What If the Way We Work No Longer Works?
Have you ever felt like the structure of your workday was built for someone else's life? Maybe someone with a different set of values, responsibilities, or realities? You're not alone. Many women, especially those navigating the demands of caregiving and leadership, feel caught in a system that doesn't quite fit. We continue to do the work, but something feels off.
We've Outgrown the Frame
If you know me, you know I love to dig beneath the status quo. I also don’t often see things as black and white, right vs. wrong. And I can say that I’m in a privileged position to do that as a coach. I get to sit with people every day who are questioning the unspoken rules we’ve all inherited, and give them the space to imagine something greater for themselves.
Today, we’re being asked to fit into a frame that no longer holds, and maybe never really did. Both partners working full-time, limited support structures, fragmented communities… it doesn’t add up for me. And yet we keep pushing through, measuring our worth by productivity, measuring our time by dollars, and stretching ourselves thinner and thinner in the process.
But just because the system wasn't built for us, or even for most workers, doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It’s quite the opposite. Sometimes clarity begins with honesty: seeing the system for what it is. From there, we each get to decide how to meet it. For some, it means shifting a routine or reclaiming rest. For others, it means organizing for change, the kind that once won us the 9-to-5 and could, again, make space for something better.
Reimagining What’s Possible
COVID was, for all its chaos, a strangely clarifying time. For our family, it meant more togetherness. We weren’t racing through the day, catching up with each other in the five minutes before bedtime. We had space to be a family, in a way that felt more human, humane, and less scheduled.
When my husband and I were expecting our first child, we made an important decision for our family. I needed him to take paternity leave. We were incredibly fortunate to have this option available from his employer. I needed him in it from the very beginning. We built the parenting rhythm together, side by side, both of us bleary-eyed and figuring it out as we went.
I think about that often when I talk to clients who feel like they’re drowning in invisible labor, or who are wondering why it all feels so heavy. Sometimes, the most radical act is simply to pause and ask: What do I actually want my life to look like? And then what's one small shift I could make to get closer to that vision?
Maybe it’s as simple as protecting your mornings for focused work. Maybe it’s turning your phone off during dinner. Maybe it's a conversation about co-parenting, or about the kind of support you really need. (Or maybe it’s just admitting that no, you’re not “fine”, you’re fried, and you need help.)
I still think about a line from The Awakening, a book I read as a teenager: "I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn't give myself." That line stayed with me because it captured the tension so many women feel, the desire to give deeply without losing who we are in the process.
What Could Look Different?
What’s one "normal" part of your workday that no longer feels aligned and maybe never did? What might shift if you permitted yourself to question it?
It doesn’t have to be this big, earth-shattering change. Just begin by listening in and checking in with yourself, allowing space to reimagine the structures we’ve inherited. Things don’t always need to be as they have always been.