These past few months were definitely not what I was expecting when we started 2020 back in January and I can safely say Covid-19 has interrupted many plans both fun and career wise. However, it is still very important we stay at home to save lives for as long as possible to make sure we beat this! It is also a great reminder that no matter how organised we are; life will always throw lots of unexpected surprises our way. It is very easy to feel unmotivated during these times and this can lead to feelings of guilt that we aren’t progressing towards planned goal for the year.

This blog post aims to tackle these feeling and show you all just how amazing you are doing during lockdown, with a few hints and tips I have been following to make sure I stay positive and moving towards my goals still.

Just a small disclaimer first, I feel blogs like this can be intimidating at times, do not hold yourself up to anyone’s standards but your own. Everyone reacts to situation in different ways and that makes you no better or worse, as long as you feel proud of yourself you are doing amazingly! Remember, it’s the small steps that lead to big achievements. You got this!

I have personally struggled with the feeling of guilt during lockdown, I have felt I should be reinventing myself, I felt I should be coming out of lockdown with the body of a personal trainer and the mind of an enlighten monk with at least 20 job offers. I felt the pressure to use every moment to be as productive as possible. However, this is not the case. These feelings just stressed me out and I felt so overwhelmed constantly, as I felt I was not living up to the ‘expectations’ of lockdown. This was my first mistake. Where did these expectations come from? I realised it was the usual place…social media.

Now don’t get me wrong I love social media, it allows for such amazing opportunities, and gives such powerful platforms to tackle issues such as the ones we discuss in ‘Women in Work’ and has allowed me to connect with so many like-minded people. However, each day I was logging on and seeing ‘Lockdown Fitness Plans’, ‘Lockdown Diet Plan’, pictures of before and afters, examples of how to plan a productive day in lockdown and list apon list of ways to network and advance your career while still at home. Now initially these were great and of course I saw some great tips. But, as lockdown went on I started to feel mad with myself if I hadn’t workout, eaten healthy, applied for jobs and gotten through massive chunks of university work each day. I felt I should be at the same level as all the Instagram posts.

To be raw with you all this stress led to a few breakdowns and I had times where I just couldn’t make myself get out of bed, which of course just made me more overwhelmed as I had days where I completed missed my goals all together, which was extremely counterproductive. Something had to change…

I realised I needed to stop comparing myself to the ideals of Instagram and set personal goals which were doable for me. I also followed some new accounts with gentle, anti-pressure, motivating posts, my favourite is ‘Zombiefacesarach’ her posts of so positive and uplifting.

So that is where I am now. I set a few main goals to achieve each week, instead of daily, and allow myself to work towards them slowly and as stress-free a possible.  I try to stick to a loose routine daily just to keep me in a positive headspace, but again if that does not work for you don’t force yourself. Going at your own pace is so important.

I try and start each day with a workout, each morning I facetime my friend and we do the same workout together. This not only allows us to motivate each other but I get to start each day with a catch up with my friend and that’s amazing. However, if one of us wakes up and isn’t feeling it we don’t put pressure on each other – we both agree it is fine to have extra rest days, and we never make each other feel guilty for having any amount of time off or changing the workout time to later if it works better. This way we are only working out if it is fun and we don’t ever see it as a chore. The rest of the day is always different, my main deadlines are over for university now and I only have my dissertation left (due in September). This means I try research little and often throughout the day and make sure to take breaks, to sit out in the sun, read for fun, watch extreme amounts of Netflix’s or play games on my switch.

Another key tip of mine is to utilize video chatting with your friends, the weekly quiz I do with my uni friends is the highlight of my week and it keeps my spirits high! Everyone is in the same position, so its important we use this time to support friends and allow them to support you, never compare accomplishments, just celebrate each other’s goals no matter how big or small.

I remind myself constantly that even doing 10 minutes of work a day is a great accomplishment during these times. The uncertainty of the future right now is enough stress in itself, so we must not add stress to our self by feeling guilty if we aren’t achieving the same goals we had at the start of the year. Instead of feeling like you will never get this time again to focus on long term goals – it is equally important you may never get this time again to just spend days in your PJ’s baking and ordering Deliveroo. Balance is always key and so is prioritising when you just need a break.

 As we stay inside, stay safe and support our key workers, I hope you can all put yourselves first and stay guilt-free and ready for a positive rest of 2020. Remember if you ever need someone to talk to our DM’s are always open.

