How Work-Life Balance Can Be Achieved By Finding Your Voice

You're listening to the empowering working moms podcast episode number 67. Hello, welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in today. It is fall, school has probably started for you if you're listening currently and the weather's getting a little bit chillier in the northeast, but that is time for pumpkin fun and Halloween.

My kids and I have actually been celebrating Halloween since last week, I bought a bunch of stuff from Target and the dollar store. The Dollar Store is the best for seasonal stuff. Don't know if you know that but that's my little tip for you today. And we've been doing Halloween treats and getting all excited with the Halloween PJs and celebrating. And I know we talked a little bit about there's no such thing as too much celebration on last week's episode.

And this week, we are going to talk about finding your voice and actually one of my clients Nivi who is a nephrologist, a kidney doctor, a mom of two young children. When she came to me she really felt like she was unheard and she felt small. And actually it's funny because she is probably I would guess five two or five three, and she found herself also small as in unheard at work.

But through the work that we did together, she really empowered herself to speak up for what she wanted, find her voice and actually get what she wanted at work in terms of her schedule, with reduced hours and less hospital medicine, as well as finding her voice to communicate better with her spouse.

So if you too want to find your voice, ditch the mom guilt, be present at home for the most important moments, check out my free masterclass on four steps to overcome burnout and overwhelm, the link will be in the show notes.

Today I'm talking about finding your voice because women often find it difficult to speak up for themselves. And really this has to do with a bunch of different factors, one of which is the competence gap, which is really a phenomenon where women's doubt their skills, they lack self confidence and men tend to be actually overly competent, we have the opposite problem. And this shows up as saying yes all the time or not advocating for ourselves, being afraid to ask for what we want.

When you find your voice, you'll be more confident. And this really builds on itself and increases your confidence as time goes on. Because you're not going to get what you want without asking for it. And this goes for work or at home too, or with friends. And we often have to ask for what we need or for help when we need it. And that's totally okay. So learning to speak up for what you want is going to allow you to learn how to negotiate and get the life that you want.

So let's get into some more factors that affect women not finding their voices. I want to shed light on these so that you really start to become aware of what's happening to you. And then once you're aware you're not going to feed into these patterns or thoughts, specifically the ones that are not serving you. So often, women have a tough time finding their voice because they're afraid of what people think. And we are often high achieving moms with demanding careers. We are people pleasers. We want people to like us.

A couple examples of this. My client Sarah, who is an OBGYN, and a mother of three small children, she was afraid to speak up for herself at work and really advocate for the schedule that she wanted. She wanted to drop down from five days to four days, but she was really afraid of what her colleagues might think, were they going to think she's a slacker. Through our work together and empowering herself to find her voice and really speak up for herself, advocate for herself, she was able to get exactly what she wanted in terms of her work schedule. That was awesome.

Now, this actually also came up for me even though I've been doing this work for a while. Recently, I was on a group trip with many dear friends and a couple of topics kept coming up that were really uncomfortable for me and triggering for me. And I hesitated to say anything because I have this perception of myself. And I really think I probably come across this way, I speak my mind. I'm opinionated. I usually am not afraid to speak up. But actually there is a part of me that is afraid that people will think I'm being standoffish or adversarial. And I actually do have a little bit of trouble with confrontation. But I think most people who know me would be surprised by that.

And a lot of times, on a little bit of a side note, people who have it together or they manage themselves really well, I think others won't realize what you might be struggling with unless you actually find your voice and speak up about it. So when these uncomfortable topics were coming up, they came up one night, and I didn't really say anything. And then again, similar triggering content was coming up.

And I actually had a moment where I spoke up and I said hey guys, this is really triggering for me, if you don't mind, if we don't go down this path again, with this conversation. I'm doing really well and I've done a lot of work on myself, but I really would like to have fun and can we not go down the road of these topics again, and everyone just kind of kept quiet and we switched the subject and it's funny because the following day, I felt like oh, maybe I shouldn't have said anything and I said to one of my friends, I said oh I think it was bad when I said that and she said, no, you advocate for yourself and nobody's going to know if you don't say anything. And I felt so much better when she said that.

So this is just an example of how we have a tendency to worry about what other people think and maybe we have skewed views of ourselves. And so my point is, you don't need my permission, but I give you permission and give yourself permission to speak up and advocate for yourself. Another barrier to finding our voices is self perception. And I'm gonna talk about the barriers and then I'm gonna give you actionable tips as well, just trying to build your understanding of what's going on here with this finding voice issue that we have as women.

So according to a Hewlett Packard internal report, men apply for a job or promotion when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, while women will only apply to a job if they meet 100% of the qualifications. So this shows us that women often underestimate their qualifications compared to men. So our perception of ourselves, we downplay things, and this really makes us feel smaller than we are. So the solution here is to really be aware of this and careful about your self talk or downplaying your own achievements in your head.

A lot of us have been raised to be humble, and not to brag, which is good, but if you're proud of yourself, that's okay. That's a wonderful foundation to be confident in your life, in your relationships, and at work. Imposter syndrome is another reason that women have trouble finding their voice. And really, if you don't know what impostor syndrome is, it's characterized by self doubt, the fear of being exposed as a fraud in spite of being competent. And again, women experience this more commonly than men.

