International Women’s Day

It’s 6.30am and I’m out running in my local town…
It’s a time of day I never really knew before having children, and an activity I’m only just coming to terms with. I’m doing it because I do not need to think for anyone else for the next hour.
Running hurts, it’s tough but keep going because although I could easily stop, something in my brain has switched off and my body just keeps going.
You see, that’s what I really love about that hour. For a whole hour, I don’t have to make a single decision.
The rest of my day is not like that. Every second I’m making a decision or telling someone else what to do. Hurry up, we’ll be late for school. What should I take out of the freezer for dinner? At work, how many sales have we hit this month? Who can I outsource that to? Where should I take my client to lunch? And perhaps most importantly, how I do ensure I am always motivating and inspiring others?
As women, we’re told we’re good at doing multiple things at once, but I suspect this is a plot to get us to DO multiple things at once.
Running a company and being a parent is not easy. It requires resilience and grace under pressure. It means you need to constantly show strength, even when you’re not feeling particularly strong,
I now understand the priorities surrounding my main dual roles, I can now live with 80% being good enough and believe that I’m a better business owner because of my role as a mum, and I’m a better mum because of my role as a business owner.”

Women in business now have huge opportunities – the irony is that the one thing standing in the way of them and success is the confidence that they can achieve it.
I witness this in my coaching practice too often. I sit across from women who are unsure of their value within the business, unsure of what they as individuals offer towards the growth and development plans. I can see their worth and to me their potential is obvious; to me they are born leaders.
It is the most rewarding experience to share in a women’s growth journey; to see her overcome the self-doubt and self-sabotage, gain the self-belief and address the balance, to feel the fear, to grit her teeth and to own it!
I think women still need to find their own leadership style and have the confidence to follow that through.
One of the things I want to do, personally, is help inspire women to do that. Part of it is about accepting that it’s good for men and women to have different goals and priorities in life. Not better, just different.

Happy International Women’s Day.