Tapping its rich mine of educated female talent has been an important factor in allowing India to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. But recently this particular dynamo has been showing signs of strain. According to “Women of Tomorrow,” a recent Nielsen survey of 6,500 women across 21 different nations, Indian women are the most stressed in the world today. An overwhelming 87% of Indian women said they felt stressed most of the time, and 82% reported that they had no time to relax.

The Nielsen survey’s respondents blame the difficulty of juggling multiple roles at home and work. Career opportunities for women in “the New India” are rapidly expanding, but family expectations and social mores remain rooted in tradition.

Not surprisingly, the most stress is felt among women between 25 and 55 years of age, who are trying to balance demanding careers with obligations at home.

Continue reading:

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hewlett/2011/08/why_are_indias_women_so_stress.html

Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals
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One of the hardest things about being an executive is managing your time. How do you square working 60 hours a week with the desire to be a great spouse and parent? How can you pay attention to helping to build a better community when you are pulled in a thousand different directions already? Where, if anywhere, does your faith fit in? How can you stop being a victim of your own life?

We all wrestle with these issues every day and there are no easy answers. In my case, I decided years ago that five things were most important in my life: my family, my faith, my work, my community, and my own personal well-being. Taking care of all five simultaneously was important to me. But to do that, I had to develop a practical approach that would work in my everyday life. What follows are a few of the practices that have helped me (in no particular order). I hope they are helpful to you.

Set up “Yes” filters at work.

Not all fires are created equal and you don’t have to put them all out yourself. I use three questions to sort through the matters that require my direct and personal attention. 1) “Is the issue on strategy?” — in other words, is it an important part of what we are planning to accomplish? For example, someone comes to me persuaded that an innovative new product will sell well in Brazil, and we have not yet targeted Brazil in our strategic plan, then I say “no.”

Read More:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/01/how_to_manage_your_energy.html

Upstart: Business and Management for 29-40 Year Old Professionals

Trying to be superhuman almost cost Dena Patton her company–and her life.

A sudden feeling of nausea, shortness of breath and massive head pain had me leaping from my theater seat and rushing to the restroom. The producer, a good friend, had invited me to sit in on a rehearsal to provide feedback. The outing ended when I suffered a minor stroke–and started a journey that would change my life.

It was 1998. My high-stress lifestyle included running my own marketing and publishing company

I had an office on 57th Street in New York City and a sense of determination that was unstoppable. I was the typical, happy twenty-something in NYC in the era of “Sex and the City” and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I was trying to date, get involved in philanthropy, learn about politics and enjoy the culture. But all of that got side-tracked because I was working myself to death without even knowing it.

I now often ask people, “Are you working late or are you working yourself to death?” You know what I’m talking about: the 16-hour days; the desire to please everyone (especially clients) by saying “yes”; the lack of play, joy and fun; the go-go-go-go-go; and the bad food that fuels it all. I was an entrepreneur, and all of that came with the territory, I thought.

But I quickly learned that failing to manage my own capacity, boundaries and health were deadly habits, and I discovered to my surprise that a lot of other female entrepreneurs struggled with the same demons. Years later, I found out that it’s called the Superwoman Syndrome, and research shows that there are horrible consequences to it: addiction, divorce, migraines, heart disease, depression, jail and even suicide. For me, 1998 was a rough year, but it changed my life and my path forever–and for the better.

I hired a life coach to reprioritize my boundaries, reconnect my body and soul, and redirect my career. Like most women, I lived a busy life and didn’t want to slow down my Superwoman lifestyle, but the one thing I did know was that I wanted to be a well-balanced Superwoman instead of an exhausted one. Looking at my clients, associates and friends, I could see the exhaustion in their faces, their bodies and, most of all, their spirits. I was saddened by the lack of joy in most Superwomen.

During that year of recovery (and discovery), I fell in love with the process and the results of coaching. Almost before I knew it, I sold my business (which has since become a successful global internet company) and began training as a life and business coach for women. It’s the perfect career for me because it combines my love of empowering others with my spiritual calling to make a difference for women, my passion for results and my years of business experience.

That was 12 years ago, when life and business coaches weren’t so popular; in fact, most people didn’t know what they were.

