Week 4: Business Expectations – The Personal Dance – #AlphaFemaleFriday

Week 4: Business Expectations – The Personal Dance – #AlphaFemaleFriday

 

“ WEEK 4 / 133 – 133 WEEKS TO SUCCESS ”

This particular week focuses on the importance of work-life integration. Notice that I don’t call it the work-life balance, because I believe that the work-life balance is a myth. Anything worth doing, whether it’s growing your family or your career, will inherently throw your life off balance. I’m okay with that. I just think that we need to be more honest with ourselves and understand that this is reality.

 

 

This particular chapter stuck out to me since it discussed the issue of women dancing around the idea of pregnancy. Common sense disclaimer: obviously this isn’t something you need to discuss in the workplace after the initial moment of conception, but I think that an honest and concise announcement is needed in due time. As for me, this isn’t a conversation I plan on having until a few years down the line. However, I am doing the initial prep now, at least financially, in terms of putting away money for short term-disability. (In the state of New York, “employers are required to provide partial wage replacement, for up to 26 weeks, to employees who are temporarily unable to work due to disability. Pregnancy and childbirth are covered under the law”.)[1]

 

Right now, I’m focusing on three crucial aspects of work-life integration: my immediate family, my inner social circle, and my career.

 

FAMILY

It’s week 4 of my self-imposed program of 133 weeks to success. I’m still in the fragile transition from college graduate to full-fledged adult, so for now, I am lucky enough to say that I have a stable home and family life. At this point, it’s about budgeting everything down to a T and saving the valuable resources of time and money. Like the work-life integration, there is also the time and money integration: manage your time and save your money. Any person can spend—that is the easy part. The tricky part comes when I must balance between enjoying myself, paying necessary bills (here’s looking at student loans), and contributing what I can to the home.

 

INNER SOCIAL CIRCLE

I emphasize the “inner” component of “inner social circle” because I’ve always cared more about quality over quantity. I would rather have five very close friends than fifty supposed friends who are actually just acquaintances. Cue the blank, zombielike stare at your Facebook feed—which I tend to avoid for the most part nowadays. I’ve cut down on using social media frivolously. Friends of quality understand this, and a good handful of them have jumped on the bandwagon of still sending letters and postcards. Perhaps we’re also mutually nostalgic junkies who prefer personalized stationery and GameBoy Color over tweeting at each out and playing Xbox (or whatever it is that the cool kids are doing nowadays) any day.

 

 

CAREER

                Given that my life is off balance right now due to my focus being on my career, everything else is put on the backburner. All I know for sure is that if I work intelligently and put in my due diligence, it will pay off. It isn’t just about working hard or putting a lot of hours. It’s also about knowing what to do, how to do it efficiently, and who to do it with.  Quality over quantity: in both your career and your personal life.

 

 

Cheers,

Kelly

@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @KellyRGonzales

 

 

About:

Each week, I take a tip from Lois P. Frankel’s book, Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office, and explore how each of these tips affect myself and other women in similar positions on the road to becoming the women we want to be. There are far and few between who are a few steps behind me, and many more who are far advanced. I found that Lois P. Frankel’s advice applied to novice, intermediates, and experts alike. It helped me see that I was already doing right, served as a reminder to keep on doing what I was doing and how to keep that momentum going. The book also showed me areas where I could improve, and gave realistic tips to jump on board. There are a total of 133 tips, and explore one tip per week in a program I call: 133 Weeks to Success.

Join the movement using the hashtag #133WeeksToSuccess with posts which are posted every #AlphaFemaleFriday.

 

 

[1] http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/resources/disability/short-term-disability-laws/new-york.htm