Overcoming the stress to achieve it all; dilemma of working women in India
It’s time we all should come to terms with this fact and take a better control over our mental health and physical well-being.
Dr. Gurpreet Kaur Chhabra
Dr. Gurpreet Kaur Chhabra is an Associate Professor, Program Coordinator- MBA at MERI College
Council member(WICCI-NPWC) & on panel G 100. External mentor for NEC, E- Cell, IIT-B . Winner of ‘Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All’ by WEF at their annual conference in London, October 2023. Winner of ‘The Exceptional Women of Excellence’ award by WEF, India, 2022. An author, published researcher and reviewer with Emerald Journal . One among the top 150 women selected for India’s first women entrepreneurship mentoring program jointly organized by IIMB, NCW & ISF. An expert with SLAP program of AICTE. Guest Professor& Subject matter expert with ‘Bada Business’ initiative of Dr. Vivek Bindra Expert speaker with PCC, New Jersey. Honorary mentoring expert for PMP- 2022& 2023 of XLRI, Jamshedpur. ‘Certificated Global Trainer’ by International Internship University, Australia.
Based on my personal experience and that shared by my friends and colleagues over last two years, one of the major mental health issue that majority of Indian women face is the tendency to do it all or the stigma to always try to achieve a perfect balance between personal and professional life. We the Indian women have been cultured and brought up in a way that it has been fed in our systems that family is the first priority even before self. However hard we try we cannot come to terms with the feeling of giving priority to self.
At times we do give time to self but then there is a persistent inner voice that makes you experience a feeling of guilt that you are ignoring your family and not fulfilling your responsibility towards them. So we start ignoring our professional responsibility and our family life becomes smooth, one fine day we realize that we have not been able to achieve that level in our career that we had potential to achieve because of being more focused on family. So we keep on juggling between the two lives. This dilemma continues forever and when we are not able to strike a balance for a long time it leads to stress and poor mental health. Eventually this stress is vent out by us either on ourselves or on people around us and this spoils our relationships in our personal and professional lives. The only solution to this ongoing dilemma that I could chalk out for myself and shared with my colleagues is, to exercise self-control over our feelings and emotions. Giving priority to self is not bad if we understand this simple fact that if we are happy and are at mental peace with ourselves then we will be in a better position to manage both our personal and professional responsibilities.
First of all we need to accept and acknowledge that our mental health and peace of mind is our own responsibility and our first priority. We should understand that our family is attached to us not dependent on us. So even if we miss one or two family functions just to prepare our office presentations, its okay. If we skip office for a day or two in order to attend the annual function performance of our child, its ok. It will not affect our promotion or career growth. If we simply follow the principle of ; understanding the difference between ‘Urgent Vs. Important’ and setting first priority for urgent and important , followed by urgent followed by important. It becomes easier for us to overcome this persistent dilemma. As we age we experience different types of physical and mental changes in our body which gets aggravated when we traumatize ourselves further by putting us under this dilemma. Basically we feel that we are indispensible in family and workplace, but we women don’t realize that the only person for whom we are indispensible is we ourselves. It’s time we all should come to terms with this fact and take a better control over our mental health and physical well-being.
