When my older daughter started Kindergarten in a new school and my younger was in her terrible two’s, I had taken on a larger role at work and in short—life was complicated. Mornings were a shit show of epic proportion. I came to expect all three of us to be crying as I locked the apartment door to start each new day. At the time I thought, "Wow. I’m simply sucking at this." And then to top it off, the subway would take its sweet time on my commute. I arrived late and was already behind for each meeting. All day I fought against the sad nagging feeling that I wasn’t winning any awards at the office, either! 

I knew I had to do something to break me out of that daily cycle of failure and despair. So, I took the natural next step for any overwhelmed working mom. 

I signed up for the New York City Marathon. 

Wait. What the what???

At the time, I couldn’t articulate to anyone why I was doing it. I had run a few races, but slowwwly…and never anything as intense as the magical, daunting 26.2. It was unreasonable. Unthinkable. And that’s exactly why I knew I had to do it! 

It was something powerful; proof that I could conquer my deepest fears and trust my intuition. It was the gift that forced me to lean on and be lifted by my people. And they were all in too. After five months of training, my six-year-old sat us down the night before the race and said, "I want us all to close our eyes and picture mommy crossing the finish line of the marathon." Love and tears. Enough said. 

The marathon made me realize—I’m not that great a runner and I ran a freakin’ marathon!! What can I do with the things I’m REALLY great at??? And then, my coaching practice was born. 

Sometimes it’s that simple. We need something to shake us out of reacting to our lives so that we can create the life we want.

And if running a marathon isn’t your thing…that’s ok! I have something else that can shake you out of a life of:

Autopilot

Overwhelm

Guilt 

Perfectionism

It’s called WORKING MOTHER MASTERCLASS—and I’m so over the top excited to be sharing it with you! It’s the culmination of three years of helping women to end their self-sabotage so they can build lives they love. And it will be a major focus of mine this year in my mission to get more women into positions of power. 

In the 8-week group coaching program we’ll:

1. Build out your life vision and learn what you want in your core.

2. Figure out what’s getting in your way (ie. guilt, perfectionism, difficulty saying no).

3. Master the work-life juggle by giving clear strategies to get out of overwhelm.

4. Up-level your leadership by defining your leadership style and personal brand, while improving your communication and learning to promote yourself in an authentic way.

5. Create a plan for self-care, fuel and fun!

6. Incorporate concrete ways to help other women.

7. Provide the accountability of a badass group of motivated and committed women.

8. Work through the challenges of what it’s like to be a woman in today’s workplace in a safe and supportive environment.

There’s only room for TEN women in this group and it starts January 30th! Sign up now to reserve your spot. They’re going FAST! 

If it sounds like it’s for you, you can learn more about signing up here or schedule a Clarity Call with me to talk through the details. 

Or, if you know someone who sounds like a good fit for the program, forward this email or feel free to reach out to me. 

This is going to be BIG—so join me. Real talk, real change for the real life you’re meant to live. 
 

In the aftermath of #metoo, the smart companies among us are beginning to seek ways to shift their cultures, to dive into how we came to this place of reckoning and to find methods to help employees begin to advocate for and protect themselves. In addition to new reporting processes, policies and re-vamped trainings, there’s a clear necessity to break the dialogue about diversity in the senior ranks wide open; to get focused on the tactic we know will move the needle: get more women into positions of power. Now. 

Given where we are, it can seem a daunting task—and one reserved for a select few in the top rung of our organizations. Also, knowing how strapped we all are for time, you may fear furthering this cause will become your new unpaid side-hustle. 

I’m thrilled to report, neither of these statements are true and there’s much we can be doing within our work day to take giant leaps forward to our goal of gender parity in the senior ranks. 

Here’s a list of 5 ways you can begin right now:

1. Take your own leadership seriously
Women, whether you have direct reports or not—you can be a leader. You can define the kind of leader you want to be by identifying your values and strengths and creating a leadership or personal mission statement. You can hone your clear communication skills and your executive presence. Read the top leadership books and continue to hone your craft. Dare to laugh while on the job and be yourself. Be the model. Be the example, the boss you wish you had or can have. Ask for what you want. Promote your good work. Believe you are worthy. 

