I’ve now returned from my maternity leave.
The last year has taught me:
💪Women support other women
It really is a beautiful thing to witness just how supportive other women are - even ones you’ve never met before! I’ve met some fantastic ladies during my maternity leave who would do anything to help without hesitation 🙏
👂Listen
Listening skills are the foundation of good communication. Listening to understand, rather than listening to reply, can really make someone feel heard and empowered.
🗣️Networking
It’s completely overwhelming walking into a room full of strangers carrying a newborn baby and trying to strike up a conversation on very little sleep. It has however, given me new confidence to engage in conversation with people I’ve never met before.
🫶Trust yourself
I’ve always had really low confidence. It stems from always having to work that bit harder than everyone else. To try and keep my brain active and still in the game I took on mentoring someone who needed PR advice. I thought that talking to someone in a different sector to my norm would make it challenging, but I quickly realised I know what I’m talking about! 💁🏻♀️ Lesson learnt, more self belief is needed.
🐢Slow down, take a breath
PR is a million miles an hour job that is always on. I’d always work through my never ending to do list to get things done and out the way as quickly as possible to avoid becoming swamped and overwhelmed. This applies to “life admin” as well, but it’s just not possible with a baby. Instead, I found I was able to take something onboard and digest it first before reacting/replying. Being nap trapped I’d literally just have to sit and think and not do. This allowed me to approach something in a completely different way, and even though the to do list kept growing, all I could do was take one thing at a time and at a slower pace. Not only did it help with more thinking time, but also a different approach to tackling prioritisation.
👋🏼 British Sign Language
For anyone who has ever thought about learning BSL, do it! I learnt as a way to communicate with my daughter, but it’s something I’ve always been interested in learning and I’m so glad I have. Plus it felt really rewarding to learn a new skill.
💆♀️Be selfish
Possibly the most important, I (finally) learnt I can’t do it all. It took having a baby to realise that I’m so guilty of spreading myself too thin and not allowing any time for me. I’ve accepted that it’s ok to ask for help, and it’s ok to be selfish with my own downtime.
It’s now time to accept a new challenge; juggling a full time job while being a mum. I’m not going to pretend it’s going to be easy to merge these two different versions of myself, but I’ll tackle each day as it comes.
With that being said, ☕️ coffee catch-ups incoming!