COVERED Edition 4 Issue 1 | Page 22

BUSINESS_____________________________________________________________________________ Women Leadership BY HAWA CHARFARAY CEO & Founder Training Excellence South Africa and Middle East Business Executive Coach, Trainer & Motivational Global Speaker. TEDx Lyttleton Women Speaker Become a more balanced, focused and engaged leader G enerally, balance is seen as scaling between work and family - when a person is able to sufficiently meet family commitments and adequately perform responsibilities at work. For me, there’s one major issue with the term work-life balance. First, the very phrase suggests that work isn’t part of your life; it’s separate. The majority of our time is spent at work, so if we look for balance all the time, it becomes elusive and rarely attainable, which means you already start at a disadvantage. Second, the work-life balance statement also presupposes that you are merely coping, and most women want to be extremely successful at both. Ultimately, it should be about a woman being able to set boundaries and become assertive enough to say ‘no’ to areas that don’t affect her life in a big or important way. There are times when a woman will have to work really long and hard, and neglect home and personal life. And there are times when she can choose to play hard and say ‘no’ to work. It all starts with a belief. Some women believe it’s impossible to be a good mother and have a successful career at the same time. They believe they could either be good at their job, or at motherhood, but not at both.! 22 But I believe you can be extremely successful at work and be an outstanding mother - and looking gorgeous at the same time. I for one, had three adorable kids with special needs who required more care and attention than ordinary children. But I still managed a successful career, founded a company and always made time to look gorgeous all the time. We are all different though, so what you choose as being most important, would be totally dependent on what you value and how you determine the worth of the things that matter most to you.