2. Stop complaining and generalizing about bad female bosses
All too often, my clients lean in to me and whisper (in my private office), "I prefer to work for a male boss. I’ve had bad experiences with women." Beyond clients, I’ve heard it from colleagues, friends—and hell—I think I’ve said it once or twice in my career, but not anymore. Of course our experiences are valid and it’s fine to talk about your experiences, but just know—you’re NOT helping more women advance with this negative re-telling of history or sweeping assumptions that all female bosses will be as bad as those you’ve encountered. My guess is that you’ve had some bad male bosses as well—so check your own bias when you say these things. Are you holding women to a higher standard? Absolutely give feedback, recommend training and recognize how you want to lead differently, but by furthering these stories and statements, you could be maximizing a false assumption that women don’t lead as well as men. Or you could be adding a level of pressure to the already long list of fears held by women stepping into leadership roles. This pressure could prompt women to avoid choosing "the big job" when it’s well within their capabilities. 

3. Give constructive feedback to women colleagues often
The only way employees at all levels will continue to improve and up-level their game is with feedback. I offer tips on how to effectively give feedback for those who may shy away in my post, Give Feedback Like A Pro. Most importantly, you can let the employee know you’re giving the feedback BECAUSE you care and you think they’re good at what they do—not the opposite. 

4. Take time to mentor
Build time in your schedule to meet with women who are seeking your wisdom—and believe you have wisdom to share! It could be as little as one mentoring lunch a month and as much as some master mentors—two afternoons a week. If getting more women into positions of power is a top priority for you, make the time. Show other women it’s possible to get where you are, to juggle logistics, to have a position where you’re supported and have some autonomy and flexibility. Show other women that it doesn’t need to look perfect and you need not live in a state of exhaustion. When you can see it, it’s easier to believe it’s possible. 

5. Advocate for training and yes, coaching
If you lead a team, advocate for new levels of training and coaching for your emerging women leaders. With my corporate clients, I help them learn to delegate more junior tasks to their capable employees so they can take on more of the strategic work that will get them promoted. We work through the tactical logistics of the work-life juggle so they come out of overwhelm and use their creative muscles for innovative thinking. They learn to communicate with confidence and power, how to own a room—and lead with the best parts of themselves—instead of playing a part. Most importantly, they learn to believe they can demonstrate their value and expertise, while also leading on their terms. More about this in my post, Flexibility and Advancement Are Not Opposites.

Inherent in all of these ways we can further our collective mission, is that we must continually question our own inevitable biases. We must become aware of when we’re bringing our bias to our decision-making, our communication and our leadership. We must create a safe space for the only other woman in the meeting to speak. We must give the woman candidate a chance based on her credentials, not only on her ability to sell herself. The latter can be taught. One wonderful tool, I use with clients and with my own biases is Kristen Pressner’s simple, Flip It To Test It model. The more we open up the dialogue and become aware of how we are contributing on both ends of the spectrum, the better we’ll become at shifting focus and our trajectory in closing the gap. 

As a Career and Leadership Coach supporting working mothers in up-leveling leadership skills and managing career transitions, the week the Weinstein news hit was traumatic. Then the punches kept coming. Every day there were more sexual harassment, assault and rape cases revealing themselves—and the stories of cover-up infrastructure decades old were as crushing as the incidents themselves.  

Like Uma Thurman, I was angry. Every day I coach incredible women. 

Women who know well what it’s like to be the only woman in the room. 

Women attorneys who have created new areas of the law to protect underserved communities. 

Women who are self-taught technology experts. 

Women who are facing bias, discrimination and worse—that flies in the face of their ambition. 

Women who have all the skills, all the tools, all the expertise—but still don’t see themselves as leaders. 

After weeks of moving through empathy for the victims, reflection on the more than awkward moments in my own career, holding my clients’ challenges in my heart and reading every word on the subject, one Harvard Business Review article was tattooed on my brain—Training Programs and Reporting Systems Won’t End Sexual Harassment. Promoting More Women Will. The article revealed that while training programs and reporting systems are band aid measures, the research does not support their success in solving the problem. 

The only proven approach is in promoting women into the senior ranks. "Male-dominated management teams have been found to tolerate, sanction, or even expect sexualized treatment of workers, which can lead to a culture of complicity…Harassment flourishes in organizations where few women hold the "core" jobs. Fixing this is about finding power in numbers, not just in authority and hierarchy."

