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Check out these inspiring & motivating articles for the working woman. We discuss searching for work, struggling at your job, changing careers, work-life balance & more. #gritandgracelife

Can You Start A Career Later In Life, Absolutely

A Stay at Home Mom Shares How She Started a Career Later in Life

By / Purpose, Work & Money

Depending on whom you ask, being a stay at home mom can be: fulfilling, exhausting, joyful, mundane, and so on and so forth. Often times, it’s a mixture of all of that wrapped into one—or several—little bodies. Tack on the fact that every woman is different, with her own unique circumstances and feelings, and you’ll find a variety of perspectives. However, I will be so bold to say that many SAHM’s can feel a bit lost from time to time … like a piece of their identity is buried under the dishes, diapers, and discipline. Perhaps that’s where you find yourself today. If so, this story is for you. It’s a story about a woman who has lived through many seasons of life—one of them being a SAHM. Though […]

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Do You Travel for Work? 5 Ways to Be Safe as a Woman

By / Life & Culture, Work & Money

My career in the music business often required days out of town. Because I was the artists’ manager, I juggled a workload in the office as well as hitting the road with the bands. When I wasn’t on a tour bus, I usually traveled solo from airport to rental car to auditorium to hotel and back to the airport the following day to trek to the next destination. I not only traveled with my bands but also attended out of town meetings, working with other business partners to achieve our career goals. As a female traveling by myself, I took a few extra precautions. It’s not that I’m not adventuresome, nor am I unnecessarily paranoid. But I had two daughters and a

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Time Management Hacks

7 Time Management Hacks for a Successful Workday

By / Work & Money

I had been a reporter fresh out of college for a year and I was supremely independent. I had beats to cover, and I spent my days bopping around town interviewing everyone from first-graders to politicians. Week after week I turned in several stories, and within a few days they would show up in the paper. My boss, a good editor and kind man, rarely said anything to me about them though, leaving me to figure that either he loved my stuff or it was so bad he didn’t know what to do. After almost a year, I finally got brave enough to ask. It turned out he was happy with my productivity and my writing, and was spending his time editing

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6 Ways to Help You Get Ready for a Job Interview

By / Work & Money

I had had a job interview a few years ago for a position I had never heard of in an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. I had just been laid off by a business that collapsed during the recession and I discovered this position when an acquaintance asked me if I’d be interested. It was the holidays and I was a single mom with a daughter in college, so in desperation I replied, “Sure, why not?” Not only was I pretty clueless about what the job entailed, I later learned this industry had a lot of movement among people in the particular position for which I was applying. I was not only unqualified, but also outnumbered, with multiple experienced candidates interviewing

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dream big dreams while still living in the present

Dream Big Dreams While Living in the Present

By / Purpose, Work & Money

If you were to take a minute to think about all of the women you know, picturing their various faces, personalities, jobs, and families, then it would become immediately clear: each woman is created to add a specific type of beauty to this earth. Each and every one different, all with a purpose, both shared and unique. Our daily roles and functions often come simple to us. We work jobs to provide. We practice self-care. We use our voices to encourage, to mother, to direct, to teach. Yet when we ponder our whole life’s purpose, it’s complex. We each have interests and hobbies that we are enthusiastic about. Unfortunately, our jobs may only highlight a small fraction of us living into our passions (if at all). Some of us are fearful

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How to Know if It's Time to Change Your Job

How to Know if It’s Time to Change Your Job

By / Work & Money

Some of us love job-hopping. Whether it’s for the sheer challenge, better pay, or a totally left-turn change of career, we find it adventurous and exciting to say good-bye to one employer and hello to another. But for others of us, unless we are being cheated, sexually harassed, or treated unethically in some way, switching jobs requires a lot of preparatory work, planning, and well-thought-out (and sometimes agonizing) decision making. Occasionally we can negotiate with our current employer for changes we need or desire, such as altering our hours or transferring to a different division or location. But when that isn’t possible, it may be time to move on. Go for it! Below you’ll find some fair reasons to change jobs, and below

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We Need a Wife—a Working Woman's Challenge

We Need a Wife—a Working Woman’s Challenge

By / Life & Culture, Work & Money

It was a weeknight and our family was sitting over another thrown-together meal from whatever I could find in an almost empty refrigerator. The laundry was mounting, the house a mess, and my calendar in hand as I reviewed every event scheduled for the next week. Knowing I had to pack that night for yet another week-long business trip, I was on the verge of a meltdown. It was then that I looked across the table at our two daughters and husband when he calmly made this profound statement to me, “We need a wife.” I knew what he meant: we needed help on the home front! It’s not that he was looking to become a polygamist, adding another female to his household. He wasn’t

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Work Overload Killing You?

Work Overload Killing You?

By / Life & Culture, Work & Money

Five things I learned to keep me from drowning at work: 1. Touch a paper or view an email once. Deal with it immediately, put it in the trash or a flag it “waiting for more info” box because more is coming later. 2. Make coworkers do their own thinking. If they want input give it, but ask them to bring you the ideas they have developed, you will look them over. 3. Manage your time don’t let others do it for you. Keep a calendar and follow it, allow time for quick questions but go to the coworkers desk, you can leave when you need to. 4. Close your door or hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your cubicle. When

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Pursuing Dreams While Rearing Children

Pursuing Dreams While Rearing Children

By / Motherhood, Purpose

People often ask how I have time to pursue any personal endeavors while rearing small children. Certainly there is the feeling that becoming a mom means postponing, if not completely forfeiting, any personal ambitions. I attribute my pursuit of being a practicing artist and present parent to appropriate doses of tenacity, perseverance, improvisation and intentionality with the cherry on top of a supportive spouse. Honestly, some days are a wash and require me coming to terms temporarily with letting any personal ambitions go. Other days present themselves more manageable if I just take the effort to proactively switch some things around in the schedule, humbly ask for help from my family and be disciplined enough to follow through. Being that it is

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