Is getting to the top really
worth the sacrifice?
I find it to be a weird consequence that the people I meet
around my age all have this same conflict.
They’re all wildly successful people in their respective careers yet all
struggle to maintain decent relationships.
We seem to all want and desire the same things out of life including
having a nice family and good income but yet seem so challenged when it comes
to the work it takes to balance both sides of life. So I wanted to take some time to explore what
may be going on here.
This trend seems to be with men and women my own age,
usually around their mid to late 30’s and 40’s.
We’re all products of the “divorce” generation or the time when divorce
became popular, late 60’s to 70’s, so we’re keenly aware that if a marriage
doesn’t work out, it’s time to hit the road Jack! Yet, we also have a yearning to make the relationship
work despite its misfortunes.
Interestingly enough, we’re all hopeless romantics hoping to
meet the one (or the next one) who will sweep us off our feet and take us away
to some unknown destination of blissful happiness. We all seem to dream of having the house with
the “white picket fence” along with 2 kids, a dog and a great career. We still have images of our parents, on their
good days, working together to raise a family while having to put food on the
table. In fact, most of us have all but
practically buried any bad images of our parent’s relationship that may have
been more than what we could handle at the time when we were growing up.
Yet, in the back of our mind, we still do remember the day
dad decided he couldn’t take any more of raising a family and either left the
house or turned to drugs or alcohol to escape the mundane routine. And how mom, who either stayed at home to care
for us or was forced to work a low wage job, had to somehow try to keep the
family together as best she could without the help of her partner. Even she might have turned to chemical
substances from time to time to keep her sanity. We were all too young and immature to
understand why our parent’s marriages may not have seemed very happy or why at
certain points in our young lives, we had to move back into grandma’s house,
who we loved dearly, but made us have to adjust to a totally different
lifestyle.
It’s the reason we work so hard to achieve our dreams and
obtain the success we want in life.
Those images growing up of seeing mom and dad fighting makes us question
whether marriage and family is truly worth the risk. And then having seen mom sacrifice her dreams
of getting an education to be a stay at home mom only to be left with a broken
marriage, and then consequently having to start all over again to feed her
kids, drives us to the compulsion to keep working even when it means
sacrificing our own family values. We
still have the painful memories of what can happen when there is not enough
money in the household so we bury our heads in our career hoping people will
acknowledge us for the efforts we’ve put into it.
On the positive side, we’re also very aware that we have
more of an opportunity to shatter the “glass ceiling” in our careers than our
parents could have ever dreamed. We want
to build a legacy in our family so that our kids will never go hungry and
always have something to work for and dream of in their lives. We know there’s something more for us out
there and we want to go and get it!
Yet, our families suffer because of it. Our kids don’t understand having to work to
pay bills and keep food on the table.
They only know the love we show them.
Our husbands and wives only know that at the end of the day, we’re not
there for them and that hurts! They may
understand our hard fought work ethic but also know the emotional void they
have in their hearts for us.
I follow many of the top leaders in my industry and most of
them have been refreshingly honest about what it takes to get to the top. They’ve all alluded to the fact that they may
have had to sacrifice spending quality time in their marriage and with their kids
to achieve their success. Some of them have
been divorced and others had forgone marriage life altogether. They understand the sacrifice and are
actually fine with it. It’s what they
want and choose for their lives.
Interestingly enough, we stigmatize those people who choose their career
over having a family yet as a society we seem to reap and enjoy the benefits
they’ve created through the sacrifices they’ve made for us.
That’s why this is such a balancing act. My generation knows the struggle it takes to
get to the top and even make the world a better place and yet is torn apart by
the sacrifice that has to be made to get there.
We’ve questioned it at least a dozen times. What are we to do to be the kids our parents
knew would succeed but also be the role models our own family needs to see at
home?
Well, as a dating coach and a product of this generation, I
can only offer you a few tips I’ve learned along the way.
·
You CAN
have it all, just in moderation – I’ve read so many articles of women not
being able to have it all but in my opinion, this is simply not true. First, you have to define what it means to
“have it all”. For instance, everyone’s
definition of having it all varies by individual. My definition of having it all may be to have
a simple job and go home to my family.
Her definition may be to be the CEO and send her kids to boarding school. Secondly, having a promotion to VP or CEO is
not for everyone, especially if family comes first for you. Maybe a better aspiration would be to become
head of your department first to see if you can take that level of
responsibility and go from there. Having
it all can take on a number of different paths.
You’ll need to find the right one for you which can dictate how you will
be able to achieve balance in other areas of your life.
·
Do make
family time a priority – listen, your business and career will be here long
after you’re dead and gone. The people
at your job will replace you – your family can not. Your boss and co-workers may be at your
funeral out of respect but may find it frivolous to be at your burial.
·
Find more
ways to be flexible in your career – in today’s world, there are a plethora
of “work from home” opportunities, entrepreneurial pursuits, shift work at your
job, etc. Most work places these days
are more accepting of employees who want more of a “work life balance”. You’ll just need to be brave enough to ask
for and pursue those opportunities. This
is your life we’re talking about here!
·
Make time
for yourself – In other words, have a life!
You’re not going to be any good to your family, work, etc if you’re
constantly burned out from working 80 hours a week. You can’t pour into other people when you
don’t have anything left of yourself to pour!
Find time between your work and your family life to relax and meditate
so you can be refreshed and ready to tackle the next challenge.
To sum up, I don’t think there are any easy answers to the
balance between having a career and having a family. If there were any easy answers, we would have
done that and moved on! But as a
relationship coach having observed how other people have managed to balance
their lives and been successful at it, I will say that moderating the way we
“have it all”, making family time a priority, finding flexibility in your
career and making time for yourself seems to be the best approach to achieve
such a balance.
And to my fellow peers who constantly struggle to get this
thing right, just know that this is our opportunity to make the world a better place
for the next generation. And while this
balancing act may seem challenging at times, it’s certainly not impossible.
Thanks for reading
Please visit my website at www.liveloveaspire.com
for more information on our relationship coaching services and for a free 15
minute consultation.
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