There it was. Through tears, I saw my imminent pivot before me. There was only one path forward. One mission. One 2018 Why.

GET MORE WOMEN INTO POSITIONS OF POWER. 

As I move into 2018 business planning and goal setting, all priority projects will fall under this umbrella.

I will begin to phase out programs and projects that no longer speak to this mission, this Why. My focus will be coaching and online programs that ignite women’s leadership skills, strengthening their belief that it IS possible for them to lead and have family lives they love—while drop kicking the idea or myth that women can’t and won’t help women. 

Helping other women will be part of my mission and all of my programs. 

The ONLY way we’re going to make this happen is by helping each other. 

So, in the spirit of helping each other—let’s get to work helping you Create Your 2018 Why. 

First off, what is it? 
Often called a "Why Statement" and popularized by Simon Sinek’s must-read bestseller, It Starts With Why. As Simon so eloquently puts it, "It is one of life’s greatest joys to wake up in the morning…every morning, with a clear sense of why that day matters, why every day matters. This is what it means to find your WHY." 

Your Why should bring you to tears. Now, I’m not saying I want you crying the whole damn day, but—I do want you to be moved by what you’re doing and your reasons for doing it. This emotion will propel you forward, keep you motivated and fill you with pride and gratitude for your contribution to the world. 

Why is it important?
Your Why drives your hunger to succeed and accomplish your goals. It also gets you through the tough parts of the work! When I’m dealing with technology issues or scheduling snafu’s with clients, I think, "Get more women into positions of power." And I redouble my efforts to work through it. 

It also lets people know how to help and partner with you! When you tell people your Why as part of your elevator pitch or simply standing in line at Starbucks (ok, maybe that’s just me!) people will be attracted to the emotion behind your Why and think about ways to be a part of your mission. 

How do I create it?
This will take some ever-illusive quiet time. Yes, it is possible to find this time and you must. I already feel the pressure you’re putting on yourself to find the answers in one sitting, you efficient type-A’s. Let me set expectations by saying, this could take awhile and that’s okay. The reflection is worth your time, no matter what you uncover. 

Ask yourself, the following questions:

1. What do I want?

2. What do I want for the people I love?

3. What do I want for the world?

4. Why do I want these things?

5. What is most important to me?

6. What do I believe with all that I am?

Read through what you have and let it percolate. Now, actively walk through your life with an openness, looking for clues to finding more of these answers. Talk about your evolving answers with people you trust and people who will be open to exploring what this means for you. 

When you come up with it—and it brings you to tears, let your Why be your mantra and experiment with it being your life’s organizing principle. The first year of my business, my Why was simply one word—growth. I had spent 16 years in one career and I felt like I was standing still for a long time. The idea of both personal and business growth lit me up. It helped me figure out what projects to say no to and how I wanted to organize my life. Whatever you come up with, let it be something that draws you to it, something that fires you up. Because you’re here to make shit happen, so let’s do this thing, 2018. 

Two years ago, my husband and I hit a panicky moment where we looked at our lives and said, "Nope. Not what we envisioned." 

Too much work.

And yet not enough learning about life and who we were becoming. 

Not enough time with friends. 

Mindless shuttling from place to place. 

Too many screens. 

Not enough art and music and theater. 

Too much concrete. 

A hunger to be in nature. 

A yearning to make a bigger impact on the world. 

We were grateful for all we had—two healthy (and hilarious) children, a supportive community and a rock-solid relationship—but we were on autopilot and we knew it. 

We sat down in December that year with some wine, paper and post-its to build out a vision of how we wanted this whole thing called life to look. We dared to say some of our seemingly silly and audacious wants out loud, having no idea how we would accomplish them. It was a beautiful relief to use our creative muscles while believing we could have EXACTLY what we wanted. We used these goals as guideposts for the coming year and while we weren’t able to accomplish everything—we carried the remaining items and themes into our longer-term life vision. We know where we’re going, for now. 

Since then, I’ve honed my process for goal setting and planning that I’m sharing in my Working Mother Masterclass 2018 Planner. I’ve also highlighted my top tips here, so you can get started right now! 

