When you first started out in your career, you likely jumped at every opportunity to take on new projects, lead initiatives and lend a helping hand around the office or your team to make it hum. Proving yourself to be resourceful and dedicated is often key to earning your first raise or promotion and being deemed that warm and fuzzy “team player.”
But after you’ve progressed professionally, resourcefulness and dedication look different and you should no longer feel the need to be a ‘yes woman’ all the time in order to get ahead. Instead, you should feel like you have the authority to choose when to say yes, and the self-awareness to know where to draw boundaries and firmly decline.
With so many responsibilities as working moms, the concept of “balance” is downright impossible—and there comes a point when it’s no longer feasible (or healthy) to say ‘yes’ to all demands work and family throw at you.
But, then faced with the decision of who gets told ‘no,’ it’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘yes’ to avoid letting someone down. Moms shouldn’t have to constantly say ‘no’ to their families and personal lives because we feel obligated to always say ‘yes’ at work. And the reverse is also true.
▶️ Watch: Unity Hour - Fair Play Your Way to Work-Life Integration. Eve Rodsky, author of New York Times bestselling book FAIR PLAY, shares her insights on how couples can work together to achieve an equitable balance of domestic work and better manage their families.
There should be a balance between the two, and the only way to get it is by knowing what’s worth saying ‘yes’ to at work, and feeling empowered enough to say ‘no’ to the things that aren’t.
Here are some tips for deciding whether or not to say ‘yes’ in common work situations.
There are always going to be new projects and initiatives popping up at work, and being asked to take them on can feel really rewarding. However, before accepting the request, you need to evaluate whether or not it’s worth saying ‘yes’ to.
There is no shortage of tasks and committees in any organization. This kind of work is typically beneficial to the organization as a whole, but it may not necessarily align with your career goals or benefit you personally in another way, so you need to carefully consider agreeing to take on these kinds of tasks.
As a mom, your life outside of work is busy and people rely on you, so any work you do outside of your standard office hours needs to be worth it in some way. If it’s not moving your career forward or it’s compromising your quality of life, you probably need to draw boundaries, but there are times where the long-term professional gain is worth the short-term homelife loss.
As your career advances, so does your authority to have a say in what work is or isn’t beneficial to your overall goals, where your career and home life are likely intertwined. Saying ‘yes’ at work is still as important as it was back when you were just starting out in your career, but now, like your expertise, those ‘yeses’ should be more specialized and focused than they were back then.
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