Stepping into a new year usually ignites a mix of optimism and motivation, but given the challenges parents have been facing recently, it’s no surprise if you’re feeling downright depleted instead. Daisy Dowling, founder & CEO of Workparent, and author “Workparent: The Complete Guide to Succeeding on the Job, Staying True to Yourself, and Raising Happy Kids,” describes it as a “feeling drained, like your battery is down.”
“This has been a really long pandemic, and the twists keep on coming, but the resilience that we have all displayed in incredible ways is not endless,” says Dowling.
It’s no surprise working parents and caregivers are saying they feel the need to boost their mojo in 2022. “The dominant concern that I hear from parents is ‘I want more, I want better, I want different, but I don’t feel like I have the confidence or the energy to do it,’” explains Dowling. “The intentions are so powerful, but the tactical piece is where we all need some support.”
Here, Dowling shares concrete tips for getting re-invigorated, improving your career, strengthening your bonds, taking charge of your to-do list and feeling like yourself again in the new year.
How to bolster your motivation heading into 2022
Dowling points out that one of the greatest challenges working parents and caregivers are facing right now is the fact that there’s no end point for the pandemic, which has only exacerbated an existing issue: “Normally, in working parenthood, you’re not getting a lot of ‘good jobs’ and ‘attaboys,’” notes Dowling. “But now you feel like you’re running a marathon, but it’s more than 26 miles, and there are no mile markers. It’s impossible to feel like you’re sort of gaining any momentum or a sense of progress, which is essential to motivation.”
Add up your accomplishments
To reclaim a feeling of accomplishment, Dowling recommends looking back over the past year, month or week and looking at what you actually accomplished. “For example, say you’re the family chef, as I am in my family of four,” she notes. “I feel like, ‘Gosh, this year has just been endless. What did I really get done?’ Well, OK, I sourced or provided three meals a day for four people over the past year. That’s more than 6,000 meals!’ Maybe that’s not the goal I might have chosen, but it is nonetheless huge.”
By looking back at what did cross off your to-do list and remind yourself of the incredible volume of those achievements, you feel more powerful and re-energized for the year ahead. “If you made your sales quota this year, while managing three day care shutdowns and making thousands of meals for your family, you’re going to be able to do a lot in 2022,” says Dowling.
How to create positive change in your career
What Dowling says she’s hearing from parents and caregivers right now is that they want to make a career change. “They either want to renegotiate or recast how they’re working within their current role,” she explains. “They want to move and take on a new job, or they want to become an entrepreneur.”
The thing holding people back from making headway: Consumed by the day-to-day grind and juggling regular work responsibilities and kids’ needs, many working parents and caregivers have gotten out of the habit of career management and of appropriate self-promotion, says Dowling.
She points out that it’s likely been a while since you’ve asked yourself questions like:
- How do I manage my professional brand?
- How do I think about expanding or keeping up my network?
- How do I think about putting forth some of my accomplishments in an effective way with some of the people I’m working with right now or in the context of an interview?
“Instead of focusing on the work, focus on your career. If you can set aside 15-30 minutes a week for this, you will find that it will give you a disproportionate lift.”
— DAISY DOWLING, AUTHOR AND FOUNDER AND CEO OF WORKPARENT
Spend time on career hygiene
“This means instead of focusing on the work, focus on your career,” says Dowling. “If you can set aside 15-30 minutes a week for this, you will find that it will give you a disproportionate lift — psychologically and practically.”
In that time period, she points out that you can buff up your LinkedIn profile by adding new accomplishments or keywords that recruiters look for. Or you can write an email to your manager discussing the wins you’ve had on a project that’s underway. “Those things don’t take a lot of time, but they offer the feeling of being in the driver’s seat,” notes Dowling. “And they also allow you to start succeeding in a career way as opposed to simply keeping up.”
How to prioritize connection as a family
Because working parents and caregivers have been in what Dowling calls “scramble and improv” mode, it’s been harder to prioritize quality time as a family. “When we’re all under pressure, and we don’t have time, we try to compensate by making ourselves more efficient,” she notes. “But time management and productivity hacks don’t help you enhance your relationship with a child. That involves real connection.”
Schedule bonding time
“Real connection is much easier to create when you’re one-on-one, when your child knows that they have your full complete attention, when you’re not trying to play zone defense with two or more kids and treating them as sort of a lump sum unit,” she points out.
