Return to work inspiration from the Great British Bake Off!

As one of the 14 million people who watched the Great British Bake Off final, I was as moved as many others by the winner, Nadiya's spontaneous tearful declaration that she would never again place limits on herself. Nadiya's comments resonated with me both as a fellow shortie and because of all my experience of women who've overcome their self-imposed limits to return to work after a long break. Nadiya, herself, stopped working 10 years ago when her first child was born.

I thought about all the people who tell me that they're:

• too old
• too out-of-date
• too far behind in their knowledge and understanding
• too low in confidence
• too low in skills
• unable to manage work and their other commitments
• unable to decide among too many options
• lacking a network and even
• unemployable

and so are unable to return to their career.

And at the same time, I thought of all the women I've worked with and met through the years who have overcome what appeared to be insurmountable barriers and found a way back to work they enjoy, whether it be through a returnship, their revived network, further study, creating their own business or a direct application. You can read some of their stories here.

For those of you who are still uncertain about your next move, you don't have to take the extreme step of applying for a national TV baking competition, but do think about some small steps that could put you onto the path towards returning to work and read some of the posts highlighted below. Above all, remind yourself of Nadiya's comments to The Times: "You may be scared, you may doubt yourself but it doesn't mean you can't do it."

Recommended posts to get past your barriers:
Am I being selfish by wanting to work?
Where's my confidence gone?
Tackling perfectionism: is 'good enough' not good enough for you?
Too many choices
Too few choices: advice on identifying post break options
Do all working mothers have to feel guilty?
Are 'shoulds' ruling your return to work decisions?
How to make time for your return to work job search

Posted by Katerina

How to make time for your return to work job search

Two recent conversations with returners have reminded me how difficult it can be for women to focus on their return to work activity: there always seems to be something more important or time-consuming for them to do.

As former professionals used to managing busy careers, women on career break often fill their lives with activities that keep them busy, engaged and feeling productive. As well as looking after family and home, they frequently take on voluntary roles or small paid projects, develop new hobbies and simply 'help others out'.  

The difficulty comes when trying to return to work: how do you fit a job search into an already busy life? The truth is that finding a new role, especially when you have left the workforce, is a job in itself.  Your return to work will only happen with dedicated time, energy and commitment.

Carving out this space is hard for returners for a number of reasons:

• you might not be sure whether you are ready to return, so you don't give it your attention to avoid having to make a decision
• you don't know how to get started on your return to work, so you procrastinate
• you've made some small efforts and have been deterred by the response (or lack of) you've received 
• it's the wrong time of year (eg pre-Christmas/Easter/summer holiday)
• it feels selfish to be focusing on yourself after so many years of putting others first
• you don't know which of the other activities to cut out, in order to make space for your return to work plans

Here are some ideas on how you can start to create time for yourself, so you can address some of these barriers, both practical and psychological: 

• Start small - make a date with yourself!  It could be sitting in a coffee shop for half an hour after school drop off, on your own with the purpose of doing your own thinking and planning. If you can do this once, you can start to make it a regular habit and then expand the time you devote to it
• Enlist a buddy - this could either be someone in the same position as you with whom you can meet regularly and share experiences and ideas. Or it could be someone who is simply there to support, encourage and celebrate with you and keep you on track
• Give your search a project name - to give it focus and make it more like a work project
• Sign up for a relevant course - this will enable to you dedicate time to your new direction, introduce you to others who might be helpful to you and signify that you are taking positive steps for yourself
• Address your reluctance to put yourself first - by trying it out! This post on Banning Selfish may be useful
• Delegate - perhaps you don't have to keep doing all the things you currently do whether at home or elsewhere
• Work with a coach - this will commit you to spending time (and money) on your return to work in a structured way and get you into the habit of giving time to this activity.  

Remember that no-one else can do the work required for you, so your return to work will only happen if you give it - and yourself - the time and attention you deserve.

Other useful posts and links:

Am I being selfish by wanting to work?

Tackling perfectionism

Do all working mothers have to feel guilty?

10 Return to work tips

How to return to work after a long career break

Women Returners Return to Work Coaching package

Posted by Katerina - Co-founder Women Returners

Do mothers need to Ban Selfish?

Sheryl Sandberg's Ban Bossy campaign has sent a strong message to young girls. It illustrates how powerful words can be in labelling ourselves and shaping our thoughts and feelings. Personally, I'd like to ban the overuse of a word that both holds back mothers from enjoying their work-family lives and can get in the way of a successful return to work. Mothers, let's Ban Selfish!

How often before having children did we label doing something positive just for ourselves - playing a sport, learning a language, reading a book - as 'selfish'? Never, that I can remember. In fact, we usually felt quite pleased with ourselves that we weren't just slumping in front of the TV but were staying healthy or continuing learning new skills outside of work.

