How I am finding balance between work and life

I have the honor of having the last post of the year here at Emotive Design blog, and would like to get introspective and share my story on how I found the middle ground between being a mother and being a careerwoman

My life used to revolve around work, career and winning the rat race. Before work, it was having high test scores, straight-A’s and excelling in extracurricular activities. I grew up thinking about past mistakes and how I could do better tomorrow — I was never fully living in the present.

Growing up, I thought I had to earn my parents’ love. I was told that my only redeeming trait was that I was smart and learned quickly, so I strove to exceed. As I got older, achieving what was societally successful became how I derive self-worth.

When I found out I was pregnant exactly two years ago, I was conflicted. I was overcome with awe and elation by the new life growing inside of me, but I was also stressed by the notion that I had to somehow achieve being a full-time career woman and full-time mom. That was what I thought society defines a successful, modern woman — someone who worked, cared for children and husband and did all the house chores. I was very determined to be that woman, and I made a progression plan, each step with extensive details:

Step 1: Accelerate career.

Step 2: Prepare to be a supermom.

Step 3: Be a supermom + careerwoman

Long story short, nothing went according to plan.

Making tradeoffs

At the time, I had just successfully pivoted from consulting into design and I felt behind. I wasn’t growing as quickly as I had hoped at my work and I wanted to find a better-fitting role. What I didn’t realize was that in California, you needed to have worked at the company for 12 months before you qualify for maternity leave. If I start a new job, I wouldn’t qualify to get time off to bond with my child. But if I stayed, I knew I wouldn’t get the opportunities I was looking for.

I stayed. After really thinking it through, getting the guaranteed time to bond with baby was more important to me. I decided to use all my time and energy to focus on step 2 instead. I took baby classes, researched on the items the baby needed, read birthing and parenting books, watched a bunch of educational videos and took notes on what I would do. I shared my learnings with my family and prepared the space to welcome my child.

But all the while I prepped, I kept thinking about the what-ifs. What if I was solving more interesting problems at work? What if I was able to find a new job but still get maternity leave? I was doing what I said I would do, but I wasn’t fully in it. I was growing increasingly anxious as I watched my previous coworkers getting promoted and/or switching to higher paying jobs with higher titles. It’s okay, I told myself, you can jump back after you give birth.

Becoming a mother

Birthing (which really requires a whole blog post to itself) was an incredible and exhausting experience. My mind was completely blank as I held my baby in my arms and tried to recall the hours I spent learning about babies. Wait, do I hold the baby this way? How do I breastfeed again? How do I put on a diaper?

I thought motherhood was encoded in my DNA, and that once I gave birth, I would instinctually know what the baby needed. That maternal instinct did not kick in. I did not know anything and I was ashamed. I was afraid other people would find out, so I focused on making step 3 a success. I tried to figure out baby rearing by trial-and-error and rewatching baby videos. I also began working on my design portfolio and interviewing.

By the time I returned work, both motherhood and career seemed to be on track in accordance to plan. But I was depressed. I was so focused on chugging through my to-do list that I was disengaged from what I was actually doing. Worse, I didn’t think I was truly bonding with my child. I tried to do everything myself and completely exhausted. It got to a point where I had a meltdown and had to finally confide in my husband on what was going on.

Figuring out what’s really important

With my husband’s help, I decided to really sit down and think about what kind of mother/careerwoman I want to be and not focus on societal expectations. I came up with the following framework (step 1–4 came from Michael J. Losier’s framework in The Law of Attraction, and step 5–6 are leveraging design thinking):

#1: Identify an area of focus. It can be relationship, health, money, career.

#2: List out what you don’t wan’t or don’t like in that area of focus.

#3: Cross out #2 and change it into what you do want.

#4: Do this 50–100 times. Handwrite these items in sticky notes.

#5: Perform affinity mapping of your items and identify common themes; make these common themes your guiding principles

#6: Create goals, prioritize and plan on how to carry out the guiding principles

What I liked about Losier’s framework is that identifying what you don’t want is somehow much easier than identifying what you truly want. These contrasting statements really helped me gain clarity. I also found that it was difficult to come up past thirty items and was really forced to take the time to think.

As the overachiever I am, I went for a hundred bullet points on what I want as a mother and as a careerwoman. An example of one of my sticky notes looked like this: ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶I̶’̶m̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶. When I am with my child, I am focused and present.

Being present and connecting with loved ones was my number one common theme. The second theme was defining success as finding fulfillment. The exercise really helped illuminated my internal conflict between what I truly wanted versus what I think I wanted.

It took me a week to finish the exercise, but I came out feeling as if a major rock was off my chest. Of course, the exercise did not immediately undo the three-decade mental conditioning of “be successful!”, but it is definitely helping me chip away at it. I am more at peace with where I am and hence, more present and engaged with the now. I am a lot happier.

I plan to kick off each new year with this exercise. I find that as I am growing and my life circumstances are changing, it would be great to re-evaluate. I am excited to take a moment to sit down in the new year and reflect.

I hope my story inspires you to use the opportunity of a new year to think about what it is that you truly want. We’d love to hear your stories and your methods in finding peace with yourself. We design nerds also love to hear how design thinking can be applied to elevate mental and emotional wellness. Happy new year!