Did you know that most women go through quite a few career stages, often directed by life stages? More than half of all graduates are women, and often graduate intake programmes have more women than men. Initially, a woman’s career will closely follow the trajectory of her male counterparts. And then many women, choose to become mothers, and their perspectives on their careers will often change.
During this early motherhood stage, many women decide to take a career break or ease off on their careers to enable them to focus on their young families. For companies, this is often referred to as the “gender leak”, an age when women leave the workforce, often due to a lack of workplace flexibility.
When your children are young, motherhood can feel all-encompassing. As your children grow up, you gradually regain your time. The different stages of your children's growth will require you to switch parenting roles. Embracing and enjoying these different roles while being mindful of planning for your future will be something you will never regret. Lynda Smith of 50Plus Skills shares her valuable advice on planning for the future in a webinar interview with our CEO, Phillipa Geard and here's what she says:
When planning for your children, their life stages can be broken into three categories:
- Birth to seven years old
- Seven to fourteen
- Fourteen to twenty-one.
This is due to their changing needs, developmental milestones and how as parents, we provide for them in different ways through each stage.
As a parent, we play four different roles in line with their developmental stages:
- For the first seven years, we are the teachers.
- For the tween years of seven to fourteen, we become coaches.
- During the teen years, we take on a mentoring role, and
- Beyond the age of twenty-one, we become champion cheerleaders of their endeavours.
As the children become older, they become less physically dependent on their primary caregivers, which often leads to moms having more time on their hands, leading to returning to work and accelerating their careers.
The four quarters of a woman’s life:
Lynda sees a similar framework in the life of an adult. She talks about the four quarters of life, which require a different set of skills, character development and intentionality.
- Birth to twenty-five (career start),
- Twenty-five to fifty (career acceleration or parenting break),
- Fifty to seventy-five (career consolidation or acceleration if returning to work)
- Seventy-five to one hundred (give back years).
Depending on your life choice to either remain in your career or take a career break, the decision will often determine your career trajectory.
When looking at the combination of life longevity and technology, it’s said that this generation will live ten years longer than the previous generation and twenty years longer than our grandparents. This means that planning your career and your future starts now, no matter the life stage you are in. The planning cannot be based on how the previous generations planned; it needs to be different for each generation.
Here’s how to create a sustainable life through the life stages of your career:
Pay attention to your health span vs your life span
If you’re going to live longer, looking after your health is vital to ensuring that a longer lifespan will be a gift to you and your loved ones. Lead a life of intentional stress management. Too much stress causes health complications. The more we, as mothers, manage stress, get good sleep and exercise, the better off we will be through all our life stages.
Leverage the value of compound interest
Funding a longer lifespan looks like investing and saving as much as possible. It’s never too late or too early to start saving money to fund what the future of life will look like for you and your family. Start saving today and enjoy the benefits of compound interest. Watch the webinar with Lynda Smith on Good financial planning starts now and not in the future.
Be intentional with relationships
The beauty of being intentional with relationships is something that will last a lifetime and increase the joy and sustainability of your life. As we grow older, relationships are the most valuable thing we have to hold onto.
Dispose of debt as soon as possible
Be frugal with what you have and pay off the debt because, beyond debt, life gets a lot smoother. Debt will no longer be a slave master. Remember that 100% of what you earn is enough; use it wisely and look for opportunities to generate income.
Work through grief and unforgiveness
Allow yourself time to process and heal through the unpredictable things in life. It can be daunting to work through tough emotions, but being kind to yourself and others allows for the healing process to happen so that you can grow stronger at the other end.
Keep an open mindset and embrace lifelong learning
The world is full of opportunities and closing off to learning prevents these opportunities from emerging. According to Future of Work thought leader Professor Lynda Gratton, due to the faster relative rate of change, professionals will live through several s-curves in their career lifetime. These changes are due to jobs becoming redundant and the need to learn new skills to stay relevant in the workforce. Embracing a mindset of lifelong learning has benefits both professionally and personally.
No matter your life stage or career stage, one thing is for sure, and that is that change is a constant. Looking for a life of certainty and predictability may not happen. That said, planning by acting on your future will allow for a degree of stability and certainty that otherwise would not be there without planning. Embrace and enjoy each stage of your life and career and relish the positive choices you get to make at each stage. Each stage is rewarding and filled with memories so enjoy the journey!
Planning for the future starts now, a closer look at a mom’s career over the different life stages. Written in collaboration with Lynda Smith, CEO of 50Plus-Skills.