But I've noticed that a strange transformation comes over many women when children arrive. Suddenly doing something for ourselves starts to make us feel bad, rather than good ... it becomes 'selfish'.

In the last few months, I've heard mothers describe all of these as 'selfish':
* Going for a run on a Saturday morning / a yoga class on a Thursday evening
* Signing up for a Monday evening cookery class
* Re-reading Jane Austen on a Sunday morning
* Going to an evening work event to make new contacts
* Catching up on reading work journals for an hour on a Saturday 

Taken further, some women describe their desire to return to paid work as 'selfish', usually if they don't financially need to work but are feeling unfulfilled at home. It can be seen as a personal failing: "Why can't I just be happy looking after my kids?" 

By using the term 'selfish', we're telling ourselves that we are lacking consideration for others and prioritising our interests above everyone else's*.  In fact the opposite is true. We see these choices as selfish because we're putting our needs at the bottom of the pile. Driven by caring for others, we can end up becoming martyrs to our family.  

It's time to remember that balancing your needs alongside the needs of your family is not selfish. It's a healthy and positive attitude that is likely to improve your family life as you will be happier and more energised. Who wants a bored, frustrated and 'selfless' mother?

Are you ready to Ban Selfish? 


Further reading
Am I being a martyr?

*Selfish definition: "Lacking consideration for other people; chiefly concerned with one's own personal profit or pleasure"


Posted by Julianne

Are you trying to be a work-home Superhero?

Do you feel you have to do everything for your family and find it impossible to let go of even the smallest detail?   Do you tidy your house before your cleaner comes or run to school with a child's forgotten homework?  Do you volunteer for lots of local committees and take on more than your share of work?  If so, you are probably feeling taken for granted and resentful of others who aren't doing their bit.  And at the same time, you can't see how you could possibly return to work when nobody else can do what you do!  

If this sounds familiar to you, you are probably trying to be a superhero.  It is also likely that you behaved like this at work, before your career break, so it is even harder to work out how you could combine work with all your more recent non-work responsibilities.

What is behind being a superhero?

This superhero behaviour is common enough for psychologists to have recognised and researched it.  It is often referred to as pleaser behaviour as it arises from a need to gain approval from others (work colleagues, family, children).  To gain approval, the pleaser will do whatever is asked of them, hates to say no and will always say that they are 'coping' no matter what is going on.  The downside of the behaviour is that the pleaser doesn't balance what they are doing for others with their own needs and the lack of balance builds resentment.

How can you get back to work without being a superhero?

1. As mentioned in previous posts on unhelpful thought patterns, becoming aware of your pattern is the first step, so try to catch yourself when you're about to put your hand up for a project or about to save your children from learning by their own mistakes
2. Work out which of the non-work tasks you do that others could do instead. And decide which tasks don't really need doing and just won't be done when you go back to work 
3. Accept practical or emotional support.  Asking for help is not a weakness, we all need it.
4. Get some practice with saying 'no' and learn to handle any unpleasant feelings and fears this brings up in you.  You might discover it is easier than you expected!
5. Take care of yourself: build some activities into your schedule that are things you enjoy doing.  Read our post about guilt if you find this idea difficult
6. Remember that you will be a more effective worker and more fulfilled parent if you balance what you are doing for others with taking care of your own needs too

Posted by Katerina

Are 'shoulds' ruling your return-to-work decisions?

I co-ran a workshop for INSEAD alumni last week on getting past the internal barriers that can keep us stuck when we want to make a career change: our fears, beliefs and 'shoulds'. We've talked previously in this blog about fear of being selfish, fear of failure, and guilt. And we've touched on the limiting beliefs that can unconsciously hold us back, such as "there aren't any good part time jobs out there" or "I'm too old to go into something different". If you're feeling stuck, there may be another mental trap you have set up for yourself without realising it - your 'shoulds'. Do you recognise any of these ...?

"I should look for a safe and secure job"
"I should stick with what I'm good at"
"I should stay at home while my children are young"
"I should always be available for my family"
"I shouldn't waste my qualifications"
"I shouldn't take a low-paying job" 

When we say 'I should' we don't always mean "I want to" - we may just feel a pressure to behave in a certain way. It helps to understand the psychological basis for this. As we go through life, we develop certain values based on repeated messages we've received from other important people in our lives*. Often it's from our parents, sometimes it's our teachers, or it may be friends, or respected colleagues. If our father tells us enough times that we 'shouldn't waste our qualifications', this can become an implicit rule that we live our lives by without questioning whether it is a choice that we ourselves want to make. These inner 'rules' can unconsciously keep you unhappily at home (or drive you reluctantly back to work) or stop you from changing to a more satisfying job when you do return to work.

