Turning Post-Pandemic Stress into Post-Pandemic Growth
For me, the last few weeks have been filled with personal experiences that seem to signal the beginning of “the after times.” For the first time in fourteen months, I was able to fly to spend time with my dad in my childhood home, eat inside a restaurant with a dear former colleague, and hug a lifelong friend. With each new “first,” I felt an emotional release. But I also felt a deep sadness bubbling to the surface, which had been buried under a year of existing solely in survival mode — trying to balance being a mother to a two-year old while meeting the demands of a full-time career. My clients, colleagues, and friends have been sharing similar experiences of emotional swings — moments of relief and joy, followed by an overflowing sadness they didn’t even realize was there.
These experiences are not isolated. In the aftermath of the first global mass trauma since World War II, as a generation, we’re in the beginning stages of collectively navigating the healing process. Across intersecting racial, ethnic, and class lines, women, and in particular mothers, have borne a disproportionate load. Women have experienced mental health hardships at a rate three times that of men during this past year. As a mom of a toddler whose favorite phrase during the pandemic was “mama’s busy,” I get it.
Unsurprisingly, there’s been a collective professional cost. During the pandemic, 2.3 million women dropped out of the workforce, leading to the women’s workforce participation rate dropping to its lowest levels in over three decades. These statistics fail to capture the experiences of millions of other women who have suffered hindered career advancement or cumulative emotional strain to keep productivity at pre-pandemic levels.
There is a silver lining. Collective trauma does not have to result in permanent negative consequences. Although most people are more familiar with the concept of post-traumatic stress, we may, indeed, see this mass trauma result in post-traumatic growth for our generation in the workplace.
Progressive employers are predicted to embrace work-from-home and flexible-hours policies and turn them to into a competitive advantage. For individuals, a recent study from the Journal of Psychiatry found that nearly 9 in every ten respondents reported experiencing positive effects from challenging pandemic circumstances, such as a “great appreciation of life, [and] discovering and embracing new opportunities.”
This positivity is already resulting in professional pivots. We’ve already seen in 2021 that the rate of job transitions, start-ups, and entrepreneurships have all increased. In fact, my own reflection on the rigors of the past year have led me to transition away from a typical 9–5 job (or more accurately, a 9–9 job) to starting my own coaching business helping others pivot their careers toward their passions.
The research simply reflects what my clients are reporting. As we collectively exhale and take a moment to reflect on this last year, we should acknowledge that the forecast for our generation’s experience at work can be bright. We have to simply seize the moment.
Alison Shih is a coach for high achieving women seeking to make a career transition. She and her husband live in New Orleans with their two-year old daughter and neurotic corgi. Website: alisonshih.com; Instagram: alisonshih.coaching