It's amazing the things a woman will do when passion strikes. Summer season invoking "Rebellious Red" over French manicures? Change! Hair color boredom? Poof! A major name change post nuptials? I do!
Finally making time to balance career and personal goals? Let the "me time" delays deluge begin. Work is in overdrive. Family schedules make corporate deadlines blush.
"As women we feel we have so many things we should do," says Greenville's Pam Wessel, senior consultant and coach with executive career transition firm Golden Career Strategies. "We put more into our corporate climb and career emphasis. And when we feel like it's too much to balance, we have to step back, evaluate what our passion is all about, identify what drives and motivates us and tie it back to career and personal life."
As priorities go, work and family take the lead. Particularly as more women become primary household breadwinners and have fewer hours for life planning.
Consider U.S. Census data. Over 50 percent of those employed in management, professional and related occupations today are female. Faring better than men in recession layoffs they can credit today's economy for closing gender earning gaps. Over 10 million U.S. firms are majority or equally owned by women.
As goes professional growth, so follows wealth. Compared to wealthy men, the number of wealthy women in America is growing twice as fast. Oppenheimer's 2006 study, "Women and Investing," revealed 48 percent of the country's millionaires are women. And women account for over 40 percent of all Americans with gross investible assets above $600,000.
However, sobering research counters the celebration-inducing data. In May 2010's "Retirement in America: A Survey of Concerns and Expectations," 22 percent of women say the inability to save enough for retirement tops their financial worries. Fewer women than men will recover retirement savings investments thanks to the financial crisis. Erosion of their retirement savings has more women than men losing sleep. With 60 percent saying they shy away from equities investing, the study found women are more apt to do nothing to safeguard their retirement years.
Though "the new female economy" is emerging, women in South Carolina are shortchanged. The state earned a D+ on the economic status of women in a 2008 study by The Institute for Women's Policy Research in partnership with the Alliance For Women. The 2009 median weekly earnings for women in the state was $581, trailing the national figure by $76, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Given South Carolina and national figures, frail senior year finance plans spotlights the ramifications of no "me time." Filling the passion void is step one to synching career and personal life, says Wessel. Allowing desired goals to take shape, and trumping poverty risk with retirement confidence.
By asking yourself where you want to wind up and taking time to self assess and plan, women can confront the imbalance between career and personal success. With a phase one success marker being at least a better night's sleep.
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