Our values can be influenced by where we are living or the society we have grown up in. One of my clients, Isabelle, a French accountant, was full of guilt for taking a career break. Isabelle's mother had been a 'career woman' who had told her that "women should earn their own money" and all her equally well-educated friends in Paris were working mothers and could not understand why she had not returned to work. She felt a push to return to a prestigious job even though she was concerned about not having enough time for her family: "I should be using my education" was how she put it. Another client from Germany faced a different set of cultural norms; Karin wanted to return to work but felt pressured into staying at home because it was the expectation in her town that mothers of primary-age children did not work. As she explained, "I feel it should be enough for me to be concentrating on raising my children". 

It's worth listening to what you're telling yourself or other people when you're debating returning to work. We're often not aware of the difference between our 'shoulds' and our 'wants". Next time you find yourself saying "I should" try changing it to 'I want to' or 'I choose to" and see if it is still true. If you realise that this is not your choice, ask yourself if this is someone else's value that you're ready to let go of. Of course it's not always that simple to get rid of a long-held belief, but maybe it will start to free you up to see a broader range of options.


* Carl Rogers, the founder of humanistic psychology, described back in the 1960s how we 'introject' other influential people's values and suggested that we need to 'shed the shoulds and oughts' to develop our personal value system.

Posted by Julianne

Do all working mothers have to feel guilty?

“Since I returned to work after my career break I feel guilty every day. Don’t all working mothers?”

Listening to this comment from a guest speaker at an event for women returners and seeing the nods of agreement in the audience, I was not surprised that many women decide not to go back to work even if they are feeling unfulfilled as full-time mothers. Who wants to sign up to years of feeling guilty?

Do all working mothers feel guilty?

The premise that a heavy burden of guilt is the lot of the working mother seems to be fairly ingrained. Not a week goes by without some mention in the media. And we are just talking about working mothers here, no-one talks about ‘working father guilt’. Just recently ...

"8 out of 10 working mums feel guilty" Justine Roberts reporting results of a Mumsnet poll at Workfest, Jun 2013
"I think all women feel guilty" Sheryl Sandberg, Woman's Hour interview, Apr 2013
"Majority of mothers admit to feeling guilty for working" Daily Mail , Jan 2013
And it's not just in the UK ...
"Working mothers still plagued by guilt" Sydney Morning Herald, Apr 2013

I'm starting to feel guilty for not feeling guilty. As one of the 2 in 10 working mothers who don't feel guilty, is there an implicit assumption that I don't care enough about either my work or my family (or both)?

Psychological basis for guilt

It's worth looking at guilt from a psychological perspective. What is the function of guilt?
"From a cognitive point of view, guilt is an emotion that people experience because they’re convinced they’ve caused harm. The emotion of guilt follows directly from the thought that you are responsible for someone else’s misfortune, whether or not this is the case." Psychology Today

So guilt is not a consequence of caring. Healthy guilt is a sign that our conscience is working effectively and can be a useful emotion if it’s telling us that something needs changing. If guilt is a warning flag that our actions might be harming our children or our co-workers, then it's served its purpose. But feeling guilty doesn't make you guilty. Working can have a positive effect on family life (see previous post). Often guilt comes from judging ourselves by impossible standards (back to the Perfect Mother and Employee) or being influenced by the perceived judgements of others. In this case, it's a destructive emotion that we are allowing to reduce our life satisfaction for no reason at all.

How to challenge guilt feelings when you are returning to work

Analyse the cause of your guilt feelings. Is the emotion telling you that you are making a decision that is inconsistent with your values? Do you rationally think that you are jeopardising your relationship with your family? If so, are you able to reduce your working hours, to shift your work pattern or to work from home some days? Do you need to think about a job or career change to get more flexibility? 

If you consider your choices and the trade-offs you are making and do not want to make any changes (or are practically unable to do so), then recognise that guilt is serving no useful purpose and let go of it. Guilt is not a badge of pride for working mothers, just a rod we have created for our own backs. 

Posted by Julianne

Do I really have to network?

Networking is an essential element of finding your way back to work - and it can also be the most daunting!  For many people, networking means entering a room of strangers or acquaintances, ‘working the room’ and leaving with a fist full of business cards and the promise of some follow-up meetings.  This is a very extreme example of networking and isn't likely to be the way you find your next role.  Nevertheless, networking will be an essential element of your return to work strategy – so what’s getting in your way?

Why do we find networking difficult?

Our most common objections to networking are:

• networking is only for political types. How true is this?   Are you being political in wanting to learn some new information, get ideas and advice, find a new role or develop your career?
• lack of time. This is more a question of how important your job search is among your list of competing priorities.  It will need to be near to number one, for you to put in the time and effort that effective networking requires.
• shyness or reserve, not wanting to bother people.  This usually stems from lack of confidence.  It is really important that you start to work on your confidence level before embarking on your networking activity.  If you are completely lacking confidence, you certainly won’t find networking possible, let alone enjoyable. Click here for advice and tips on how to start to develop your confidence.  You need to believe you have something to offer the people you connect with.

