Too often we get caught up in what we want without taking into consideration what the party that we are negotiating with considers a win.

This year with fear creeping in on all fronts, from our health to the political unrest to the state of the economy we have found ourselves in an “I gotta get mine” mentality. We don’t need to be right, we just need to win is a spot that I find myself in often.

We have to think about our request and then what the other parties’ responses to our request may be. All of the potential responses.

We owe it to each other to go down each road as if we were on the other side and see where it leads. Are we being fair to all sides? Are we working towards a solid middle with terms that are palatable to all of the people who will be eating this deal for dinner? If we are fighting we will likely lose. If we are one-sided we will likely lose. The fear response is very real right now. Our amygdalas are on overdrive trying to keep us safe. The only metabolic way to get from the fight or flight response is to breathe, the recommendation is 5 deep breaths.

We all have time for 5 deep breaths.

We all have time to see all sides before we go back in with a fair and reasonable solution. As soon as we have lost our temper we have opened ourselves to both weakness and our biological inability to decision-make from our prefrontal cortex. Just breathe.

Years ago a lovely woman named Kay Bush said to me “You can have it all, but not all at once”.

I had very little interest in listening to her at the time, determined to be the best, business owner, boss, leader, wife, mother, athlete, cook, cleaning person, daughter, friend, etc, etc, etc. When I had my first child and slipped into a failure funk I realized that she was right. There was absolutely no way that any one day was going to score an “A” on all of the levels I wanted it to.

When I released myself from the pressure of feeling like I had to make everything happen in a day and decided that I had a whole lifetime to spread my success over I felt a weight lift from me. Somedays I am the best Mom, but a kinda okay-ish wife. Someday I kill it at the office, but the laundry is piled up and I eat a burrito at 8 PM as my first meal of the day.

I think that the goal-setting at The BE Event is so important to me because it allows for small measurable goals, it also reminds me that I am surrounded by women making the same life decisions, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other, rinse and repeat, conditioned with grace.

This year has been the year where the working mother has fought harder than any other year to hang on to the years of work for equal pay and equal opportunity in the workplace. According to Hired.com, the wage gap is widening in 2020. 63% of men earn higher salaries than their female counterparts.

If you align this with the knowledge that women are more likely to want to stay home to care for their children, another stat shared by the same source, it is easy to see that we are taking steps backward in equity. If the working mother is compensated less it is more economically feasible that she will stay home. If she desires to care for her children or feels the guilt creep commonly discussed about the safety of our children in schools, she is again more likely to stay home.

This article provided key-insights into what we already know to be true this year. What can we do to help solve this issue?

We have a responsibility to work to understand what our tribe is experiencing. My female doctor friends are dealing with different issues than my female business owner friends. I don’t know a single person who is not faced with the constant desire to plan in a year where it is nearly impossible.

Our job is to lean in hard to the areas that we can help, ride-sharing, meals, child care, walks, lending an ear (all socially distanced, of course).

There are so many things that we cannot do this year we need to look for the spaces where we can help to ensure that we are able to keep our foothold and secure our positions of growth in the workforce.