Girl, you are going to smash it,

Love Lucie (VP)

Women’s Health @ Williams Wealth – Learning to work with Endometriosis

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month – so what better time than now to share my story of how to work successfully with a Chronic Illness.

Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women, yet so many of us still suffer in silence, particularly at work. This is a disease where cells, similar to the ones found in the womb, grow amongst other parts of the body such as on the Ovaries, Liver, Bladder, Kidney, Bowel, in fact, the only place Endometriosis hasn’t been found to grow, is on the Spleen.

I was diagnosed with Endometriosis at the age of 23 via a Laparoscopic Surgery and was fairly certain the diagnosis was coming. I’d visited the GP so many times for various pain & period related struggles throughout my teenage years that when I finally got a referral to a Gynaecologist for further tests, I’d began researching the disease myself, mentally ticking a box next to every symptom listed on every webpage I could possibly find.

Following my diagnosis, the next step was learning to comfortably live with a Chronic Illness that currently has no cure, well, I’m maybe not there just yet, but I can definitely tell you ways to work with it!

When I first started my job in 2013, it was just me & my boss (an ex-military male) and one day I’d had to pluck up the courage to suggest it could possibly be a good idea to have a bin…in the toilet, so you can imagine how closed I was about my personal struggles each month. Luckily over the course of my many visits to the GP, the business had started growing as well and we’d got a lovely female Practice Manager join us as well as other female members of staff.

Since my diagnosis and educating myself around the disease, I’ve been taking every opportunity to educate my workplace too, this way it can help us find ways to keep me in work comfortably.

So here are my steps to making life as a spoonie that little more manageable in the workplace:

So there we go, my list to managing employment and illness. I think the best thing we can do is to be honest and discuss how we’re feeling mentally & physically, speaking up is the only way we can get the support we need, and it helps raise a little awareness along the way too!

Happy International Women’s Day!

Women in Work is all about empowerment! What a perfect day to talk about our personal inspirations and the women who continue to encourage us to be the best we can.  There are so many individuals who deserve recognition today, but these are some of the main ones that inspire us! 

Elena Cossar (President); Emma Watson

‘If you want to run for prime minister, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don’t shave them, wear flats done day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn’t get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop. Women should feel free. ‘’- Emma Watson

I find Emma Watson incredibly inspiring, she was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill ambassador in 2014, working hard for a campaign initiated by the UN called HeForShe calling for the advancement of gender equality, encouraging both genders to partake as agents of change and take action against negative stereotypes and behaviors. What I love about Emma Watson is that she actively stands up for her beliefs and is pushing for a change that is so important for feminism and men and women as a whole! She highlights that it is not about superficial issues and about empowerment and equality.

Lucie Davies (vice president); Princess Diana is my inspiration purely down to her charity work- she helped so many- I saw a website that said that she did charity work for sick children, the banning of landmines and for raising awareness about those affected by cancer, HIV/AIDS and mental illness, and I really want a career in the future that will enable me to help people grow and develop and I think her work breaking barriers by shaking hands with people with aids without gloves just broke down so many barriers and worried around the idea of spreading aids at the time and I think that was amazing!

A good quote of hers is ‘’Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back.’’ Which I really value because I think society would be much better if we all looked out for each other and did more acts of kindness!

Kerry Wilson (Events Manager); Katherine Johnson

“We needed to be assertive as women in those days - assertive and aggressive - and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be.” -Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson is an inspirational woman. In 1953, Katherine joined NASA as what was then called a human computer. She was part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

Katherine’s career had such in impact in history. In 1961 Kathrine’s calculations mapped the trajectory of the first American in space. Also in 1970, the Apollo 13 era, Katherine worked on emergency procedures that were vital when part of the main spacecraft exploded. The astronauts had to use the lunar module as a lifeboat to return to Earth. Katherine’s Math skills also came into action on the space shuttle plans for Mars missions.  

Katherine Johnson accomplished so much in her career in-spite of discrimination her and her colleges faced. The release of the movie “Hidden Figures” educated many on the important action she implicated to sexism and racism in science and engineering at NASA.

Katherine recently passed but will always stay a celebration in the hearts of millions.

