Have a list of relevant questions prepared. Remember, you’re interviewing the employer to try to understand if the company is right for you, in just the same way that they are interviewing you. Think carefully about your short-term, intermediate-term and long-term goals, think about what you envision as success in the role, and ask questions that give you a better understanding as to whether this is the right opportunity to deliver your goals.
• Last but certainly not least, the best advice for a great interview is to keep your focus on you and your strengths. Know what you have to offer. It’s easy to focus on the competition and try to combat the skills your competitor is bringing to the table. This is not a winning strategy. You can’t be something you’re not.  If you’re hired on the basis of portraying skills you don’t have, you’re unlikely to find long term success. Know what unique skills you can offer.  Understand and communicate what makes your background and perspective an ideal match for the position.  Rock that self-love, and show your interviewer why YOU truly are the best candidate.

Yeah, you got this!

You will not receive every job opportunity you apply for. There will be times that there is a candidate who is simply better qualified for one reason or another. But if you can walk away from an interview knowing you have presented yourself at your absolute personal best, you have a success to tuck under your belt. With each interview you become more skilled and better prepared for the next great opportunity.

In the event that you don’t get the job, take the opportunity to learn from your interviewer what skills or traits they were looking for, and move forward with a focus to improve where needed. Every job interview is an opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself as a professional. Rejection is a necessary (albeit painful) part of growth. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, reevaluate where you are today, and begin working toward your next goal with a more-seasoned and better-practiced self.

Every job interview is an opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself as a professional.

Even better…when you land the position, hit the role running, ready and capable, and give it your all!!! Here’s to all of the future success of the 20- to 30-somethings…see you at the top of the mountain!