Study: Millennial Women Burn Out Early (Forbes 2011)
Finding: Studies show that Millenial women are reaching their corporate career peak at age 30 and burning out due to going non-stop from grade school straight into the corporate world.
InPower Insight: Find time to relax in your day or early burnout will find you.
Summary:
Listen up all you high-achieving Millenial women. Research shows that if you want to avoid burn out, you’ve got to practice some self-care (the guys do!) and you’ve got to learn how to continually redefine your goals and evaluate your measure of success.
Studies show that Millennial women overwork themselves in college and often do foresee their futures past the initial first career. Then they are further burdened by the substantial loan debt that they obtain in college. These women are Type-A over achievers who have worked feverishly in school and college to land their goal job where they find themselves starting over at the bottom of the corporate ladder and have to again prove themselves. They work as successful lawyers, engineers, doctors, and executives. However, studies show that these women reach their peak at the age of 30 of begin to leave the corporate workforce.
In a study done by McKinsey, Fifty-three percent of corporate entry level jobs are occupied by women. However, for mid- management roles the number decreases to 37% and to 26% for VP or senior management positions. Captivate Network found that men spend more time taking care of their personal well being – they are 25% more likely to take breaks for personal activities, 35% more likely to take breaks for relaxing, 7% more likely to take time out to go for a walk and 5% more likely to make time to go out for lunch.
What does this research mean for Millenial women? It means that you have to learn how to find relaxation in your day to avoid running into a breaking point that could lead to early burn out. Kelly Cutrone, president of People’s Revolution PR says that Millenial women need “to learn life is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s impossible to see what life will be like in 20 years these days. It’s hard to look just 3-4 years in the future. They don’t know what they are striving for, which makes it really hard to move forward.”
Career Coaching Tip: Look at your career holistically no matter what age you are at right now. Define success for yourself in terms of what will really fulfill you and make you happy. Stay on the hamster wheel if it’s what you really want, but be ready to get off the wheel and stay in the game on your own terms before you fall off in order to recover on the sidelines. If you choose to leave the corporate rat race and stay in the workforce, more power to you. Choice is power. Use yours wisely.
Keywords: Millennial women
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
