Let’s start with what I feel is the first step along the road to returning to work, building your self esteem.
‘What self esteem?’ You may well ask! You would not be alone in wondering where your self esteem has gone. Many of us mums who had challenging and responsible jobs pre-kids now find that in the hurly burly of parenthood and the accompanying self doubts, we wonder if we are able to take on the demands of the workplace alongside the demands of motherhood.
Let me reassure you though that you do have all the resources you need to return to the workplace and together we will seek them out and restore them to you.
Sometimes we don’t realise we have a skill because we have pigeon-holed it into an area of our life. For example, we may mix very well socially out of work but fear networking type situations at work. Why? We have the skills but we need to break them down so we can extract what we need for the situation we fear.
We spend our lives seesawing between building self esteem and conquering limiting beliefs.
Self esteem is built during childhood as we gather skills and resources, learn and then develop as young adults. These are then tested and extended in the workplace and through motherhood. On the other end of the seesaw are our limiting beliefs. These are the things we think we ‘can’t do’ and the self doubts.
Let’s write our skills down here and alongside each one, write what that means you can do in work.
Here is an example.
What I can do well What that means for work
I can tell a good joke I can use humour in presentations
I have a good memory
I can hold the attention of an audience
Now you write your own list on the next page.
What I can do well What that means for work
What can sometimes get in the way of our self esteem is having limiting beliefs. These are ‘I can’t’ thoughts which can come from comments made in our childhood by parents, teachers and significant people whose opinion we respect. We remember these beliefs and hold them to be true even when we have evidence to the contrary in our daily life.
A belief can also derive from our culture such as ‘people like us don’t……..’ or ‘we shouldn’t……….’. It can be difficult challenging limiting beliefs because we have lived with them for so long and they have informed our behaviour.
A good way to address this is to ‘disassociate’. This means stepping out of our own skin and imagining what other people would say about us. It’s a bit like being ‘a fly on the wall’. It’s a great skill to use when you want to just stop and take stock of the situation by viewing it from another angle.
We often find it easier to accept criticism than praise. It is surprising that when someone gives us praise we shrug it off, yet when they say something negative we feel upset. Why take on board the negative and not the positive?
Write down a list of how your friends would describe you and what skills they would attribute to you.
My friends would say I am
They would say I am good at
Maybe now you want to add a few more skills to your first list?
Do you sometimes find yourself saying ‘I can’t………..…’ do something? What are these things you think you can’t do?
Write them down here.
Now look back at all the things your friends would say you are good at? Maybe you need to cross out some of the things you think you can’t do now?
Look at the remainder of the list, the things you still think you can’t do.
Now respond with ‘but what if I could?’ What would it mean to you if you could do that thing? How would it change your attitude towards going back to work and what else would it mean you could do?
There are lots of exercises in my book 'NLP for Back to Work'.
‘What self esteem?’ You may well ask! You would not be alone in wondering where your self esteem has gone. Many of us mums who had challenging and responsible jobs pre-kids now find that in the hurly burly of parenthood and the accompanying self doubts, we wonder if we are able to take on the demands of the workplace alongside the demands of motherhood.
Let me reassure you though that you do have all the resources you need to return to the workplace and together we will seek them out and restore them to you.
Sometimes we don’t realise we have a skill because we have pigeon-holed it into an area of our life. For example, we may mix very well socially out of work but fear networking type situations at work. Why? We have the skills but we need to break them down so we can extract what we need for the situation we fear.
We spend our lives seesawing between building self esteem and conquering limiting beliefs.
Self esteem is built during childhood as we gather skills and resources, learn and then develop as young adults. These are then tested and extended in the workplace and through motherhood. On the other end of the seesaw are our limiting beliefs. These are the things we think we ‘can’t do’ and the self doubts.
Let’s write our skills down here and alongside each one, write what that means you can do in work.
Here is an example.
What I can do well What that means for work
I can tell a good joke I can use humour in presentations
I have a good memory
I can hold the attention of an audience
Now you write your own list on the next page.
What I can do well What that means for work
What can sometimes get in the way of our self esteem is having limiting beliefs. These are ‘I can’t’ thoughts which can come from comments made in our childhood by parents, teachers and significant people whose opinion we respect. We remember these beliefs and hold them to be true even when we have evidence to the contrary in our daily life.
A belief can also derive from our culture such as ‘people like us don’t……..’ or ‘we shouldn’t……….’. It can be difficult challenging limiting beliefs because we have lived with them for so long and they have informed our behaviour.
A good way to address this is to ‘disassociate’. This means stepping out of our own skin and imagining what other people would say about us. It’s a bit like being ‘a fly on the wall’. It’s a great skill to use when you want to just stop and take stock of the situation by viewing it from another angle.
We often find it easier to accept criticism than praise. It is surprising that when someone gives us praise we shrug it off, yet when they say something negative we feel upset. Why take on board the negative and not the positive?
Write down a list of how your friends would describe you and what skills they would attribute to you.
My friends would say I am
They would say I am good at
Maybe now you want to add a few more skills to your first list?
Do you sometimes find yourself saying ‘I can’t………..…’ do something? What are these things you think you can’t do?
Write them down here.
Now look back at all the things your friends would say you are good at? Maybe you need to cross out some of the things you think you can’t do now?
Look at the remainder of the list, the things you still think you can’t do.
Now respond with ‘but what if I could?’ What would it mean to you if you could do that thing? How would it change your attitude towards going back to work and what else would it mean you could do?
There are lots of exercises in my book 'NLP for Back to Work'.
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