 Some networking truths

It might be helpful for you to think about the following realities of networking, if you have any lingering objections to it.

1. Networking is part of life.  Everyone does it.  The people you wish to connect with will all have been helped at some point in their career by someone with whom they have networked.  They will all be networking to find information and to meet potential customers, suppliers, employees and employers.  You are not asking them to do anything out of the ordinary and you are probably doing it yourself, all the time, without even realising it.  When you ask someone you know for a restaurant, a plumber or a hotel recommendation, you are networking!
2. Networking isn't all about attending large events. Contacting a friend of a friend for a short chat about their role can be just as valuable.
3. The most obvious reason why someone might be keen to talk to you is that most people are on the look out for new sources of information or insight and employers are usually looking out for people with talent and skills.  You will always be of interest to the people you are meeting if you bring perspectives and insights, as well as your own network. When we're working hard, we often don't have time to keep up-to-date with industry articles and research; if you take time to read about your area of interest, you can bring this new information to your new contacts.
4. Most people love to talk about themselves!  So, if you are asking about a person’s career path, their role, their training, their industry knowledge or their organisation they will often welcome talking to you.

In the next post, I’ll discuss how to enjoy networking with tips and examples.

Is there something specific you’d like to see included?

Posted by Katerina

Telling your story

"I struggle to view myself as anything more than a mother any more"

Ex- investment analyst after a 10 year career break

If you're planning your return to work after a long career break, one of the hardest questions to answer can be "What do you do?". You're not sure whether to talk about your time at home or what you used to do all those years ago. When my children were small and most of the people I was meeting were other parents, I introduced myself more often as someone's Mum than as Julianne. It's not surprising that as our career break goes on, our independent working selves feel so far in the past that they're not really part of our story any more (see previous post "Who am I anyway?").

If your old professional life feels like distant history, then it's harder to believe in yourself and feel positive about your return to work. This not only knocks your confidence but also makes your job search much less effective. Many women returning to work after a break find a new job through old and new contacts rather than through advertised roles, so you need to have a ready reply rather than a stumbled mumble when an ex-colleague asks "What are you doing now?" And when you do make it to an interview, if your response to the classic "Tell me about yourself" interview question is to spend the majority of the time describing and explaining your career break, you are underselling your past experience and are unlikely to come across as a credible candidate for the job.

When you're putting together your story, don't start or end with your career break. We suggest you use a structure we call the "Career Break Sandwich".

• Talk first about what you did before in your working life, then talk about your career break and finish with where you want to go now. 
• Explain why you've taken time out of the workplace, but avoid apologising for or justifying your break or spending too much time talking about what you've been doing. However do include any study, voluntary work, time spent abroad, unusual/challenging activities or anything else that might be interesting in terms of skills development or updating to a possible employer. 

Herminia Ibarra, in her career transition book Working Identity, suggests that a coherent story helps us to make sense of the changes we are making, so building our inner self-confidence. It also makes us more likely to get other people's support: "Until we have a story, others view us as unfocused. It is harder to get their help". 

Aim to draw out links between your past and future, particularly if you have a varied work history or are planning a career change: Have you always enjoyed helping people develop? Or solving difficult problems in a team? You're always bringing the benefit of your past experiences, at work and at home, as a foundation for what you want to do now.

Telling your story does take practice. Try out your narrative first with family and friends and get their feedback. Telling and retelling allows you to rework your story until you feel comfortable and convincing. Aim for a longer version to answer "Tell me about yourself" or "What are you looking for?" and a short version so you no longer hesitate when someone asks "So, what do you do?" 

Posted by Julianne (updated June 2018)

Women's Business Council - good news for women returners?

The barriers to women’s career progression are back in the news with the publication of a report by the Women’s Business Council (WBC), looking at ways of maximising women's contribution to economic growth and assessing priorities in removing the barriers that women face in playing a full part in business and the workplace.  But does it say anything new and interesting for women returners?  And will anything change as a result?

What's new?

The headline of the report is that there are 2.4 million women who are not working and who want to work.  So this is a report seems to be about women returners, the first time this topic has been approached so comprehensively.  It probably helps that Ruby McGregor-Smith CBE, the Chair of the WBC herself took an 18 month career break and is now CEO of a FTSE-250 company.

As you might expect, the report addresses barriers to our careers from start to finish.  It breaks its recommendations down into four areas: broadening girls’ aspirations at school (Starting Out); flexible working and other support for working parents (Getting On); women in the ‘third part’ of their working lives (Staying On); and female entrepreneurship (Enterprise). 