And studies have shown that women are more likely to attribute their success to external factors and luck, rather than their own abilities. So we really tend to underestimate ourselves, and then we stay quiet and small. But the solution here is to really acknowledge that this is going on, and separate fact from our feelings and fiction and really become aware of the stories that you're telling yourself. Also, do not compare and despair. Don't be comparing yourself to other people who are in your field and thinking, okay, why can't I have what they have, it's not helpful. So drop that too. And furthermore, celebrate whatever achievements that you have. So when you have something that goes well at work, you want to really take a minute to have gratitude for it and celebrate everything you've achieved.

Now, another area that women have a tough time speaking up for themselves is salary negotiation, women are really less likely to negotiate their salaries compared to men. And this can result in lower initial salaries, slower salary growth over time, and really messing up income potential. So remember, really try and build that confidence, work on seeing what you're doing well, and then finding your voice to negotiate that salary. Because honestly, you don't have a whole lot to lose. When you ask for more, maybe you won't get it. But if you don't ask, you'll never know.

And another cause of not being able to find our voices is risk aversion, because women are often perceived as more risk averse than men. And this may lead to avoiding taking on challenges or kind of stepping outside of our comfort zones and advocating for things or new opportunities that could really accelerate our career growth.

So here are some strategies to find your voice. So finding your voice really entails having self compassion, kindness, and that really helps you to build resilience and feel more confident. And really, instead of the golden rule of treat others as you would want to treat yourself, I'm going to tell you do that. But also do the opposite. Treat yourself as you would treat others because often I bet you would sit there and encourage a friend to ask for that promotion, to advocate for herself in any given situation, or communicate with her husband. And then when it comes to you, you're not going to be as kind to yourself or as encouraging towards yourself or supporting yourself right.

Also ditching people pleasing and external validation. So not worrying so much about what other people think and really being true to ourselves helps us to build the confidence to get what we want, regardless of what other people might think. And the thing about other people and what they think, yeah, people gossip. Yeah, they might judge you. But really, everybody's really busy wrapped up in their own lives.

So maybe a five minute conversation about you and then they move on. So in the scheme of things, does it make sense to try and control those five minute conversations that other people have about us, maybe negatively? It makes no sense to put a lot of energy into that because in the end, it doesn't matter. And in the scheme of things, the larger picture, going after what we want is so much more important because people really don't know what our lives are like on the inside of our heads or in our shoes. Practicing boundaries is another important way to find your voice.

So the power of no, learning to say no, really practicing setting clear boundaries, declining to participate in commitments that don't really align with your goals or values. This really helps you to speak up for yourself and also be really picky about how you're spending your time and how you're spending your energy. And of course, therefore, you're gonna feel less exhausted, less burnt out and more happy. Also learning to communicate these boundaries, when necessary. Being able to talk to someone senior, being assertive about what your limits are, that's really important for your own personal confidence, respect, and professional growth. So the more you practice, practice may not make perfect, but you're gonna get better and better at finding your voice.

Building self confidence, as I've kind of mentioned already is so critical in finding your voice. So really reflect on everything you've achieved. In fact, I would, after this episode is over, take a moment to really write all the stuff down that you've achieved in your life and make a list of your achievements. Keep it somewhere, maybe a list on your phone, that way you can go back to it and really see how capable you are and use your positive achievements and everything you've accomplished up until now,  use that to really fuel you as you continue to progress in your life, in your career. So speaking up effectively, how do you do that? Right?

Really part of this is having clarity. So being clear and concise. So when expressing yourself, really using basic language, don't over explain yourself. And this is really an epidemic, depending on how you've been raised, I know I have a major tendency to over explain myself and I will start typing out a text and then I'm explaining and I ended up deleting a lot of it. So it's taken a lot of practice, but not over explaining is critical in clear communication, and even helps us to speak up.

Organizing your thoughts too, really outlining key points that you might want to talk about, or things you want to convey to ensure that your message is being understood. Also a part of finding our voice is getting better at navigating tough conversations. So really getting ourselves into a calm state of mind. And I focus on my breath when I need to center myself to keep myself from, let's say feeling a really strong emotion when it's not useful. And calming ourselves and finding this balance can really help de-escelate a tense situation. And we're able to express ourselves, and expressing our thoughts and feelings, really using I statements so that we're not accusing anyone of anything.

And when it comes to addressing touchy subjects at work, really focus on the issue and not the person and do your best to not make it personal. No avoiding, that is very helpful, and proposing solutions. Being proactive in conflict resolution and solutions is really helpful and helps us to grow and move up in the workplace and in life in general. And when we're solution oriented, and we don't complain, and we don't focus on what's not going well, we find ourselves happier. So finding your voice and really learning to effectively communicate. These are skills that can be developed. You don't have to have them right off the bat. And they can improve over time.

By understanding why women tend to have a tough time with finding their voices and being aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves, and then also using the strategies that I talked about today we can learn to speak up effectively and really navigate challenging conversations, address conflicts professionally and personally while really maintaining our own integrity.

Try one or more of the strategies that I talked about today and really see how you start creating the life that you want for yourself. And if you want to learn more, to get more individualized help book a call with me. PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me to get started on being more present home, even if you're working long hours, ditch that mom guilt, unplug, end exhaustion and burnout for good in 90 days or less. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I will talk to you next week.