The advent of the feminist movement in the late 1966s challenged traditional sexual roles, both in the bedroom and in the workplace. Women began to question their second-hand values (passed on from parents) and to make a stand for career freedom and female empowerment.
While we’ve certainly come a long way since that era, women are fighting for career advancement opportunities and salary equality in today’s society. As a woman striving to be the best version of yourself, you’re likely to have the ambition, motivation, and workplace goals that you want to achieve to succeed on the career ladder and have financial stability and security.
As women have to prove themselves constantly, it’s not surprising that many have career insecurity. If you’re single, you have to prove that you have the courage to compete and succeed in the cutthroat world of business. If you have a family, you’re expected to juggle and balance your career with household duties easily.
And even if you’re a woman who has mastered dealing with the competition and simultaneously spinning multiple plates at the office and home, you’ve still got to overcome the uncertainty and anxiety that’s associated with your personal insecurities.
Overcoming The Fear Of Failure
Fear of failure is major insecurity that affects both women and men. In the competitive world of work, the pressure to achieve your goals and succeed yourself heightens feelings of insecurity about whether or not you have what it takes.
Being afraid that you’ll fail is the easiest way to stunt your career development and personal and financial growth. To overcome the fear of failure, you need to push yourself to try new things that require you to step out of your comfort zone.
- Make a list of the things that you love about your job and what you’re passionate about. Consider ways in which you can put more passion into your day-to-day work activities.
- Organize your day to boost efficiency and productivity. Use a planner or a to-do list to create a timeline schedule that you can easily follow. Achieving your goals gives you a sense of satisfaction and makes you feel that you’re doing a good job.
- Take on a new project that stretches and challenges you. If you’re anxious about public speaking, challenge yourself to speak up in meetings and take the lead in group/team discussions or at a business conference. Although you may initially feel nervous, you’ll quickly get caught up in the process and realize that your fears were unfounded once you get started.
Dealing With Job Security Anxiety
Long gone are the days where working for a company meant that you had a job for life. In today’s world of business, nothing is secure or guaranteed. The threat of competition, uncertainty, and redundancy is always looming.
It’s highly stressful to continuously worry about the security of your employment or of having a steady flow of income if you’re a self-employed entrepreneur. Although there’s nothing much that you can do about the factors that potentially threaten your job security – recession, outsourcing, downsizing, new technology, and globalization – there are ways that you can manage your career anxiety.
- Write a list of how you give value to your job and your accomplishments in the role. Explore ways in which you can make your skills even more marketable.
- Keep your skills current by learning new things that enhance your CV and professionalism. If your boss doesn’t invest in your development, broaden your skillset in your own time by taking an online course.
- Develop your interpersonal skills by having a positive attitude to your career. Be an active listener, and use eye contact and body language to your advantage. These simple but effective tactics will help you feel more confident in your job and better equipped to secure new employment.
Coping With Career Compromise
While every woman wants to be in a position where she is financially stable, earning a shed load of money while doing an unfulfilling job is a career compromise that can lead to unhappiness.
Certainly, earning a decent wage is important, but if you want to be happy in your career, you need to be doing work that you love. Studies have repeatedly shown that people who work with their passion tend to be happier overall than those who don’t.
Not everyone is lucky enough to land a dream job that encompasses your skills, talents, and passions. Most people have to make do with an unsatisfying job, simply to pay the bills. This includes those 6-figure salary jobs with an expense account who are just as miserable because they compromised their passions to climb the career ladder.
If you have a deep need to do a job that offers meaning over money, your career insecurity is caused by not knowing what you should be pursuing. Until you’re in a position where you can cut ties with your current employer and move on to doing a job with meaning, there are ways in which you can make the current 9-to-5 more interesting and appealing…
- Change your outlook by choosing how you perceive your circumstances. Draw up a list of all of the skills that your unsatisfying job is allowing you to learn. Dig deeper to discover other hidden potentials within your current job role. There’s a good chance that these skills complement your passions in some way.
- Stop complaining and resisting, and start engaging with your work. Consider your strengths and talents, and come up with ways to best put them to use in your job.
- Learn more about yourself by taking on more responsibilities, not less. Everything that this compromised job offers is helping to create the best version of you.