Two aspects are new and of note:

·         The needs of women wishing to return to work after a break are highlighted, along with support for parents who continue to work;

·         It is significant, I think, that there is not yet a recognised term for the ‘third part’ of our lives: it is a symptom of how invisible older women can feel.

So the WBC must be applauded for bringing these dimensions into public debate and to the attention of the Government.

Will anything change?

It is hard to see how in these difficult economic times, the Government will do more than it is already.  Indeed its response to the report does little more than reiterate the actions it has already taken.  What the Government does promise, however, is to:

·         Lead by example in incorporating the WBC’s message and approach in flexible working, as a major employer;

·         Appoint a business champion for older workers and to work with existing bodies to develop new approaches for this group;

·         Provide better web-based support for women entrepreneurs and tackle the belief that they are less likely to obtain banking finance than men

For its part, the WBC will meet every six months to monitor progress and will report in one year on what has been achieved.

So, while the Government and business will be looking anew at women’s careers and how to support them, the focus is mostly on continuing to do what they are already doing for working women.  I fear It might, therefore, take some time for the effects to trickle out into the world of women returners.

What do you think of the WBC’s report and the Government’s response? What measures do you think would make a difference to you returning to work?

Posted by Katerina

Too few choices: advice on identifying post-break options

I’ve already talked about how we can get stuck when we see too many options. You may be experiencing the opposite problem – not being able to think of any exciting and realistic options at all. Are you still searching for your (elusive) passion? Or are you not quite ready to let go of your old work identity and create a new one? 

Maybe with time away from the workplace, you have realised that you drifted into your career but never really enjoyed it that much, and now you want to find a role you love. One client said to me recently “After working for many years without much fulfilment I’d like to follow my passion now … but I just don’t know what my passion is!” Career change advice to find your passion or your 'dream job' can be more harmful than helpful.  The reality is that we all have a number of possible paths we can take that could lead to satisfying and fulfilling work. Herminia Ibarra*, a professor at INSEAD who has studied many professionals and managers in career transition, suggests that the biggest mistake we can make is to delay taking a first step until we have settled on a destination.  She advises that the best way to move towards a satisfying new career is to learn by doing: try out a variety of things that appeal to you to any extent and say yes to opportunities that come your way to find out about new areas and create new networks (a project for an ex-colleague or a friend, volunteer work, a short course, ...). See it as a journey of exploration, be open-minded, and you may well find a role that inspires you along the way.

Or maybe you did enjoy your pre-break career but it was in an area where you can't see any interesting possibilities that could fit with your life today. You might have been an investment banker or a brand marketing director and loved the excitement of the job but can’t contemplate the 60+ hour weeks you’d need to sign up for if you went back. However your work identity is so entwined with your old role that it’s hard to think of any interesting alternatives.

In this situation, a useful exercise is to create your ‘Ideal Work Day’. Think of all the activities you did in your previous roles, regular and occasional. These might include meeting with clients, developing new ideas, analysing data, recruiting, coaching, writing, researching, presenting, etc. Now choose the activities you most enjoyed and would include in your ideal day. This gives you a starting point to think creatively about where you could find these aspects in another more flexible role, either employed or self-employed. For example Marian recognised that she’d most enjoyed the relationship building and presenting aspects of her consumer goods marketing roles which eventually led her into corporate fundraising. Acknowledge the sadness you may feel in letting go of your old professional identity and then focus on what aspects you can take forward into your new working life.

* Ibarra has written an excellent book for career changers "Working Identity"

Posted by Julianne

Who am I anyway?

Many clients arrive at our first meeting with the same concern: they have lost touch with their professional identity and are only able to view themselves as partners or mothers.  Thoughts such as ‘I can’t do those things anymore’, ‘I don’t recognise my old self’, and ‘I’m not the person I used to be’ are regularly voiced.  For some women, the loss of identity is compounded by not having felt fully themselves in their professional life.  If your previous working identity has felt ‘fake’, then it is even harder to work out how you might wish to express yourself professionally in the future.  Other women recognise that their former working identity doesn’t fit with the life they now want to lead and are unclear how to create the new self.

According to findings from Dr Lynne Millward Purvis, women – particularly working women – undergo three ‘identity shifts’ when they become mothers. Before giving birth, we begin to feel increasingly invisible and undervalued as we prepare to go on maternity leave. After giving birth, we are forced to acquire a ‘mother identity’, which causes our goalposts to move. And if we return to work, we find we need to redouble our efforts as we seek to revalidate ourselves, both as employees and as mothers.  (Dr Lynne Millward Purvis, The Transition to Motherhood in an Organizational Context). Those of us who take an extended career break miss this opportunity to revalidate ourselves as professionals and as mothers within the familiar context of our former role.

