What If I Took Time Off?

You took time off? So what?  Get back in the game.

Perhaps you were a high-profile business woman in your last life. Or you were a busy sales rep, an accountant, or a physician who was up to her ears in meetings, calls and e-mails. Then you had your baby, and you decided to take time off. Your workplace carried on without you there–even though you were indispensable and they promised they would not go on. As you nurtured and grew your new human being at home, your industry was likely growing at such a rapid pace that if you decided to return, you’d have no idea what language your associates were even speaking.

This fantasy that most moms share is, fortunately, just that. There is no secret code developed in your former workplace that precludes you from returning. You do not lose vast quantities of valuable information from Mommy Brain trauma, and in fact some moms become twice as productive postpartum.  I took a mere two weeks off (it’s a bit harder to accept maternity leave when your boss is yourself).  In those short 14 days, I honestly believed that I was going to need forty weeks just to catch-up, and often thought that my clients and peers would catch me in Mommy Brain delirium and would move on without me.  Not so!  It was clearly my (well-hidden) delirium that let me think I had become a laughing stock, when in reality I jumped right back on that wagon and have worked successfully to this day.

If you’ve taken several months off, or even several years, I say to you:  get back being a  business woman.  Fear may be holding you back, but diving right in is all the jumpstart you need to get going again.  You were a star before, you will be a star again.  And while you may think that working will be twice as hard now that you have a baby, it just might be.  But how will you know until you try it?