Here you are, a competent leader in your field. You have it all together, at least as far as anyone can see. Your activities are in order, employees are working well, complaints are finally down. It seems you don’t have a care
in the world. At least that’s what it looks like on the outside. But on the inside and in your private life, everything is not so cheery. In fact, life is getting hard but a woman in leadership can learn how to cope.
Oh- if everything were just so easy as to always be smooth, cheery and supportive. But the reality of life is that things happen, mostly when you least expect it and usually when you’re overloaded. That’s just how it is. Life will not stop to let you catch up, it will not give you a “Kodak moment” to catch your breath. You will have to continue to keep putting one foot in front of the other while keeping a smile on your face to the world. That’s what a women in leadership does.
You might be leading your own business, having a teleseminar through the Internet where no on sees your face but only hears your voice. Maybe you walk the halls of your company and must be the one to keep the motivation up. No matter how it’s done, you do it well because you’re the on in control.
But for you “life” is happening without stopping for you to find time to fit in another thing to do. So what do you do?
You keep going. Without missing a beat, you know that life will eventually straighten itself out. That crisis that is sitting in front of you will pass, as it always does. You make the decisions that are needed and keep moving ahead. You know that what you’re experiencing is your private business, not something to share with the public.
The harsh reality is that few people in your public life (if anyone) really cares about your troubles because they have their own set of problems to deal with. You know it’s on you. But in reality, you are not really alone in the crisis. Just pray about it and you’ll realize that God is there with you – so you are not alone.
When you are facing troubles, but still have to move on, there will be times when you can only let those that need to know, know, then just keep going. While others in general may not care about your personal issue, you have to keep your professional life steady. When I had a family health crisis at home, I continued to move through it while keeping my professional life steady. When the time came that I had to be gone from the workplace for a while, I let a select few in on what was going on. I appropriately shared the information. This let me be responsible to others and their schedules while not making a big deal of what I had to face.
Keep your wits about you by leaning on your spiritual strength. Even women with a lot of responsiblities need to find inner spiritual strength. It might seem that you can handle most things, you might even forget to stop and pray about it. But eventually, you will sit down and have a quiet moment. That’s when it will hit you that you need more than what you have in yourself to get through the crisis. That’s when you lean on the spirituality of your life to give you inner strength. If you don’t have a spiritual life, this might be the time to think about how to develop one.
Take a realistic look at your To-Do List. Eliminate the unnecessary so you don’t overburden yourself with too much. Some things can actually wait for a while. You don’t have to do it all. Maybe you need to miss a meeting, or write that memo next week. Put your activities in priority order, do what is absolutely necessary and put the rest aside for the moment. You have enough stress, even if you’re not aware of the stress you are going through. Your body is registering stress and it takes a toll on your health. This could be a time to learn to delegate. If you haven’t trusted team members to do their job, what better time to test them out than now? Let go and let those around you do what you brought them on to do. You could be pleasantly surprised in so many ways through this simple letting go. You’ll see that thing really can function if you take your hands off of some areas of operation.
Responsible women have to live life everyday, just like everyone else. You are not released from problems, times of crisis, or troubles that you never expected. But you can make it through. These are times of building your inner character and learning more about how to cope when life gets hard.