Often the loss of the professional identity is expressed as a loss of confidence.  Indeed, recent research of 2000 women by the Association of Accounting Technicians (The Times, April 17, 2013) has indicated that women on maternity leave lose confidence after eleven months absence from the workplace.  So is it really surprising that women who take an extended break will lose their confidence?  (See post Where’s my confidence gone? for ideas on how to regain confidence). 

My own experience of identity and confidence loss occurred when I arrived in my office after my honeymoon, to learn that my position had been made redundant.  Suddenly, I found myself with no professional identity, an unfamiliar surname and living in a new home that didn't feel like mine.  It took me some months to find myself again and re-create my new, married, professional identity.

The process for regaining or re-crafting your professional identity involves reconnecting with your real interests and your values and articulating your skills and experience (even from long ago).  It is ultimately a rewarding experience as the emergence of a new professional identity is inextricably accompanied by a growing self-confidence.  Remember that you have already successfully changed identity at other points in your life (eg when you first started work or when took your break) even though that might have felt daunting at the time.  You will be able to do it again if you allow yourself time to adjust.

Posted by Katerina - co-founder of Women Returners

Is it worth working if I'm not earning much money?

Money, or the lack of it, can be a major stumbling block when considering going back to work. If you're looking for a more flexible job, with shorter hours, the salary can be considerably lower than the one you earned in your pre-break professional role and that can be hard to accept. If you're changing career and starting again in a new field, the contrast is likely to be be even more extreme. And if you're a working mother, childcare costs take a huge chunk of your income if you don’t have a local grandparent happy to do the childminding (and most of us don’t nowadays). 

Working for a fraction of your old salary not only has a practical impact. It can also hit your professional pride and your sense of being valued, as we have a tendency to link what we're paid with what we're worth.

“I’m not sure if I’m prepared to work for peanuts”, was the reaction of one of my clients recently when she calculated her expected after-work pay if she switched sector.

If you're finding that low financial returns is a barrier to your relaunch, try looking at all the benefits for you of working, including those that are harder to quantify. When I discuss motivations with women returners, I hear many other reasons than just the money: “I want to use my brain again”; “I want to stop apologising when people say ‘what do you do?’”; “I miss the social side, having colleagues, talking about other things than kids and schools”; “ I want to be a role model for my children”; “I want to be on a more equal footing with my partner”.

Peter Warr, a Professor at the Institute of Work Psychology, has studied what it is about working that gives us fulfilment and confirms that money is only one factor. In “The Joy of Work”, he identified the ‘Needed Nine’ – the nine main sources of happiness in any situation or role: 1. Personal influence 2. Using your abilities 3. Goals 4. Variety 5. Clear role requirements and outlook 6. Social contacts 7. Money 8. Adequate physical setting 9. A valued role.

Warr found that studies comparing women working at home and outside the home typically find that average levels of happiness do not differ much between the two groups. The difference depends both on your preferences (staying at home or paid work) and your current situation. If you feel that you have high levels of the ‘needed nine’ – using your abilities, with good social contacts, daily variety, enough money and feeling your role is valued – then unsurprisingly you will be happier than someone with lower levels, whether you are working or not.

When I was a full-time mother, what got to me from the ‘needed nine’ was the lack of variety (the Groundhog Day cycle of washing, shopping, cooking, feeding) and the feeling that I was not really using my strengths; I was never going to be the mum who made a wonderful fancy dress costume or an awe-inspiring birthday cake. The joy of working again was not so much in the pay (as a fledgling psychologist there wasn’t much of that after childcare and travel costs), it was more about regaining my professional identity and having the satisfaction of doing something where I could feel a real sense of achievement and growth.

So if you’re wondering if it’s worth returning to work if you barely break-even, think of whether working means more to you than the money. Will it make you a more fulfilled person in other ways? And remember that you're investing for the longer term: whether you’re starting on a new career track or re-establishing yourself in your old field, you are building the foundation for a satisfying and profitable working role in the future.

Further thoughts

See Carol Fishman Cohen’s of iRelaunch’s advice on investing for the future and weighing household rather than personal income against expenses here 

Posted by Julianne

Too many choices: how to focus

When I was on a career break after stepping out of my first career in strategy/marketing, I realised after a while that being a full-time mother was not for me. I knew that I wanted to do something enjoyable and flexible and spent many hours dreaming and chatting with friends about what this might be. One month a friend and I got excited about importing baby equipment from Australia … then a few months later I was inspired to set up a family-focused travel agency … then it was a flexible childcare business ... then studying psychology. I was never short of ideas but the interesting thing was that the more options I thought of, and the more I talked about them and researched them on the internet, the more problems I could see and the further I became from actually doing them. Eventually I was reluctant to share my next great idea with my friends as I had stopped believing myself that I was actually going to make any of them happen. Somehow having too many choices was stopping me pursuing any one option more seriously.

