An inspiring chap in the coaching world remarked at a development event I attended eight years ago that most people over estimate what they can achieve in a year and vastly under estimate what they could achieve in ten. That’s what I’m exploring in this month’s short Flourishing Female newsletter which culminates in a powerful exercise ( a mental one – not a gym-sweating or anti-aging Ten Years Younger style facial one) you could do on your way home today.

This thought about what it’s possible to achieve in ten years came back to me recently when I was approached by a “Mumpreneur” style networking group to give a talk about successful working motherhood. I’ve noticed a difference between women I’ve coached who don’t have a young family and those that do. In my experience, the women who are setting up a business or transitioning into self-employment/freelance style working who have young children have tended to be less ambitious than those without a young family. But I am confident it is not that mothers are any less ambitious per se – let me explain.

What’s often the case is that these women are starting businesses or going solo in reaction to the lack of opportunity to progress their career and be an active and ‘available’ mother.
This is a sad state of affairs and the women who tend to feel it most are the women who work in male dominated industries where to be a player you need to work in a traditional way (five days a week, in an office, be seen to be there etc).

As a reaction to this, some of these ambitious women will find a new route for their work passion and will go freelance or start something new of their own that is gratifying, profitable and allows them to play an active role in their young childrens’ lives. (I did an interview with www.workingmums.co.uk that might interest you where I aired some strong views about my distate about so many women feeling they have to do this to get a decent work/family/rest of life balance).

So what quite often happens – and of course this is anecdotal experience based on my client base, not rigorous academic study or a large pool of women – is that a decent business idea is born but without a long term strategy or growth plan. And that’s because the woman’s focus has been on solving the immediate problem of doing something financially and cerebrally rewarding that fits around the children.

I’ve worked with a few women recently who are at a sort of self-imposed career crossroads – fuelled sometimes by a thought that they might want to have children soon or because they have young children –where they’re questioning the sense of carrying on up the ladder or even in the same industry. They’ve found the following (right brain) exercise a useful way to let their unconscious aspirations come to the fore to guide their decision making.

Very simply, taking just 8-10 minutes write freely in a notebook or on your computer about how you would like to be described in a professional capacity in ten years time. Imagine it’s a 100 word pen portrait for a magazine article profiling successful women or the short blurb that’s given about you before you go on stage to collect an award. Start the writing and let whatever comes, flow.

There’s no need to judge or evaluate what you write or cross bits off because you think you couldn’t possibly have achieved it. It may not make sense and it may even be at odds with where you are now. By doing it though you might get an insight into hidden desires or values or ratchet up your ambition. It may breathe new life into your professional development discussions at work or fuel a refresh of your business plan or strengthen your resolve to keep beavering away on things you’ve been working towards for some time. Even if you laugh it off as a fluff, you’ve given yourself an entertaining commute home.

I did the exercise earlier in the year and I must say it was a liberating, fun experience which made me feel empowered and excited about the prospect of getting older. This is what came from the eight minutes of letting my keys fly over my keyboard in an ‘unthinking’ way:

Dr Jessica Chivers is an influential psychologist, author, broadcaster, activist and coach. She is known for her research and writing on female leadership and gender equality in the workplace and has written four books including Mothers Work!, Floss and Sod What She Thinks. Jessica is affiliated to The London Business School where she guest lectures and is also a contributing editor to The Economist’s Intelligent Life publication. Jessica works with organisations to improve gender equality and coaches a handful of women each year to make it to the top. She is based in Hertfordshire and Cornwall.

What are you taking away from this post?

1) Thinking big and long term can powerful and energising
2) Having a long term view of your professional life is likely to make it easier to make smaller career choices and decisions along the way

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