Forced to be resourceful, I hired myself to do the marketing, PR and networking for my new business, since those were my strongest skills. My new boundaries allowed me to set normal, healthy working hours and embark on a career that was all about empowerment, education and inspiration. I got to enjoy more charity work, NYC culture and all of the people and places of the city.

I also learned to let go of guilt and anything else that robbed me of joy. I no longer felt tied to my to-do list or a slave to my clients. When I worked with someone, it was on my terms (which were always generous).

At first I worked with women entrepreneurs because of my passion for business and business growth; two years later, I started to offer life coaching. I was taking care of myself, my career and my spirit. At the same time, I was teaching my new, well-balanced Superwoman lifestyle philosophy. I was teaching CEOs, entrepreneurs and full-time moms to manage their capacity and say no to even the most demanding people. I created my own methodology to help women reclaim their three B’s: basics, boundaries and balance.

The basics are the top three to five most important things in your life–things that provide love, fulfillment and joy. If you know your basics in priority order, everything else becomes secondary or nonexistent.

With your basics in place, you can live accordingly, which leads to choices, leadership and time management–the “balance” part of the equation. It starts with a commitment to leave stress behind, and to practice leading a balanced life and making balanced choices. When you make balanced choices that honor your new-found basics, you learn to manage your time with integrity and breathing room, and avoid the running-ragged craziness. You learn to know your limits and manage your capacity better. For example, I don’t add anything to my schedule after I hit 85 percent capacity, so I have 15 percent just for fun, creative and joyful stuff.

The third “B” is boundaries. Imagine that your basics are the flowers in a garden. Your boundaries are the fence protecting the flowers. Balance is the nurturing water and sun that makes them grow. Your boundaries are the invisible lines that communicate your values and your limits to clients, employees, vendors, family and friends.

That stroke was the biggest blessing in my life because it has given me 10 years of working in the industry of inspiration through facilitating women’s retreats (at fabulous resorts), speaking around the country, coaching business owners to achieve their dreams and, most of all, steering women away from overwhelm, stress, burnout, heart disease and depression. Those very lessons strengthened my relationship with my mother and also brought me back to Arizona after 9/11. She was a struggling single mother most of her life. She knew how to survive, but implementing boundaries wasn’t her specialty. The next seven years we had together were magical. More than anything, we were leading our lives by new rules and new boundaries and taking joy in it.

I created a new division of my coaching practice called Chat, Chew & Chocolate. It was an online/offline inspirational events and social club serving busy women and was wildly successful. I was now married to a great man and eight months pregnant, and Mom was joyfully discovering retirement.

But a diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer soon rocked our world. At age 60, my mother was given one to six months to live. We talked about funerals and financials, and if she didn’t make it to meet the baby. But the conversation soon turned to living. How do you live joyfully, knowing you are dying? It became our philosophy and later my book-in-progress, Powerfully Living, Gracefully Dying. She became a role model of how to live powerfully and joyfully, and how to die gracefully and peacefully. She was lucky: She lived 16 months and had time to prepare and say her goodbyes (which she did through her own celebration-of-life party).

But that’s not the case when it’s a heart attack, stroke, suicide or sudden accident. There’s no preparing and you have to ask yourself: Did you love like you wanted to? Did you forgive the people you wanted to? Did you use your business to share your spirit, gifts, love and passion with all of your customers? Did you prepare, so you don’t leave your family and your business adrift?

You have the choice to be an exhausted Superwoman who would have regrets if you died today, or the well-balanced Superwoman who gives her joy, love, passion and spirit to her family, her business, and to the world each day, knowing she’s a role model to her friends, family, clients, employees and children on how to live powerfully and joyfully. You choose.

