As you’ve seen, winning the mental game is key to overcoming the obstacles to the New All. We face a whole array of challenges in this area, from basic considerations, like earning enough money, to worrying about how we’ll be perceived by people around us for taking a different approach to work and life, to even feeling a sense of guilt for “giving up” what so many hardworking women struggled to have the opportunity to achieve.
The important thing to remember is that, first, all these fears and worries are natural. After all, how significant could a life change be if it wasn’t accompanied by some worries and fears?
The second thing to remember is that each of these fears or worries has a real-life, workable solution. You don’t need to climb Everest or check in to a Buddhist monastery to gain this new perspective. You only need to acknowledge the fears, confront them, and, most importantly, stay focused on your real desires and goals.
You are well on you way now. You have readjusted your definition of success and decided you don’t need to put in those long hours to prove your worth. You can give yourself permission to jump off the ladder, carve your own path, and have a better life. There’s just one more thing you need to do: change your mind-set so that you are proud of not being tied to the office for hours.
This is success—you shouldn’t feel sheepish about it. Rather, shout it from the rooftops that you want to have an interesting job, time for your family, and a life.
We know that the chances of your boss actually congratulating you on your new attitude as you leave the office at 3 p. m., or better still, when you don’t come in at all, are pretty minimal. But how about giving yourself a pat on the back? How about going a step further by rejecting the myth that you can only be proud of logging megalong hours? How about turning the whole work/time/success equation upside down and thinking that if you can have an interesting job and not kill yourself in the process—that is a REAL success story?
Maria Souder of Georgia Power has come to realize just that. Remember how terrified she felt about the change she was about to make? Well, her bosses actually reacted very well to her career switch and have made it clear she can move back over to the power-generation side of the business at any time. Many days now, Maria has the time to watch her son for a while in his class before she picks him up. She chats with his teacher and then takes him swimming. She’s thrilled with her new position and her new time. “I brought things back into perspective, back into balance, and I just think it’s amazing,” she says, shaking her head. “I look back and I just can’t figure out why this revelation didn’t come sooner, as to how we should live our lives and how we should balance things.”
We’ve both spent years pretending more time at work is our life’s ambition. We, like many women we know, have even succumbed to boasting about how late we have to work—as if that’s really some kind of achievement. We’ve nodded earnestly when colleagues talked about how they couldn’t possibly take more than two weeks vacation a year.
Why do we buy into that outdated, macho construct of hours on the job being the definition of success?
Well, mostly because it makes us feel SOOO important. If we have to work round the clock it somehow gives the impression that our companies really depend on us, so much so that they couldn’t possibly survive if we headed home at 5 p. m. or disappeared on vacation. Oh no, we are indispensable! We can’t be away: the corporate edifice would crumble!
Companies increasingly realize that what’s important is what you produce, not how, where, and when you do it. The measure of success in this new business environment is changing.
We think that if you can set a professional goal, achieve it, and have time left over, then you really are a superstar. Let’s face it, many of us could easily run the world if we spent fifteen hours a day at our desk. Most competent, professional women could— and some do. But isn’t it just as impressive, perhaps even more so, to have achieved a new, freer, more integrated all? That’s our new balance sheet, and we believe it is the real definition of a successful woman.