Women who have given birth to a baby and are experiencing the joys of motherhood for the first time find that their own personality has suddenly “disappeared.” There is only the child and his problems and needs. They constantly find themselves unable to switch gears and think even for a short time  About Me. Of course, this is normal for any responsible mother. It is important to take care of the child and give love and care when he needs it most.

But what happens after you have spent several months or a couple of years in this state and you have to return to normal life? There is a state of great uncertainty in yourself and how much you can adequately integrate into ordinary life. And in what capacity should you join it? Should I do in life what I did before or should I do something else? After all, everything has changed so much. In addition  The feeling that during this time you have completely lost all business skills puts pressure and deprives you of self-confidence.

If you stay in this state for a long time, you can be seriously injured internally  and completely lose confidence in yourself and your abilities. Alternatively, after returning from maternity leave, you can abandon thoughts about a career or start rushing around and find yourself doing something that seems “within your strength”, but will be completely out of your heart, will not inspire or delight. The kind of work where you hate Mondays and look forward to Fridays is the lot of people who do not believe in the existence and search of their calling.

How to return to life and find yourself after a long break?

Perhaps maternity leave is the time when you should seriously think about finding a job to your liking, changing your life for the better, finding your calling and harmony in your soul.

You can try to return to the field of activity that you were involved in before. This is a good idea, especially if it makes you happy and inspiring. Often the opposite happens. Statistics say that more than 70% of working people believe that they are not doing their job and about 15 percent frankly hate what they do.

The alternative is  try to look for yourself in other areas. How do you understand what exactly is “yours”? You can take the advice of friends, parents or loved ones. Where can you be sure that they are not feeding on their own fantasies on this topic? This might be a good option if they know you very well. Sometimes it all ends with a woman rushing from one profession to another - from salespeople to accountants, from there to cosmetologists and ends up teaching children in a private school.  Maybe this is your path too - the path of experimenting with your abilities, so to speak, searching in the “fog by touch.”

There is another alternative - more effective, in my opinion. “careerassessment” tests, “career guidance tests” have long been developed, which allow you to give a person a “map of the area” “- that is, to understand what kind of work to do, and what kind of work you definitely don’t need to do. This understanding comes from knowing your unique personality, abilities and talents, as well as interests and skills. This greatly narrows the scope of searches and reduces precious time for experiments.

Free career guidance tests can be easily found on the Internet. How They are usually superficial and give very general recommendations like “you need to work with people” or “you need to work with machines.” 

 I work with an integrated approach, looking at different facets of your personality - so that you get a three-dimensional picture of your personality and an understanding of where to move next. 

One of the tests that I offer to my clients is a comprehensive set of tests and questionnaires . We consider 4 areas of life - personality, abilities, interests, values. After completing an hour-long online test,  you get a holistic picture of your personality. During the subsequent consultation, we discuss the results obtained and discuss narrower areas of application of your talents and abilities. Sometimes areas of development are discovered that you had not thought about before. There is a clear understanding of your characteristics, which must be taken into account when making career decisions.

Ultimately, this significantly reduces the range of searches and gives a more comprehensive understanding of oneself, strengthens confidence in one’s abilities, and provides direction for action. It's like a photograph that you can always take out and see the real (not imaginary) picture and thus make more informed decisions when choosing a job.

Children are the joy of life, but the happier  realized parents are, the happier the children are. Career guidance helps you “find yourself.” When parents “get stuck” in the lives of their children and do not take care of their own lives, this only hinders the child’s development and plays a cruel joke - instead of helping, it suppresses the child’s initiative, which is the key to success in life. After all, in the end, children copy exactly the deeds, and not the good intentions of their parents. Therefore  it is important to strive to fulfill your calling, to seek and find.  

This is the only way to experience true happiness and fullness of life and leave a legacy for children that cannot be overestimated.  

If you haven’t found your business yet, look for it. Do not stop. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know it when you find it. And like any good relationship, it gets better and better over the years. So search until you find it. Don't stop.

Steven Paul Jobs