Dancing At Every Wedding

The media icon for the woman living in the 1950’s was a domesticated housewife and mother who cooked, laundered, cleaned and sewed all the while looking fashionable with a big, happy grin on her face. Fast forward to today. The media icon today in an entirely different woman. What do you see in the latest Glamour and Vogues magazines? You see a tall, confident woman, designer clothes, wearing her role as a career woman, mother, wife and domestic goddess, with that “I can have it all” look to her. So what’s the difference between then and now? While both may be illusions of perfection, the real career woman and mom today is mostly exhausted, completely overwhelmed with the second shift at home, and struggling with guilt and stress.

I did something I was very proud of this week. The incredible C2Mtl Conference is finally here. If you’re not familiar with this awesome event that comes to Montreal every year, just check out this week’s speaker lineup. Why I love this conference, is because I always leave with an incredible interview for you women. A couple of years ago, it was Arianna Huffington. This year, I had my eye on Martha Stewart (second time’s a charm), David Suzuki, and many other heads in their respective fields.

So, I was all ready to rock and roll this week. Except… today is the last day of the three-day conference and I’m not there either. Didn’t go see one speaker, not for five minutes. The conference I had been waiting for for months, just passed me by this week. I missed out on incredible content for you, and incredible learning for me.

But it was the choice that I made, and one that I don’t regret.

You see, in life, I believe as women, we MUST know our limits. My mother, a wise therapist taught me this many years ago. We must know our limits at any given moment– it’s our secret to thriving as women. Know what you need, and give it yourself whenever possible. What did I WANT to do? I wanted everything! I wanted to spread myself thin… do my weekly Global segment, write, coach my clients, write my worklife balance speeches (I am giving two in June), go to our good friend’s twins’ bar mitzvah, co-host a radio show, work on HADRY, make it home to carpool to baseball, and go to C2Mtl (day and night so as to not miss the speakers I wanted to hear). What did I ACTUALLY do? I made the decision to completely cut out C2Mtl – something I had been looking forward to for months. And while it felt shitty (if I am to be honest) to read those texts like “Erica why aren’t you here? You’d love this conference, it’s so you,” or seeing the incredible Instagram photos, I felt less stressed and as if a burden had been lifted by saying no. I didn’t know how I was going to fit everything in, and so I didn’t.

You simply can’t dance at every wedding. And that’s cool. It is. FOMO can be transformed into JOMO (the Joy Of Missing Out).

I may have missed C2Mtl, but I didn’t miss special moments like these below– baseball, my son’s bar mitzvah lesson. Life is about making choices, and we hold the power to choose. Sometimes we miss out on amazing opportunities with the choices we make, but in my opinion, it’s simply about priorities. And I’m just not prepared to put my family second. Who knows, maybe that’s the real secret to being a rockstar businesswoman– putting your career first. But I’m not ready to sacrifice precious family time now for my career. There are no do-overs as moms. Some days you’re ahead, some days you’re behind, but at the end of the day, all we can do is our best. Motherhood doesn’t come with a Dora the Explorer navigation map.

What I have learned is that guilt is a major road block for many women. However, if we ignore our own needs and/or overcommit out of guilt, and for long enough, we just might experience a kind of volcanic eruption. We have to stop the comparisons between what we’re doing and what we think we “should be” doing. We have to STOP MUSTERBATING AND SHOUDING on ourselves.

So, I’m happy with my choice. Am I sad I missed C2Mtl? Hell yeah, but there’s more to life than work. There is. And I’m not on the fence about that.

I’d love to know– have you ever given up an opportunity you really wanted, or said no to something great, or felt like you were missing out by being a mother? How do you know what choice to make in these cases? I think of the women who have given up thriving careers to be selfless stay at home moms – it’s just hard to do it all. Something’s gotta give, no? Would love your thoughts…

Happy Thursday, lovelies!