Three strategies to help women achieve their full potential

When we’re talking to people who are thinking about going back to work after a career break, there are certain books we recommend time and again, usually because they provide great tips on the practical elements of finding and applying for new jobs, or important strategies on overcoming psychological barriers to returning to work. We thought it would be useful to start sharing these recommendations here on our blog so that more people could benefit from them.

We’re kicking off with Tara Mohr’s Playing Big, which we love because it sets out practical tools to help women deal with the internal blocks and external challenges that prevent them from achieving their dreams, such as making that move back to the workplace.

Here are three of her strategies that we found to be particularly relevant to returners:

1) Learning to recognise your inner critic

2) Unhooking from criticism

3) Communicating with more impact


Learning to recognise your inner critic

We all have an inner critic, the voice of self-doubt, of ‘not me’, of ‘I’m not good enough’. This voice can become stronger for people who have been out of the workplace for a long time. While it’s impossible to silence it, it’s relatively easy to learn to relate to it in a different way:

• Don’t try to argue with your critic. You won’t win! The trick is to notice the voice, recognise it for what it is, and refuse to let it determine your choices. 
• You could create a character for your inner critic to help you differentiate it from your true voice and/or try a visualisation exercise where you imagine turning down the volume on the critic’s voice whenever it pipes up. 
• Remember that experiencing fear or doubt doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong track. In fact, our inner critic is never more vocal than when we’re stepping outside of our comfort zones, pushing ourselves, and on the verge of achieving something amazing.

Unhooking from criticism

Many women are relationship-oriented, which means that we work hard to preserve harmony and care about other people’s perspectives. While this is largely a positive trait, it can hold us back if it translates to a fear of disapproval. Bear these ideas in mind next time you find yourself overly worried about other people’s opinions:

• A negative response doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong. Feedback is crucial: not because it tells you something about the value of your work, but because it tells you how it is likely to be received by the people you are hoping to reach. This also means that you don’t need to incorporate all feedback, but instead carefully select the parts that are strategically useful, and let the rest go, e.g. a former colleague’s opinion on your CV is more valuable than that of a friend in an unrelated field. 
• Criticism most affects us when it reflects a negative belief we hold about ourselves. The rest bounces right off. Use painful criticism as a way of discovering, and addressing, those negative beliefs that might be holding you back in your decision to return to the workplace. 

Communicating with more impact

Do you ever feel the struggle between wanting to say something but holding back? Between sharing an idea and simultaneously diminishing it? Women are particularly affected by this, and are often guilty of dumbing down communication in order to be more likeable, at the expense of appearing competent.

Before hitting send on your next email to a potential or new employer:

• Eliminate any undermining words and phrases (‘just’, ‘kind of’’). 
• Remove any unnecessary apologies (‘Sorry if this is a silly question’). 
• Take out any phrases that suggest that what you have to say isn’t worth much time/space (‘I thought I’d tell you a little bit about’, ‘just a minute of your time’). 
• Replace questions such as ‘does that make sense?’, which imply you feel you’ve been incoherent, with phrases such as ‘I look forward to hearing your thoughts’. 
• Delete the disclaimers (‘I’m no expert but’) and just say what you have to say. 

This doesn’t mean being aggressive in your communication, but rather making a conscious effort to express warmth - e.g. expressing a genuine interest in the other person - without relying on diminishing phrases.

Watch this space for further reading recommendations, and please do comment with any books you may have found useful in your own return to work journey!

Posted by Elaine

Don’t Talk Yourself Out of an Opportunity

Cheryl McGee Wallace, is a Financial Services Manager at PwC UK who returned to work after a 6 year career break. If you're doubting that networking can help you to make a successful return to work, or if you've no idea about informational interviewing, read Cheryl's post below for inspiration.

About a year ago I planned an alumni event on networking. Led by an experienced career coach, we were given role-playing exercises on introducing ourselves as well as entering and exiting ongoing conversations in a social setting. Over the course of the evening one voice stood out for me. My radar went up. I knew those questions, that doubt. She was a returner. After the session ended, I introduced myself, and I was right. She was a human rights lawyer volunteering for a refugee NGO and wanted to know how she should introduce herself if she was not being paid. I was flabbergasted. All I heard was “international human rights lawyer.” She injected the doubt.

How often, I wonder, do women returners talk themselves out of opportunities without ever trying?

In my own re-entry story, I confronted voices of doubt. Adding my own to that chorus would have stopped me in my tracks. There is no single way to on-ramp. It is your story to write as you will. Nevertheless, one must acknowledge what reality dictates: our preferred end is not guaranteed. We will confront detours and closed doors just as we would in the absence of a non-traditional career path.

Explore, investigate, research, and prepare

You are an outsider in need of inside information. You need to clarify your best point of re-entry and understand how the market views your skills. You need to understand the risks that would prevent a potential employer from considering your candidacy.

