I’ve recently started my maternity leave and as I was preparing to start it, I penned down a few thoughts and career lessons that I also wanted to share here on the blog.
Closing in on almost a decade of work, I’ve been through several phases and embodied several work personalities. I’ve been the fresh out of uni junior employee so eager to learn and grateful to have secured an office/corporate job that provided a stable pay check that nothing else mattered. I’ve been the workaholic individual contributor and then manager that knew no boundaries. Working into the late night or at weekends was the norm and not the exception for many years. I’ve also been the post-pandemic burnt out professional with little motivation but that learned to set iron clad boundaries.
Throughout it all I learned a lot and I am so grateful I had the chance to experience it all and get to learn and understand a little bit better what it is that I want from my work life and my career. Nowadays, I’m somewhere in between all of these work personalities. I’m grateful for my journey and how it has shaped me and allowed me to experience different working environments so that I could shrink, stretch, expand and ultimately grow from all that friction and elasticity, and be able to find and most importantly define my own work self a little better.
Nowadays I rely a lot on the “push & pull” dynamic. I lean into work and life as seasons come and go, and I always try to keep a little for myself. I am sure of my boundaries and I am not afraid to communicate them. Most importantly, I am also committed to the work I do and especially the quality of my work. I love work and take pride in my work life and work self, but I also am fully aware that there is more to life than work.
Luckily, throughout my pregnancy I’ve felt quite inspired and motivate and I’ve also been quite productive at work. I’ve been enjoying work a lot and I held onto the drive as much as I could; basically until the couple of weeks prior to starting maternity leave. I’ve enjoyed work a lot and worked on some of the biggest projects of my career, which I am quite proud of. I will say that I did have to balance resting with getting stuff done, and had to squeeze in many naps but luckily with work from home and the likes I managed it well.
Thoughts on going on maternity leave
As I am embarking on this new chapter in life, with a planned one year break from work for maternity leave, and most importantly a huge shift in life’s priorities even beyond that, I am of course wondering how this will shape my career long term.
My first thought is not to worry at all. Overall I am heading into this new life phase very excited and proud of what I’ve achieved so far. I feel like “I’ve paid my dues” in a way and now it’s time to focus on something else for a little while. I will add that this idea of “paying your dues” shouldn’t even be factored in. Motherhood is not something you need to earn, but society and the way our economic system is set certainly makes you feel a little (a lot) like that. Nevertheless, at this stage I am feeling confident and excited that I will emerge even more well rounded, grounded and razor focused on the things that matter and that my career will not stall as a result of this but it will only grow to be more aligned with my values.
On the other hand, the question is also whether I am also feeling a little anxious about it? And the answer is, of course. Things are moving and changing at such a fast pace, I’d be a little foolish to not think about that too. There are so many changing factors at play and the job market is crazy at the moment. So nothing feels quite secure anymore. I feel like by the time I am back at work things will either be exactly the same or take a 180 degree turn. I can’t predict what’s going to happen next, I can just prepare myself. And I just did the best I could to prepare myself for this stage. Cultivate relationships at work, ensure I work on my reputation, and even working to make sure I got a promotion right before going on maternity leave. The reality is that I did not just start to apply these ideas when I found out I was pregnant, the seeds have to be planted long in advance. But I do admit that I also made intentional efforts to make sure I move forward and continue grow.
Career principles that helped me get my promotion before maternity leave
So if I were to outline some of the key career principles I relied on in the past and that I also plan to make use of in the future to come back strong, it would be the following ones. They helped me set myself up for success and land a promotion that I negotiated while also announcing I was pregnant. I am of course probably also lucky that I work in a company that has a healthy culture and that my employer is quite supportive in general. I know that there are horror stories out there and I don’t discount that no matter what you do you can still get wronged, especially at such a vulnerable time as during pregnancy.
Here they are, my 4 career principles that helped me grow and get my promotion before going on maternity leave. And one note here, these are things I’ve talked about before so none of them are really new:
- Consistently delivering high quality work. Something that I hold near and dear to my heart and that helped me throughout my career, is the commitment to work – no matter the phase I was in – and especially the quality of work I produced. This helped me even in seasons where I wasn’t that motivated or willing to go the extra mile. Always ensuring that people could rely on my ability to handle things and deliver high quality work, helped me in every job I’ve had regardless of industry or role. It helped me build a reputation, that then worked in my favour whenever I needed it. So this would be lesson no. 1 for me, not being sloppy and doing things right.
- My personal philosophy is that of leaning into life’s seasons as much as possible. So as much as I love work and take pride in my work life and work self, I also am fully aware that there is more to life than work. This idea has helped me understand when I should push myself more versus slow down. Especially throughout pregnancy, it has not always been easy to show up at 100%. But this alongside with the fact that I built a good reputation over the years, enabled me to take breaks when I needed them – and also the above mentioned naps (because pregnancy fatigue is a real thing).
- Focusing on strategic work and using the 80/20 rule. This is the ideal scenario and where we should all aim to get. The reality however is that in one’s career, first comes the “work hard” part and then the “work smart”. You cannot avoid the stage where you have to put in the hours and the work to learn and to get better. But at some point, you will be able to get more done with less. You will be able to understand what matters and what doesn’t and where should your effort go. And when that time will come it will be worth it.
- Always polishing my communication skills. I truly believe this skill will set you apart no matter what. Being articulate in real time cannot be replaced. While ChatGPT has become a very popular tool, and I agree that it can help with a lot, I don’t think communication and critical thinking are the right way to use it. If you don’t develop the skills to distill and articulate your thoughts clearly both in written and spoken form, I don’t think you stand a chance. So I personally don’t like to outsource my brainpower so easily. A bit of an unpopular opinion perhaps but I stand by it. Being able to communicate effectively, summarise and extract insights on the fly is key to being both a well rounded person and professional.
I am curious to also hear your experience, if you’ve been through this. How was it for you, any tips that helped you or any lessons you’d care to share?
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