Life, Like Insurance Is All About Conscious Choices!
Recently, I had the privilege of being a part of the Journey to Excellence panel and addressing some of New Zealand’s brightest and most dynamic women. One of the questions posed to me was on the demands of juggling motherhood and a career. I have been asked this question many times over the years and invariably two words always surface in the conversation: compromise and guilt.
The modern goal of “having it all” often leads us to feel that compromise is a bad thing and something we should feel guilty about. The reality is that compromise is the silver bullet to achieve what we want out of life. The maths is clear: commuting, a full day’s work, parenting, hobbies, devoting time to your partner, housework, socialising, me-time… there are just not enough hours in the day.
When my son was born, I realised I needed to make some big, conscious choices about how my life was going to look as a mother, a wife, a woman and an executive. None of us can be in two places at once, so I consciously decided where my time and energy best served the life I was building for myself and my family. I couldn’t do everything myself so what could I outsource, involve my partner in, or just let go of? Once those decisions were made I backed myself, stopped letting other people’s opinions concern me, and let go of any guilt.
Something amazing happens when you let go of guilt – your focus shifts from worrying about the quantity of time you don’t have to embracing the quality of the time you do have. If I had four hours with my son at the end of a long day’s work, I was fully focused on making them the best four hours of his day and being the best mum I could be in that time. My success as a parent shifted from the number of hours I could put in, to the human being he turned out to be – was he happy, respectful, determined, kind and did he love his mum? I am very pleased to say that the wonderful man my son is today is all the validation I need that my choices back then were right for my family.
So how does this apply to insurance? Again, it is all about conscious choices.
I know that talking and thinking about the things that can go wrong with your health is confronting and even uncomfortable. But the big-ticket items in life always are. Talking and thinking about lifestyle protection insurances is also confronting and uncomfortable – but given the significant financial impact your wellbeing has on your family, Partners Life is proud to be helping Kiwi mums to front up to and own their own risks.
Just like with parenting, someone else will always have an opinion they want to impose on you: it’s a waste of money, it’s too expensive, it’s too complex and time consuming. What they think or what they do actually has nothing to do with your life and your family.
Just like being a mother and a career woman, the best insurance outcome comes from making a conscious decision about what you want to happen for your family and then committing to that decision – without any second guessing.
Whatever the decision you need to make – whether its parenting, career, or insurance, here’s my tips:
1. The bigger decisions in life are always confronting and a little uncomfortable but by making them and owning them, we free ourselves from the stress of not making them; and
2. Other people’s opinions speak only of their lives, they do not have anything to do with yours; and
3. The outcome of your decisions are the important measure of the success of your decision – there is no one way fits all – it’s ok to be different from the crowd.