By Dr Tharaka aka “Dr T,” Clinical Psychiatrist turned TV Doctor and guest on St. James’s Place Financial Adviser Academy podcast, The Switch.
Mastering your mindset opens the gateway to what is possible – both in your career and beyond. However, your mindset can be affected by intrinsic (from within) and extrinsic (from the world out with) factors that can have an impact on your mentality; these causes could be social, psychological, or biological. Women may have more extrinsic factors to contend with throughout their lifetime – particularly in the world of work. Understanding what makes women’s journeys unique can empower them to navigate life’s big decisions more effectively.
If we consider aspects of the female biological journey, this will typically involve menstruation, menopause, and the postmenopausal ‘bounce-back’. In some workplaces, this can be a challenge to deal with. To name a few: those that are male-dominated and may have a knowledge gap in menopause and workplaces that have an always “on” culture (despite how you’re feeling physically). For example, menopause causes a decrease in oestrogen and the metabolism of glucose. When oestrogen is low, your brain struggles to make effective use of the glucose you do have, which means a drop in brain energy. This leads to symptoms such as hot flushes, mental fogginess, and mood swings. All these things make life harder, and some women say it feels like their IQ is dropping. It’s important to remember that this isn’t true, menopause has a biological implication, and therefore, this is a drop in brain energy, not IQ.
As I recently spoke about on The Switch, a podcast hosted by St. James’s Place Financial Adviser Academy, patience is required during any change journey, whether biological or otherwise. The word patient comes from the Latin word for suffering to means “the one that suffers.” If you are willing to accept discomfort as part of the change process, embrace it and see it through, you will build “Resilience 2.0” – post-traumatic growth, rather than stress.
Another huge biological milestone for many women is pregnancy and motherhood, which brings its own psychological changes and new, perceived pressures. For example, women re-entering the workplace after maternity leave may be worried about the impact on their career journey, position and even their own cognitive function known colloquially as ‘baby brain.’ They also now have a separate person to parent outside of work, who is growing and changing all the time. That’s a lot of change to navigate!
On the flip side, becoming a parent can lead us to a higher, more motivated state or even point us in a new direction. It can create a new feeling of love but also fear – the two ingredients that contribute to human motivation. If you think of a mouse, it is drawn by the smell of what it loves – a block of cheese – but will move fast from what it fears – a whiff of the local cat. The things we are passionate about, such as creating a better world for our children, motivate us. The things that we fear, such as not being able to provide for our family, also propel us forward.
Some social skills that come more naturally to women can be further strengthened through motherhood, such as the ability to empathise. These skills can put women in a stronger position, particularly in female-dominated sectors such as healthcare but also in any workplace where you work closely with others and need to understand the feelings of others.
This works well in industries where it’s imperative to build trust with clients, such as in financial advice. It’s important for women to also be champions of their own skill sets. There’s still some unconscious bias around what a woman’s job should entail. Whether your skills are suited to manual labour, midwifery, communications, or coding, embrace your gifts and do what motivates and fascinates you! Don’t let stereotypes sway you too much.
You can combat any personal hesitations by creating a list of three things: what you’re good at, what you love and what can generate revenue. This establishes a clear sense of purpose, helping you to build psychological scaffolding through the sense that you matter and can create a meaningful difference. You begin to understand that the fact that you exist creates a tangible outcome, which puts you in the best mindset to achieve your goals knowing you have so much to offer the world.
The exciting thing about today is that women’s goals, and lives, can look very different to previous generations. We live busy lives, are always ‘on’ and are often at risk of burn-out. Some of us may not wish to return to the same job after a career break. All this combined means it has become less common to follow one career path forever.
Many women today will have been raised by a generation that believed, “Your career is your career for life,” and “What you have started, you should finish.” We wouldn’t finish a book or movie that we hated, so why apply the same thinking to a major life decision such as staying in the same job forever? It’s never too late, or early, to re-evaluate.
In summary, when it comes to navigating the challenges women uniquely face, accepting what you can’t control and being optimistic about what you can in the face of change is a good way forward. Communication with, and reassurance from, other women, your partner, family members and support network, is crucial, but engaging in what motivates and fascinates you is important too. Use this to build the mentality you need to create the life you want. I want all whom I work with, female or otherwise, to understand that they’re not here to conform to the norm but here to bless the world with their unique gifts and talents. Remember, you’ve not come this far to only come this far.