When I went on to study psychology, I found that my experience is so common that it has a label: the Paradox of Choice. Too much choice in everyday life can make us confused and paralysed. The psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book and TED talk on this topic explained "with so many options to choose from, people find it difficult to choose at all". As no choice is perfect, we can always imagine that we will find a better alternative. And the effect can be stronger with more complex choices, such as career decisions. We are less likely to hit “choice overload” if we are clear on our preferences or have a simple way to compare between options.

What got me out of the choice paralysis was realising that first of all I needed to develop some decision criteria to work out what I wanted from my life so that I could weigh up my alternatives. While all options were appealing, with some positives and some negatives, I was unable to prioritise. When I became clearer on what was most important to me and where I could compromise, I was able to discount many of my ideas and to focus on the one that seemed the best fit. Then I needed to push myself to stop thinking/talking and start taking action. I dipped an exploratory toe in the water by enrolling on an introduction to psychology course and that was the first step on the road to retraining as a psychologist.

Some of the women returners I meet also see too many possibilities and may have been thinking and talking about all the things they could do for years without making any concrete progress. One of my clients brought a list of the 16 options she had been considering to the first meeting - unsurprisingly she felt very confused about where to go next! If you too are hitting choice overload, aim to narrow your focus to get down to a manageable number of choices to investigate:

• Work out what is most important to you in your future job. Fine to start with 1) flexible 2) pays enough, but then go beyond that. What are you missing about work (is it using your brain, the achievement, the social aspect, ...), what are you really interested in, what are you good at and love doing?  If you’re wondering where to start with this process, look at  Windmills online or Build your Own Rainbow.
• Use this to work out what you want from work, decide what are 'must-haves' and where you can compromise. You can then choose a few possibilities that really appeal and seem like they could be a good fit for you. And don't fall into the trap of looking for the perfect job as all jobs involve trade-offs (see my last post!).
• Critically don't spend more time thinking - practically reality test your short-list: talk to people in the area, maybe take a short course, go to a conference, work shadow, do an internship … test your ideas and learn along the way. (We’ll talk more about how to go about these steps in future posts).

Having choices and being open to possibilities is a great thing – don’t let it keep you stuck!

Posted by Julianne

Tackling perfectionism: Is ‘good-enough’ not good enough for you?

“I can’t be happy with being ‘good-enough’ as a mother and at work.  It feels like failure to me”

Many of the women returners I talk to hit a barrier when we start to discuss the compromises they will have to make when going back to work. 

Emma* had a high-achieving accounting career before having children. Describing herself as a perfectionist, she told me how in her 20s she had worked long hours and “given 100%”. Soon after returning to work after her second child, she became overwhelmed and exhausted: “I felt like a poor mother and was frustrated that I could not give as much to work as I used to”. After one particularly stressful month, she decided to give up work and become a full-time mother. Six years later Emma is discussing her options with me. She wants to return to work now the children are at school as she wants to 'use her brain more'. However she is finding it hard to compromise on her family life.

Like many previously high-achieving mothers, Emma’s perfectionist focus had switched to "Supermum": being the best mother, finding the best schools & classes for her children and creating a perfect home. All her time and energy had been put into bringing up her family and she could not see how to cut back.

Perfectionism can be a major barrier to returning to work - the reality is that we have to make trade-offs.  If we set impossibly high standards for ourselves, looking to be both the perfect employee and the perfect mother/partner/daughter, we are at risk of continually feeling inadequate. Do we want to always feel like a failure? We can make this worse by the classic perfectionist's reluctance to delegate - we have to do everything as no-one can do things as well as us.

If you find yourself falling into this trap, spend some time thinking about your priorities and what is most important to you. Is it necessary to dedicate yourself totally to your children to meet your own view of what a good parent is? Are you spending too much time and energy on things which really don’t matter that much? If you are really motivated to work, how can you free up the necessary time and energy? For example, does the house need to be tidy all the time? Will your children really suffer if they don't have homemade food at every meal or homemade cakes for their school cake sale? What can you give up? What can you delegate to your partner, a child-minder, a cleaner, etc.? Exploring your job options, consider whether you are making life harder for yourself by looking for the ‘perfect job’. Work out your key motivations for wanting to return to work, what is essential for you in a job and what you can compromise on.

Aim towards viewing compromising as a good thing - it means we’re making positive choices.  As Rosabeth Moss Kanter said in a recent Harvard Business Review blog: “You can have it all. It just won’t all be perfect.”

