Slightly Off-Balance

I have been thinking a lot about the balance of my career and being a mother.  In other words, I am still struggling to balance the two.  I have come to the conclusion that I cannot permanently solve this issue of balance, but rather attack it every day and set new priorities everyday – generally based on who is screaming the loudest.

What has helped me with my daily prioritization is having one über focus.  I have decided that I am a mom before anything else.  So as I read the summary of my resume, I decided it might need some editing…

Yes, this is really my summary of qualifications…  I am in HR and can’t believe I thought this was useful…

• Professional and effective communicator with the ability to establish a positive rapport with internal and external customers
• Responsible and competent in high pressure situations, motivated and willing to put in 110%
• Successful in leading and managing projects
• Contributes to process improvement and strives to enhance job effectiveness
• Demonstrates innovation and helps achieve company wide goals through meeting challenges and exceeding expectations

Now here is a more realistic copy, who wants to hire me now?

• Professional and effective communicator with the ability to establish a positive rapport with internal and external customers, unless I have been up all night with a sick child.  If that is the case, I stick to one syllable words and that sounds more like gibberish than communication.  Positive rapport? Unlikely.
• Responsible and competent in high pressure situations, motivated and willing to put in 110% on some days.  If it is my classroom volunteer day, my child’s birthday, the first day of school, the last day of school or sunny outside, I am willing to put in 72%.
• Successful in leading and managing projects only because I have learned the art of delegating so that I can spend more time with my kids.
• Contributes to process improvement and strives to enhance job effectiveness these are only so that I don’t have to work as hard to get the same results so I can spend more time with my kids.
• Demonstrates innovation and helps achieve company wide goals through meeting challenges and exceeding expectations the challenges I like to focus on include how to work less and spend more time with my family and I hope to exceed my children’s expectations of being present for them.

What is the truth behind your resume? 

Speaking of spending more time with my kids, I made the very tough decision not to pursue my coaching dream at this time.  I don’t want to give a serious passion anything less than my best.  As I take stock of my life right now, there is no room to give my best to anything else.  Hell, I can’t even give mediocre to anything else right now.

I am having a serious struggle with work life balance right now (as evidenced by my lack of writing) and just can’t pull any more time out of my a.. (absolutely crazy schedule, ahem).  So I am focusing on restoring balance not going insane, and getting back to blogging (as I miss it and all of you) and will revisit coaching when my schedule permits.  Thank to all those who have provided amazing support!

Now seriously, what’s going behind your resume?  Tell the truth.  The truth is always more delicious.