10 Tips for Creating Boundaries
Below are my top 10 tips to create boundaries in your life and business that will bring more balance, ease and joy into your life:

1. Honor yourself by setting realistic limits, managing your capacity and saying “no” often.
2. Use your business as a platform to give your gifts, joy, spirit and love away daily.
3. Create a self-care plan, and stick to it. If you are unhealthy, your business will be, also.
4. Simplify. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful, loving or joyful.
5. Don’t get consumed by your roles (i.e., business owner, wife, mother). Step out of that role daily for 10 minutes for meditation/prayer/inventory check. You are more than the roles you play.
6. Invest in your future by keeping yourself balanced, healthy and focused. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
7. Be your biggest fan, not your enemy.
8. People won’t honor your boundaries if you don’t honor them first. Then others will follow.
9. Create more play (for employees and for clients) in your business–it will grow.
10. Surround yourself with people who empower and honor you.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/worklife/worklifebalanceadvice/article207342.html

Job search is a job in itself. We are sure you have heard the statement many times but it’s a fact and it needs to be brought up often. Job search can take quite a bit of time and the added stress when you are unemployed is even greater.

If you are looking for a job while you are employed, you at least have means to pay the bills, put a roof over your head and food on the table. However, if you are unemployed the stress is ten times greater if not more. As with anything else, while searching for job make sure you keep stress under control. Stress is natural but learning to control that stress so it doesn’t lead to catastrophe is the key to landing a job sooner.

Here are 5 ways to help you deal with the stress of job searching.
Layout a Plan

Plan out your job searching tasks and make them for a certain time of the day. This will keep you focused on the task at hand and keep you from getting stressed out with all the work. Create a routine for yourself and stick to it. Pick a time of the day that works for each task. For example, use the mornings to look through the classifieds or online jobs. Do this for about an hour or so and take a break. Then use the afternoons for meetings/interviews.

The point is to set aside a certain amount of time for each task and create a routine. Make adjustments to your personal life, relaxing, and family time. Pick what best suits you and write it down. Actually write a plan out. Delegating tasks into chunks will relieve a lot of the stress of trying to keep up with your job searching tasks. With a plan in place you will be more focused and you’ll know what to expect.
Avoid Perfection

There is a lot of pressure to make your resume and presence perfect when searching for a job. While you want to make yourself and your skills look good, trying to constantly attain perfection is only going to stress you out. Fine tune your resume and put in only what you need for that particular job. Then leave it at that. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good. If you are constantly revising and trying to make it better then not only are you going to stress yourself out, it’s going to delay other tasks you could be doing.

Also, no one is perfect. You’re going to screw up sometimes. The best thing to do is to move on. Learn from your mistakes and keep going. Focusing on your mistakes is only going to make things worse and stress you out.
Find Your Personal Cheerleaders

Your close friends and family can be your personal cheerleader while searching for a job. They can also be a downer and cause stress as well. Pick out the people that are supportive and use them to help you deal with the stress of job searching. A good cheerleader is someone that is willing to listen and give sound advice. Support from others is one of the best ways to relieve stress from job searching. A lot of times all they have to do is listen.

Just getting some things off your chest will help reduce stress. There are also job search support groups that may be a good idea to look into. These groups can supply endless ideas and possibly even job opportunities. A lot are also run by career professionals that may be able to help as well by providing valuable information. Being in a support group, with others in your position, can be beneficial simply from having other people in the same position as you. Find people and areas that help support you and your work that is job searching. Having a team of personal cheerleaders will greatly reduce your stress.

If you don’t already have an exercise routine, now would be a good time as any to get one. Your body and mind are both affected by stress. Exercise will help relieve both of them. It doesn’t have to be anything in particular but make it something that makes you break a sweat. Even just a simple walk will help. The exercises help relieve the stress as well as help you deal with stress when it comes. It also helps get rid of pent up frustration. Sweat out the stress from job searching and make it a daily routine in your schedule. The benefits of exercise are good for many things.

Most important is to remember to take time for yourself and relax. Take a hot bath, listen to some mellow music, get a massage, read a good book, whatever works to relax you. Give yourself some time to forget about things and refresh. Take some time to not think about things and let it go, just for a little bit. This is a huge stress reliever. It can be anything as long as it’s personal to you. The point is to get away from things for a bit and relax.

Then you can come back to your job searching refreshed and ready to go. If you don’t take time for yourself then the stress will just build up. The more stressed you are the less productive you will become.

What do you do to deal with stress that comes with job search? Share with us.

http://applicant.com/job-search-and-stress-5-ways-to-deal-with-it/