Try out a new perspective on success. Success is typically seen as high achievement in one activity, feeding the myth of the perfect mother or the perfect lawyer/doctor/teacher/manager. Consider instead that personal success can be about creating a full, rich and satisfying life by doing just enough and being ‘good-enough’ in a variety of roles rather than outstanding in just one. We don’t have to give up our high aspirations, just to redirect them towards a more reachable objective.

*names and some details have been altered for confidentiality

Posted by Julianne

Re-establishing your confidence

Loss of confidence is a key factor inhibiting women from returning to work after a career break. Often, we express this loss of confidence in different ways such as ‘I’m too old’ or ‘My work can’t be done flexibly’ or ‘There aren’t any jobs in my field ‘: this blog will be addressing these specific potential barriers in other posts.

It is natural for confidence to disappear after a break from an activity which formed a large part of our identity previously and also provided status, goals, income and positive feedback from colleagues, customers and suppliers.  Without anything to replace these key aspects of a working life it is hard work to maintain confidence levels.  Moreover, in the absence of regular positive messages from those around us, it is easy to create a negative picture of ourselves and be overly self-critical.  This harsh internal voice has the most damaging effect on our confidence.  Despite all this, it is possible to regain our confidence: there is a list of suggestions later.

My Harvard Business School classmate, Claire Perry MP, a former investment banker and McKinsey consultant, expressed the experience of many in a Sunday Times interview (The Sunday Times, March 25 2012)

‘I was basically unemployed for seven years [at home with my children] and going back, even voluntarily, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  Once you’re out of the workplace you lose your confidence’

Claire’s return to work began with offering to do work experience as a volunteer for a few months, on a Government economic committee.  And this route is a model that works well for many women.  Working as a volunteer whether for a charity, a school board or a community group gives us an opportunity to be reminded of our skills and value without the time commitment and pressures of employment.  We remember the things we used to do before and realise that all we need is some practice.

Other activities which also help us to regain confidence include:

• Finding activities that express us as an individual, rather than as a carer or partner
• Enhancing our knowledge and skills.  It is possible to find out about interesting and useful courses through the internet, a local library and adult education colleges.  Talking to previous work colleagues can be reassuring: they can suggest relevant literature to read
• Becoming more familiar with new technology.  Computer shops, community centres and colleges all run courses or a young, tech-savvy neighbour might offer tutorials for a small fee
• Asking for feedback, on our strengths and things we are good at, from the people who care about us.  It is easy for them to assume that we don’t need feedback because we appear to be managing everything very well
• Acting confident.  Sometimes, our thoughts and feelings can follow from our actions, so by acting confident we start to feel it
•  Spending time with people who support us and help us to feel good about ourselves
• Ignoring that critical voice.  This can be easier to say than to do, but it is important to recognise how unkind this voice can be.  Would we allow a friend talk to us this way?  If they did, would they remain a friend?  Learn to be kinder.

However we go about rebuilding our confidence it is essential to remember that it can be a slow process, but every small step that we take will accumulate over time until we are ready – and eager – to return to work.

Posted by Katerina - co-founder of Women Returners.

Am I too old to be employable?

I’ve spoken at a number of conferences directed towards women returners and one of the common questions, especially from those who’ve taken a long career gap, is ‘Am I too old to be employable?’

When I returned to work after my career break, I chose to become self-employed, but it is a common view among women hoping to return to employment that organisations are only looking for younger people or those who have worked their way up a career ladder.  It is easy for us to fear that we are too old and too out of touch, to be considered employable.  We worry that we won’t fit in to the office environment and that our prior experience, expertise and qualifications are no longer relevant. 

Instead of looking at what is missing from our CVs, it is much more helpful to notice what our years of experience, both in and out of the workforce, have given us.  As Michele (who found full-time work in her 50s, following a divorce) says:

‘I was attractive to my new employer because at my age I was reliable, I brought a wealth of different experiences which meant I could talk to anybody and I was serious about my work.  At the same time, I wasn’t going to take his clients and set up on my own.  And, I wasn’t going to get pregnant which made a big difference in a small company’

A recent Harvard Business Review article, which highlighted the concept of internships for returners mention that such internships ‘… allow [companies] to hire people who have a level of maturity and experience not found in younger recruits and who are at a life stage where parental leaves and spousal relocations are most likely behind them.  In short, these applicants are an excellent investment’.  (HBR November 2012 ‘The 40-year-old intern’). 

It is not just in the US that internships exist for returning mid-career women.  In the UK, the financial services industry was one of the first to offer these types of opportunities and since 2010 Red Magazine has arranged month long paid internships at a number of UK companies and with an MP

http://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/internships

The internship route is only one of many ways to return to work and we will discuss other ways in later articles.  However we plan to return, we can help ourselves by remembering all the qualities mentioned and we also know that we offer future employers commitment and stability.  We will stay a long time if we enjoy our work and are valued for what we bring to the organisation.

Posted by Katerina