To that end, Dowling encourages parents who have more than one child to spend deliberate, regular time with each one, relating to them as an individual. This can be as easy as bringing one child along with you to the grocery store, going on a walk or taking them out for a pancake breakfast one weekend morning. You might notice your child opens up to you differently than they would if their siblings were around.
No matter your family configuration, Dowling emphasizes the power of forgoing frozen burritos on the fly to actually sit down to a family meal. “The family meal can be once a week instead of each evening, and it can be takeout pizza instead of homemade food,” she notes. “But what you’re doing when you create a ritual around your family meal is having a distinct time that is enjoyable and pleasurable and connected.”
You might also make a point to catch up on one another’s lives. “Maybe you always report the best thing that happened to you that week or you talk about the thing that you’re worried about during the day and other family members give you support,” says Dowling. “When you have that, you are going to feel so on top of it and in parent mode in a really delightful way.”
How to more efficiently tackle your to-dos
It’s easy to feel beholden to your to-do list, which likely is more jam-packed than ever, acknowledges Dowling. “Over the course of the pandemic, we took on more because so many of the regular supports that we had fell away,” she says.
On one hand, feeling tied to your to-do list is evidence of your commitment, diligence and how devoted you are as a parent, notes Dowling. But you might also feel like everything that comes up has to be on that list and that you have to tackle every to-do ASAP.
Audit your schedule
Start by looking back over your calendar from the past week, and think about how you spent your time. With a red pen in hand, circle the things that feasibly you might have sidestepped, said ‘no’ to, done in less time, gotten a little bit of help on or reconfigured, advises Dowling.
“You’re not going to find 50% of your to-do list gone,” she says. “But you might find 5% of it is. More importantly, you’re going to find themes.”
Perhaps you’ve been overly perfectionistic with emails you could have just sent off or you check your texts and end up getting sucked down a social media rabbit hole. By holding these insights in mind as you plan your schedule for the coming week, you can preemptively save yourself time that could be spent on something more valuable.
“That 5% is the half hour you can sit down with your 10-year-old and talk about the difficult experience they had with a friend at school that day,” says Dowling. Or you can get out and take a walk to clear your head or devote more time to revising your resume.
“As every working parent knows, everything can feel like a code red. But one of the ways that you can step out of that is to figure out how to create more specific — if artificial — boundaries for yourself.”
— DAISY DOWLING
How to reclaim your sense of self
While every working parent and caregiver wants to succeed in their career, feel like a present and loving parent and be as productive as possible, they also want to be healthy, whole and authentic in the process, notes Dowling. But that’s often the first piece to fall by the wayside.
“A lot of us have abandoned it completely, because we just feel like, ‘Well, I’m not going to take “selfish” time or focus on myself when there’s so much that I need to be doing work-wise, and my boss is waiting for me on Zoom and I need to be 100% focused on my kids,’” she says.
Form a direct connection to the past
Dowling recommends getting in touch with your old self by connecting to a person or activity you were involved with when you felt like you were on the top of your game.
This might look like calling a boss, a manager or a mentor who you worked with in the past. “Maybe you worked with them three years ago, before you had kids, or it’s the boss who pushed to get you promoted in that first job,” she notes. “The way they see and talk to you is as somebody who’s crushing it, who’s successful, who’s really on fire, authentic and yourself.”
Or you might revisit a hobby that you did for pure enjoyment. “Maybe you were a runner before you had kids,” she suggests. “Put your shoes on, and hit the trail. Or maybe you would restore furniture or were learning to speak Italian. If you can go back into those specific activities, you will find that they do not just recharge you, but they’ll also remind you of the fact that you are an independent adult who is not just defined by your job responsibilities and your kids.”
Why boundaries are integral to success
What working parents and caregivers need more than ever right now is a sense of relief as a result of not feeling so stressed and frazzled, says Dowling.
One of the most powerful ways you can achieve that in the new year: “As every working parent knows, everything can feel like a code red,” acknowledges Dowling. “But one of the ways that you can step out of that is to figure out how to create more specific boundaries for yourself. Be clear on what your real priorities and goals are.”
By doing so, you’ll find it’s easier to regain the focus and energy required to take on whatever the coming year has in store.