Lily Mckenna (Treasurer);  Grace Beverly- 

A woman who started her career through Youtube whilst undertaking a degree at Oxford, to achieving a first-class degree whilst simultaneously being the CEO and founder of Two multimillion-pound businesses; Tala, which is thought to be worth £6.7billion within the next 5 years; and B_nd. Grace has a passion for making her products ethically sources, with everything being made vegan, cruelty-free and sustainable. Her hard work and commitment inspires me to believe if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.  

We hope you all feel empowered today and continue working towards your goals and dreams! 

The Women in Work Committee. x

In the late 1950’s, the gender quota for American astronaut candidates was 100 percent male and 0 percent female. After some men had gone into space, Jerrie Cobb broke the all-male quote in the early 1960’s with twenty-four other female pilots when NASA allowed them to go through the physical and psychological evaluation as part of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees Programme. Jerrie ranked in the top 2 percent of all the astronaut candidates (regardless of gender), which is no surprise as she has been teaching men to fly places at nineteen years of age and had gone on to set a world record for speed altitude and distance. She was told by NASA that she’d be the first women in space and was celebrated on television.

However, America was not ready to let its all-male quota go, NASA canceled the women’s program in 1963.John Glenn testified that ‘’men go off and fight the wars and fly the planes’’ and added ‘’the fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order’’

Jerrie put up a fight but eventually gave up, but she did so many amazing things in her life despite this setback, she won pilot of the year by her colleagues and did some amazing humanitarian work. Jerrie had smashed so many ceilings before hitting this bump in the road, making world records and winning multiple awards.

Jerrie’s story highlights how because of ‘social order’ and gendered roles women were not allowed to succeed or try to succeed in the way that men where. Her story is a testament to the sex discrimination that women did and still undergo. Whilst we have come far there are still limitations that many of us face.

‘Glass ceilings’ is a term that was created by Marilyn Loden in 1978, when she listened to a panel of female individuals discussing women’s deficiencies in socialisation and the self-deprecating ways in which behaved and the poor self-image that women allegedly carried. She was shocked that the criticisms were on women’s personalities and not focussed on the issue that was cultural. Many women have been limited by the glass ceiling put in place by society, including women like Jerrie.

Now as women we are able to do many jobs that a long time ago Jerrie and others could not do because they were not seen as jobs for women. That glass ceiling seems in many of the western world to have been smashed, however, there is still stigma within many industries and for women reaching higher paid/positioning jobs. And still gender-based inequalities within many job roles.

Women in Work are hosting a ‘Breaking Glass Ceilings’ open discussion on the 6^th February at Mansions of the future, 6:45pm, we will be discussing the inequalities that may still exist for women now. The personal ‘glass ceilings’ we place on ourselves and the responsibility that we have as modern women today. We hope to see you there. (Tickets can be purchased here)

So whether we see you at our next event or not, keep breaking them glass ceilings, and smashing back them prosecco glasses at every little success you have!

Elena Cossar – President of Women in Work.

‘I’d rather look back at my life and say ‘I can’t believe I did that’ instead of saying ‘I wish I’d done that’

One of my goals for last year was to start doing things that scared me. I experienced the loss of someone very close to me and I decided that life is too short, and that you should say yes to things that might scare you initially, because sometimes those things end up being the most rewarding. Last year seemed to be a year of new beginnings, a new degree, a few new jobs. I was faced with lots of opportunities, some I was excited for and others scared me. 

Taking up the role as president of Women in Work was one of those things that I was terrified of. I was scared of failing of not being able to handle it. I doubted my ability. But I took that leap, the impact Women in Work had on my life when I attended one of the conferences was amazing. I remember coming away in tears, feeling inspired and encouraged at a time when emotionally I felt like I was failing. And so when I was considering taking up a role in Women in Work I thought about this, about how positively it impacted me and that perhaps all the hard work would be worth it and help many others.

And so that is why I will be continuing on with the goal of saying yes to things that scare me, I want to be able to look back at my life and look at the long list of accomplishments no matter how big or small. Women in Work continues to excite me and push me. Find something that you are passionate about even if it scares you. 

If you are feeling disheartened by a difficult year, difficult month, week or day that’s okay but turn it around with some positive thinking and reflection. Remind yourself that no matter where you are in your journey you are doing amazing.

Here are some quotes to start the new year with, write one down for a day when you may need some encouragement.

Elena Cossar.