1. Acknowledge Your 2017
Before you get to work creating your 2018, you must put 2017 to bed with a proper farewell. By putting your past in the past, you open up more room to create new and exciting opportunities for the year ahead. I like to do this by writing a forgiveness letter to yourself for all that did and didn’t happen. Then, make a list of your 2017 accomplishments. It could be as big as "Landed a promotion!" or "Won the Hamilton Lottery." Or as small as, "Exercised today." 

2. Figure out the "why" behind each goal
When you get clear on why your goals are important to you AND you bring some emotion to that why—you’re more likely to persevere during the tough parts of trying to accomplish your goal. One of my goals for 2018 is to turn off my phone between 6:30 and 8PM (or at least hide it in my bedroom!) every night. Why? So that my kids feel I’m there for them AND focused on them during that daily time we have together. Remembering the feeling I want to help create for my girls is what will help me break free of the magnetic force of my device. 

3. Break big goals into small steps and figure out your first one! 
Before getting overwhelmed by your big goals, try to remember that they are simply lots of little goals strung together. Spread your milestones out over the course of the months in the year so you can begin to visualize how you will build toward what seemed like an unthinkable goal. Once you set your goals, leverage the momentum, energy and excitement you have for that goal RIGHT NOW. Decide on what your first step will be, no matter how tiny and schedule it ASAP! The sooner you begin, the sooner you will begin to believe that you’re actually doing this! 

If this is the first time you’re getting intentional about your year—welcome! You’ll never want to do it another way again. The more clear you can get about how you want your life to look, the closer you are to making it so. 

You can use my free Working Mother Masterclass 2018 Planner (good for both parents and non-parents!), pen and paper, or create your own 2018 spreadsheet. No matter what you choose, get planning now so you can start the New Year focused, fresh and ready to begin! 

Run, run, run your fastest mile ever—and then skid toward a grinding halt. It’s not pretty or graceful, but it does explain the December dynamic. You’re doing all the things at record pace so that you can enjoy the cozy slowdown of holiday time. 

While some may see this time as both too busy and too slow for networking, I strongly disagree. This is a moment to turn up the volume on your networking efforts, so you can leverage all of the natural connections, happiness and well…wine. 

Here are 4 stress-free ways you can get your holiday networking game on!

1. Trot out your elevator pitch at holiday parties
You’ve been meaning to revise that elevator pitch about who you are and what you do at your company. Now is the perfect time to practice! As a reminder, your elevator pitch can be as short as 3-4 sentences. It should sound like YOU, your personality, your words and not C3PO, if you know what I mean. Here’s one of my go-to articles with a formula for pitches that work for most people. You’re going to be talking with many people at gatherings with colleagues, family and friends, so experiment with different ways of wording your pitch based on your audience. If networking is not your thing, remember my advice from my New Networking Rules: For People Who Hate Networking—think of it as connecting instead! 

2. Schedule time for coffees and lunches
Many people (like me!) choose to stay in town during the December holiday week — and their days are virtually meeting-free. Reach out to those colleagues with whom you’ve been meaning to schedule time and put a lunch or coffee on the calendar. Choose a fun venue! Most likely, if they’re in town, they have little to do beyond clean up their desks and procrastinate from their self-imposed head start on projects that aren’t due for weeks. And if they’re not in town, it’s a good excuse to schedule time on the calendar for January.

3. Use holiday cards as an excuse to connect
If you’re a frequent reader of the blog, you know that I don’t send holiday cards because the process doesn’t bring me joy. That said, I love receiving cards. I often use the card as an opportunity to drop a note to the senders to see what they’re up to beyond the obvious having a beautiful family and dog. Whether I reach out by email, Facebook or even a— wait for it—phone call, that person is always pleased to connect and hear that I loved the card. Clearly, I know how much effort goes into them! Some of the folks on this list are former colleagues and favorite bosses so reconnecting with them strengthens my relationships and gives me that chance to tell them they made an impact on my life—in a personal way.

4. Send a holiday email instead of a card
If you’re like me and you’re off the physical holiday card train, consider sending an email card to friends and colleagues letting them know what you’re up to and that you’re grateful for having them in your life. This is an easy way for you to reach out and re-ignite your connections while also giving your people an easy way to respond. When you receive replies and well wishes, it’s a fantastic reminder of the wealth of people in your orbit. What a great way to refuel for the exciting year ahead! 