Develop an elevator pitch and practice it.  Think of three important things you want someone to remember about you. Determine your personal brand and be consistent. What is your unique value proposition? What differentiates you from others? You want them to say: “I remember that person.  She’s the x, y, and z.” This will evolve over time as you gain experience and insights to refine your message.

Conducting informational interviews is the most critical data collecting activity you can undertake. When approached correctly, these one-on-one meetings will help you to obtain personalized feedback, direction, an insider’s perspective, industry lingo, and ideas.

Do not expect the insider to do all the work. You must prepare. Consider why you want to meet this person and the information you would like to obtain from the meeting. Research the individual and the firm before the meeting.

Tailor your questions specifically to that individual, firm, and industry. At a minimum, ask the insider: Who succeeds or fails in this environment? What was your career trajectory? What professional organizations or periodicals do you recommend? Is there anyone else whom you think I should meet? Follow up with a thank-you note and send periodic (meaningful) updates.

You are exploring. Initial meetings may be more challenging, but as you gain experience and clarity on your goals, such meetings will likely become less fraught. For this reason, it is also best to prioritize contacts within your target firms. Meeting junior staff may be more useful early in the information gathering process. Save hiring managers and senior executives for when your message and targets are more refined.

Informational interviews need not be formal. An informal invitation for coffee or drinks can be low risk and pleasant for both. (I often had to remind myself to breathe and enjoy the process of meeting such generous and fascinating people.) As I progressed to identifying target firms, however, it became increasingly important to visit the office for a “pre-interview” assessment of the environment. Be flexible, though. Often a quick call may be all your insider can spare.

Incorporate feedback

Relaunching is a process, not an event. You are constantly learning from every interaction (or lack thereof). The objective is to clarify your goals, which will ultimately help you to articulate your value proposition with clarity and confidence. Which version of your pitch worked best? Is your networking path effective in helping you to meet the right people in your target industry or firms? Are you hearing similar questions from your informational interviews, e.g., are you being asked to explain the same aspect of your professional background? Does your response raise more questions than it answers?

Create your opportunities

There is nothing stopping you from re-entering the workforce. While you may have to endure detours or even closed doors, opportunities do exist. Where they do not exist, it is within your power to make your own opportunities.

Consider the fact that the only difference between returning and not returning may well be a belief in your own ability. Belief reinforces choices and behavior.

Someone out there needs your skills. It is your responsibility to find them.


Further Reading
Read Cheryl's personal story of how networking enabled her to find a new role and move to a new country.

Note: A version of this blog previously appeared on iRelaunch.com 

Are you your own worst enemy?

'I've failed in my career', 'I can't be like other people in the corporate world', 'No-one will employ me', 'I'm no good at networking', 'I'm never going to solve this' 

Do these statements sound familiar to you?  Are they a regular soundtrack that runs through your head?  If so, you are in good company.  Self-critical thoughts are familiar to everyone. They can have their uses: thinking critically about the world, yourself and others can be a driver of success and is a vital component of good judgement and decision-making.

However, if your critical thoughts are largely directed towards yourself and aren't regulated or balanced by other more positive kinds of thoughts, the result can be low self-belief and loss of confidence. The constant repetition of such thoughts can lead to the belief that they are actually true facts.  'I'm my own worst enemy' is how one of my clients described this pattern of thinking, with a mixture of pride and sheepishness.  While she was proud of her self-awareness she also recognised that she was simultaneously being unduly harsh on herself.  And she didn't believe that it was possible to prevent the thoughts from happening, even though she could see the benefits of doing so.

Reducing the self-critical thoughts

The first thing to realise about this pattern of thinking is that it is a habit which has probably formed over many years and, as with other habits, changing it will take time, effort and practice.  The first step is to catch yourself when you are having these thoughts.  If you can do this, then you give yourself the option of challenging your thought pattern using the following ideas.  These have helped many of my clients to move towards being more of a friend to themselves than an enemy:

• give the critical voice a name (perhaps it reminds you of someone you know?) and acknowledge that it is present, without giving it more attention
• treat the soundtrack like a radio station and either turn down the volume or switch station
• spend some time listing all the things you are capable of and have achieved.  Re-read this list (particularly when the critical voice appears) and keep adding to it 
• ask those around you, who love you, for some feedback.  Our partners, spouses and children are notoriously bad at giving us positive feedback and are great at complaining!  It is easy for them to assume that we know we are doing well, unless we expressly ask them
• imagine that you are your own best friend and ask this friend what she admires about you
• mindfulness and meditation are useful tools for learning how to let thoughts pass without becoming fixed on them or even believing they are true

If you have any other tips on how you have toned down your own critical voice, please share them with us.

Posted by Katerina - Co-founder Women Returners