Latest Post
Women Need to Take More Responsibility – But for What?
Many of you have probably heard how Sheryl Sanberg, COO of Facebook and author of “Lean In,” says women need to raise their hands more and take more responsibility for determining their own success. And how Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department during the Hilary Clinton years says; the workforce is not properly organized to allow women to be ambitious career women and mothers; and until it is, we should stop fooling ourselves into thinking we can “have it all” when we can’t.
I think it is exciting that these two women got the public talking about gender and work and family in new ways. I also think they both miss the mark a bit. They both want women to have more “success” and offer different ideas about how to get there. The problem is, many in my generation (late 30′s and 40′s) are finding that “success” is not all it is cracked up to be. A sense of competition and achievement permeate our work world and the world of motherhood. Competition has been hugely effective in generating productivity in the western world’s economy – but at what cost? Many outwardly “successful” people still feel a looming emptiness. Our sense of competition also seeps into our family life and personal life, where even mothers feel they have to achieve certain things (often that their children achieve) before feeling they are good enough mothers. What if instead we were oriented towards happiness, meaning, and contribution as opposed to achievement, status and authority?
My Last Few Posts:
Many of you have probably heard how Sheryl Sanberg, COO of Facebook and author of “Lean In,” says women need to raise their hands more and take more responsibility for determining their own success. And how Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department during the Hilary Clinton years says; the workforce is not properly organized to allow women to be ambitious career women and mothers; and until it is, we should stop fooling ourselves into thinking we can “have it all” when we can’t.
I think it is exciting that these two women got the public talking about gender and work and family in new ways. I also think they both miss the mark a bit. They both want women to have more “success” and offer different ideas about how to get there. The problem is, many in my generation (late 30′s and 40′s) are finding that “success” is not all it is cracked up to be. A sense of competition and achievement permeate our work world and the world of motherhood. Competition has been hugely effective in generating productivity in the western world’s economy – but at what cost? Many outwardly “successful” people still feel a looming emptiness. Our sense of competition also seeps into our family life and personal life, where even mothers feel they have to achieve certain things (often that their children achieve) before feeling they are good enough mothers. What if instead we were oriented towards happiness, meaning, and contribution as opposed to achievement, status and authority?
As 2013 has descended upon us, I’ve been thinking about the tradition of New Years’ Resolutions. I realized it’s a custom that a lot of folks balk at. I undertook some very serious anthropological research (asking my friends what they thought and matching this up with my own opinion), and came up with the following top ten list, (actually its only five) reasons New Year’s Resolutions don’t work, and found that through a few switches in perspective on the reasons, there are ways to make this tradition work for us.
Top Five Reasons New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work:
- The whole thing is just so cliché.
- Whenever I hear I am supposed to do something, it makes me not want to do it.
- They set you up to fail.
- I’ve never stuck to them before, why would I now?
- My life is fine, I don’t need resolutions.
OK – Fair enough. Still, my stubbornly optimistic and culturally reverent self, came up with these antidotes.
This past summer, I spent six weeks with my husband, eight year old daughter and five year old son in my husband’s childhood home. My husband grew up in a small village in Spain, about 50 kilometers outside of Granada. The Spanish word for village is “pueblo” which doubles in meaning for the village itself and “the people,” or more precisely, “the common people.” 
My husband’s pueblo is nestled along a hilly terrain which, as it has been for centuries, is spotted with rows of neatly dispersed olive trees. As soon as you exit the freeway and start your ascension up the small country roads, a panorama of trees decorates the landscape like ashen green polka dots along the desert brown floor until meeting the horizon. Occasionally disrupting the memorizing order, a rectangular plot of florescent yellow sun flowers appears. White washed concrete houses with flat facades pop up along the rocky slopes about every 20 kilometers. Large wooden doors, left open in the summer, covered instead with thick curtains to let in the cool mountain air, are built side by side with cobblestone streets in between.
First, let me admit I’m a huge fan of Atul Gawande. I loved his book “Better” and have read many of his New Yorker reflections on ways in which human beings and organizations respond to the challenges we face today. I like to humbly fashion myself a kindred spirit. I share Dr. Gawande’s fascination with understanding our uniquely human capacity to learn, develop, and grow. I share a thirst for uncovering, accessing and expressing our untapped potential. I believe we both share a working belief that most of us (possibly all of us) are capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.
Dr. Gawande recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker on how his own performance improved through the use of a coach. He provided a strong endorsement for coaches in a variety of fields and industries. I am sure coaches across the country were thrilled. As a professional coach myself, I was also quite pleased at his testament to coaching. However, if I can be so audacious to respond to an internationally renowned writer and thinker (and let’s not forget surgeon!) whom I admire so much, I do feel compelled to share some additional thoughts about coaching.
I had made a commitment to myself some months earlier to express more of myself with my family. The family routine, while calming, can also teeter dangerously on a sense of emptiness. I didn’t know what expressing myself more fully really meant, but I knew it had to do with giving up some control, being more present in the moment, and expressing more of my creativity. I decided not to try and figure it out, but just stay with the intention.
After Christmas, once the stress of preparations, gifts, and obligations had subsided, I had an inspiration. I felt the urge to spend some time in nature. My husband and I both love the outdoors, but are more solidly city people. I love the theater, my dance studio, and political activism. He loves concerts, bars and busy streets. Yet when we do make the time to go camping or spend the day at the beach we soak it up and relish in it. For the first time since we had kids, our New Year’s Eve didn’t involve a party that required either negotiating babysitting time from my parents, or succumbing to time apart – one of us staying out late and sleeping in, while the other wallowed in a dull day with the kids. So I suggested that this year we go to Muir Beach for New Year’s Day. (more…)
Welcome to Transitions!
This blog explores the idea of transition. Using the term very broadly, a transition could be a change in perspective - leaving something behind and stepping into something new - or returning to something left behind.
The sea turtle is my inspiration. After mating, a mature female sea turtle leaves the ocean to lay her eggs in the sand. She must first dig a hole with her flippers, lay the eggs, and then cover the eggs with sand again. I have observed mother sea turtles at work, and it's no wonder the turtle is known for its patience; this is long, tedious, hard work! She then returns to the sea, praying her children will survive. After two months incubation, the baby turtle instinctively returns to the sea and the process begins again. Many years later the females return to the very same place they were born to lay their eggs.
For me, the instinctual "returning to the sea" is a metaphor for the journey of "returning to our true selves", both who we always were and who we are becoming. Whether reflecting on my work as a coach and consultant or my own experience as a working mother, I hope my thoughts and perspective about transition will provoke your own, and that you will share them here with me.
About the Author
Rebecca Aced-Molina is a leadership and life coach who works with individuals, families, and organizations through The Next Stage Coaching and Consulting. From an early age, Rebecca has been passionate about social justice, cultural understanding, and human development and continues to engage in efforts associated with these areas.
She is the proud mother of two young children (8 and 5) and feels that parenting is one of the least understood and most important "fields of work" around.
Rebecca spends her summers in Spain where she has family and enjoys connecting with history, community and slowing down. She makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she enjoys the vibrancy of new ideas, diversity, and possibility.
Subscribe to Transitions!
© 2012 Transitions. All Rights Reserved.
Design by Clear Light Communications
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 
Connect With Me