With all of these networking tips, one thing that helps them stick for me is setting an intention. For many, the holidays can be a rough time of year. There’s the appearance that everyone is over the top happy and you’re the only one that is in a reflective place or in a time of uncertainty. Guidance I often give in this scenario is, "You do you!" When you’re connecting, don’t feel like you need to pretend you’re ecstatic about life right now. If you’re reflective, set an intention of curiosity or experimentation. If you’re down, go in with the intention of being inspired by others who have gone through a hard time and have found happiness, or in finding three small things to encourage you. When you’re authentic about your connections, it will be clear—and in those connections, you may even find the energy and excitement to move through where you are.

Written by Guest Blogger, Suzanne Brown.

As a working mom, you’re likely juggling all the things. What are you doing to keep moving your career forward? It’s not only about doing great work. You must advocate for yourself and, let’s be honest, it’s helpful to have someone senior in your corner. I’m not only talking about mentors. A combination of mentors and sponsors is important.  

What’s the Difference Between Mentors & Sponsors?

In the simplest terms, mentors provide guidance on your career decisions and sponsors are more action-oriented when it comes to creating opportunities. Bounce ideas off of mentors and let sponsors open doors for you. In my own career and in the stories I heard in the more than 110 interviews I did for my book, I saw a pattern of a combination of mentors and sponsors advancing moms’ careers.

Mompreneurs and Mentors & Sponsors

Entrepreneurship is a balance between getting work done and building a pipeline of new business. Then there is the long-term business building. No question about it, growing your business isn’t only about doing great work. You need others to share that enthusiasm about your work with their colleagues and friends. Have mentors to help you with business decisions and sponsors to introduce you to potential new clients, team members, and even help you with finding funding.

Mentors

Consider mentors like your own personal board of directors. You want senior people, at least at your manager’s level or a few levels up, so they can understand what you’re going through and give realistic and implementable advice. You want them to still remember how things were when they had a role similar to yours or at least at about the same level. They can be men or women. It’s helpful to have a working mom who can relate to your current season of motherhood as one of your mentors.

5 Tips to Help You with Relationships with Mentors

• Take your time to build these relationships. Start talking to potential mentors well before you want to engage them and ask for advice. Look at your current employer or previous employer if you’re an entrepreneur. Maybe it’s a previous manager or a lead on a project you recently worked on. Talk to presenters from conferences or experts who write articles.

• Be strategic. Set goals. Figure out your needs and develop criteria for the right fit. Consider personality, style, and approach to career. You don’t have to mimic these, but they need to mesh with your approach.

• Establish communication approach or style from the beginning. Informal or formal? How often will you meet? Potentially schedule a few dates. Where or how will you meet? If it’s a long-distance situation, what tool will you use to meet online?

• Get the most out of each interaction.

• Be respectful of his or her time and of your own. Prepare for your conversations. Know the points you want to cover and send an agenda beforehand if it’s more formal. Be engaged during your interaction and use active listening skills.

• Follow up and say thank you. Follow up after the interactions and say thank you to your mentor for his or her time, insights, advice, etc. A simple email or even a handwritten note is great. If you implemented his or her advice, share about the results.

Sponsors

Unlike a mentor, sponsors will promote your accomplishments and skills, help you make conn ections with more senior leaders inside and outside of the company, and help you get more exposure.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I often had a sponsor at the large marketing agencies where I worked throughout my career. These senior leaders saw something in me and were willing to help position my skills to new potential managers or actively recommend me for new opportunities. I considered them mentors, but now I know they were actually more like sponsors.

4 Tips on Finding Sponsors
When it comes to sponsors, the challenge can be finding them in your network.

• Look at your current network. Maybe it’s time a mentor became a sponsor? Perhaps a previous manager or manager’s manager?

• They showed an interest in your career previously. Consider conversations you might have had with senior leaders about your career path. Those are the people who could be great sponsors.

• Consider previous projects. If you’ve worked on a high-profile project in the past few years, consider reaching out to someone senior who seemed impressed with your work. He or she has already seen you in action and understands what you’re capable of.

• Find a sponsor whose legacy you can support. According to Sylvia Ann Hewitt’s Harvard Business Review article, sponsors can be looking for someone to help support their legacy with the company or industry. If you can fit into their legacy and you’re interested in their support, it might be the perfect fit.

What Can You Do for Your Mentor & Sponsor?

Both of these types of relationships should be a two-way street. How can you help your mentor or sponsor? Sure, they want to mentor or sponsor someone, but there is more to it. Hewitt suggests that you offer to share your knowledge or skills as it relates to projects he or she is working on. When in doubt, ask what he or she needs and how you can help. Share relevant articles that your read and explain why you’re sending them. Introduce him or her to the right resources, if it’s not you. Be generous with your time and knowledge and share what you find. Already have a relationship with a mentor or sponsor? How did you find him or her? How do you keep that relationship going? What advice would you give other working moms looking to find mentor and sponsors?

Suzanne Brown is a strategic marketing and business consultant, TEDx speaker, and work-life balance and professional part-time working mom expert and advocate. She is the author of a recently published book, Mompowerment: Insights from Successful Professional Part-time Working Moms Who Balance Career and Family. Her book, available on Amazon, is filled with her own experience and research combined with stories, insights, and advice from more than 110 interviews with professional part-time working moms. She empowers moms to think differently about their career approach and provides guidance on engaging in their career and being the moms they want to be. You can read more about mentors and sponsors and other topics for busy, working moms on her weekly blog: www.mompowerment.com/blog. Suzanne, her husband, and their two active young boys live in Austin, TX. 

Marriage and parenting can fall into the "you don’t know what you don’t know" category. You don’t know what you should have agreed upon until you’re full-fledged, certifiably—IN IT! Until the 1000th dirty sock you pick up off the floor makes you blow a gasket. Or when you feel like you’re dragging your infant to every family wedding and bar mitzvah across state lines, only to pass her around to total strangers for hours instead of spending cozy, quiet time with her. Or when your partner says, "Honey, you never laugh anymore." And you say, "BECAUSE NOTHING IS FUNNY!" Like I said, in it. 

Partnered parents can spend a lifetime locking horns or brewing under-the-surface resentments. Ideally you would have known exactly what conversations to have before you braved this whole parenting adventure together. Somewhere under the rainbow you are in lockstep—but rainbows are so temporary and we live in this reality, with opinionated aunts, uncles and in-laws. The good news is, there’s still time to talk it through. 

Here are two of the most common topics I see warranting open, empathetic, patient discussion for partnered parents. While of course, there are others to discuss, when couples begin to see progress in these two areas, some of the other conversations around career, life and dreams begin to open up with possibilities instead of roadblocks. 

1. Your approach to including extended family
Family can be quite a polarizing topic and approaches can vary widely in different cultures. So, when you put two different cultures together in a marriage and raise the stakes with a child—you get a lot of room for discussion and debate on how closely involved your extended families will be in both parenting and your lives in general. 

My recommendation is that you and your partner become a unified front with a single message to family. You two work together to agree on how inclusive your immediate family will be. You choose what is important to your new family and which traditions, holidays and birthdays will be celebrated where and with whom. If you are not together on this, resentments will grow and you may feel you are constantly on the defensive due to an overwhelming influence from extended family members. 

Know that both of your families will be disappointed sometimes. And when those moments come—whether it’s with plates flying across a dining room or with a look that can sear through you like a laser—take a moment to let all parties involved know that you understand this may be hard and you care about each of them, but doing what you and your partner feel is best for your immediate family is priority. Setting boundaries will not be easy, especially in the beginning, but if you and your partner discuss what’s not working for you, create a plan together and continue to be aligned—it does get easier. 

2. The desired division of labor
Here’s where we need a cultural reset. If you grew up with a stay at home parent and now you’re in a partnership where both you and your partner work full-time, assume there needs to be a complete disruption in the cultural norms of who does what around the house. If you are the partner who feels completely overwhelmed by not only the number of tasks you’re doing, but also the number of family related roles for which you’re the one in charge, you’re due for this sit down with your partner, ASAP. If you’re the one who wishes your partner wasn’t so negative and "naggy" all the time, you can bring up this topic with empathy and a willingness to listen. 

When it comes to dealing with what’s now being called "the mental load" of parenting and family life, it’s important to separate the feelings that come from the unequal division of a task and how you can better distribute. It’s communicating things like, "When you’re sitting on the couch watching TV while I’m doing a steady stream of dishes, folding laundry, making lunches and unclogging the sink, it makes me feel like I’m in this alone. I’m angry and overwhelmed and I need your help in making a change." And, "When I try to help, you tell me I’m not doing things right so I’ve basically given up trying. When I can’t do things in a way that you approve of—I feel helpless, useless and see us growing farther apart." By working through some of the emotions that have built up around the division, you’re setting yourself up to approach the tasks at hand with clearer heads and a commitment to help each other through. 

Then when it comes to the actual tasks, I like to take a page from one of my favorite books on this topic, Tiffany Dufu’s, Drop The Ball, where she recommends that partners create a spreadsheet (or list with paper and pen) of all the tasks, determine which are the most important and must be done and assign them to someone "in the village." This could be either partner, the kids (if they’re old enough), extended family members, babysitters, neighbors, etc. And then choose the tasks that together you’ve decided you will not do. Don’t assign them to anyone and work to release any guilt you may have around not doing them. Meet about your list weekly or twice a month to reduce the urge to nag about tasks not completed. 

As with any weighty topics you discuss with your partner, they’re best done 1) while you’re alone 2) in a calm environment and 3) not in the heat of an argument. When you’re in an argument, you will most likely say things you would never say with a clear head. I recommend that before the conversation, you do something that brings you energy like exercising, chatting with a close friend, or listening to music you love. When you do those tasks that bring you energy, you reduce stress and become more open to possibilities. And for these intense topics—you’ll want to get your creativity muscles working to their peak performance. These are not easy conversations and things may never match the ideal in your mind, but the more you work through them and acknowledge your progress, the more you can commit to each other that you will continue to practice. 

Last Sunday, my husband and I took our two kids and two of their friends on a long walk to a teeny theater where we saw (and participated in) a Family Improv show. As we took in the sunny Sunday in our neighborhood, with four kids who were beaming with the anticipation of being entertained—I had one of those moments where I realized—this is what it’s all about. 

Their joy was contagious. I halted all of my hurrying and lingering worries about getting four slow moving children to a destination on time. Instead, I felt a warm calm come over me and I was grateful for every aspect of that moment. 

I was grateful that I…

Was able to completely disconnect from my business to be with the people I love.

Could hear the kids’ laughter before the show even started. 

Was watching them hold each other’s hands, knowing that they already have close friends that feel like family. 

Live in a neighborhood where we can walk to a Family Improv show. 

When I have these moments, my gut instinct is often to keep going, keep doing and continue with the busyness of my day. And yet, in the few years since I’ve restructured my life, created more space and awareness of what’s working and what’s not—I’ve begun to practice presence in these moments. I know that when I stop and truly take it in, I’m changed. 

Here are three ways practicing gratitude has helped me create a life and career I savor:

1. It pulls me out of stress and negativity
When I feel the pressure of a stressful situation, where I may feel stuck or without control, I create some time for myself to either think about all the things I have or do something I’m thankful to be able to do. Going for a run or walk reminds me of my good health and that I have another day where it’s possible for me to do this powerful thing for my body and mind. 

2. It gives me motivation to work through the tough bits
Even dream careers are not easy! There are moments when I’m struggling to do something I’ve never learned to do or nights my daughters cry if I have to be out in the evening. Those are times I choose to be grateful for a career where I’m constantly learning. I also think about having a partner who is warm and loving and quite accomplished at taking over parental duties when I’m not around. And about daughters who see that with hard work and belief, women can run their own businesses and become financially independent. It’s those things that pull me over the hurdle of the discomfort and tears. 

3. It reminds me that I’m creating a life based on what’s important to me
My moment of gratitude when I feel I’m fulfilling on my vision is my victory lap. This is what it’s all for. This is what I’m creating. Taking the time to acknowledge it, celebrate it and truly feel it with every cell of my being is what reminds me—this is possible and I’m doing it. 

Luckily, the show exceeded everyone’s expectations (which was tough to do). My 9-year-old went up on stage and channeled intense visions of hot lava and pink fluffy unicorns. And when the emcee asked for audience suggestions about something you’re thankful for, my 6-year-old raised her hand and called out, "My family!" My husband and I, on either end of four rapt children gave each other a smile and a telepathic high five. This is possible and we’re doing it.