Contributed by Vivian Rabin, Cofounder, iRelaunch

It’s that time of year again. Back to school. Although I have only one child still at home, the beginning of September will always feel like the beginning of the New Year to me. I even tend to plot my New Year’s resolutions over the summer. “This fall, I’ll… contact ten potential new clients, finish those foreign language CDs, start exercising regularly (yeah, right!).

Thinking back, it was at this time twelve years ago that I decided to really focus on trying to return to work, after seven years at home with my kids. I remember telling myself the prior spring, “you’ll have one more leisurely summer, and then you’ve really got to start DOING something.” Not that I wasn’t doing anything. With five kids age 11 and under, I was plenty busy, but the kids were all slated to be in school at least part of the day, so I figured I had a few potential “revenue generating” hours available. And I was determined to make the most out of them. But how?

To make a long story short, I ended up working for a neighbor who had his own executive search business (I had been in finance, then recruiting, before I left the workforce). Executive search turned out to be a great fit for me, and I eventually developed my own client base. But I remained passionate about the issue of returning to work after taking a career break, and I co-authored a book on the topic (Back on the Career Track). My co-author Carol Cohen and I then founded iRelaunch and began running the iRelaunch Return to Work Conference throughout the US and in London, bringing together professional women who have been out of the workforce with employer sponsors for a day of education and networking.

So if you’re on career break now, whether taking care of your kids or for other reasons, let this be the year you DO something. Here are 5 simple steps you can take in the next week to move your relaunch forward.

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Contributed by Beate Chelette

The recent Atlantic cover story on whether or not women can “have it all” has certainly hit a national nerve. The week after the article came out it had received more than 1.1 million online views.  Women and men all around the country are registering their objection or approval of author, mother of two, and former State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter’s premise that the ‘70s feminist mantra of “having it all” is, in reality, not so easy – and maybe not even possible unless women push for changes in society.

Women who juggle career and family know well how tough it can be. I certainly do.  I nurtured a baby and a start-up alone, after my divorce, squeezing time to write my business plan in between my day-to-day duties as a single mom. I worked past midnight many nights and on weekends to get everything done – and it was exhausting.

As a former corporate director, and now an entrepreneur and professional career coach, I’ve trained and worked with hundreds of professional women – and men – who say they feel overwhelmed by trying to “do it all.”  Reality check – come on, who doesn’t feel this way? There is always something that needs pressing attention and hardly enough time in a day to get things done – ever.

But there is a better way than running after your life and trying to catch up 24/7.  Let’s take a closer look. As women, many of us spend our lives wondering where we are and, in the words of that old Talking Heads song, “How did I get here?” This is not some existential malaise, a sense that the world is too much for us. This is real. It is real because over the last few decades all we did was add more to our workload. From having been focused entirely on home and kids, things are decidedly different.

Women have had 50 years of breakthroughs in society, becoming more the equal, but still not the equal, of men in earning-power and opportunities. But, we are the same as far as responsibilities are concerned. Here is the issue though: the majority of us can’t outsource having children (albeit I do see a celebrity trend emerging). And because we continue to find a partner, tie the knot, and set out to start families, we in essence continue to do all we ever did – plus add all the new exciting stuff like career, money, and feeling good about ourselves.

Because it is so overwhelming and because we have close to no role models that show us how it can be done successfully, we end up and remain self-doubting, self-sabotaging, self-hating, even. Why? Because what is on our plate is impossible to manage. When I was going through some of these things myself, I also wanted to figure out why this was. And Iwanted to find a solution – one that could help women everywhere. And, I did.

The solution is a concept I named ego-Rhythm. It states in its simplest essence that there is a designated time where you have everything in ONE rhythm at a time. You can have it all, over time, and eventually all at once, but it’s a process.

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Contributed by Farnoosh Brock, Founder and CEO of Prolific Living, Inc.

It took me a long time to figure this out at my previous career in a Fortune 100 company: it is far better to see yourself as an equal to your boss than as someone working “under” him or her.

This subtle shift in mindset completely changed the conversations I was having with my bosses as well as the directors and VPs with whom I worked. It brought my true value to light and as a result, it helped advance my career growth.

Frankly, I was surprised because it all comes down to mindset, especially if you are – like I was – a high performing valuable part of the organization, and already doing the work and getting the results, and yet your career is not advancing accordingly.

What can this shift in mindset do for you?

First, what does being equal to your boss mean? I do understand the corporate hierarchy, the chain of command, and the need for respect and authority – I lived and breathed corporate life for 12 years – but you can do all that and still act in an equal partnership.

You can continue to show respect, and to let him or her have the final say on decisions, and yet position yourself as a true equal in the relationship.

And your boss will thank you for it if you do it right and I will tell you how to get it right.

First, stop thinking so much about what you can “get” out of your boss such as leaving early on Fridays or fighting over a 3% raise. Instead, focus on ways that you can encourage him or her to willingly “give” you your true worth in compensation and responsibility and consider you an indispensable part of the organization.

And how do you do that?

First, start understanding the real worth and value you bring to your team and your organization. Are you really doing things that are worthy of marking you indispensable? If the honest answer is no, then take the time to assess your current role and if need be, create a smart strategy to change your role or find the right position.

But let’s say you are worthy of being highly regarded, so then look at the perceived value that your boss puts on your work. If there is a gap (and there generally is!) between the true value that you bring and the perceived one in his or her mind, it is your perfect opportunity to set the record straight once and for all.

Here are my 3-little known ways to get on equal footing with your boss.

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Contributed by Tanvi Gautam, PhD

It was a quiet afternoon, as almost the entire team was out for an offsite retreat. It had been three months into my new job and I was left holding the fort. Then the phone rang. The CEO’s office wanted some analysis in an hour. Someone had to go and present the data. That someone had to be me!

But while the query was routine, the database was managed by an IT guy who had issues with female authority figures. Other women had warned me about him.

I requested the report from him and explained the urgency the best I could. The simple report should have taken ten minutes. Yet, after anxiously waiting for forty-five minutes and despite an email reminder, I still did not get it. Finally, I walked up to him and asked him to “please hurry it up as the meeting starts in fifteen minutes.” That’s when all Hell broke loose.

He yelled on top of his voice “You better wait. I will give it to you when it is done. You are not the boss, so stop behaving like one. I don’t care if it is urgent.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Everyone stopped to stare at me.

My stomach was in a knot, my mouth was dry, but I knew I could not let it go. Then with every ounce of courage I could muster, I amazed myself by telling him, “ Mr. Johnson, no one has, no one will and certainly not you, will ever talk to me like that.”

Then I walked out of the room trying not to reveal my shaken up demeanor. I somehow regained my composure in the restroom recognizing the timing of the presentation at hand. On my return, the room was still silent but the report was on my desk.

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Contributed by The Runaway MBA

I have a wingman – not at the bar, but in my job search.

At first it started casually. We would compare with whom we were meeting, when we met, and what we learned. We were both at similar stages in our job search, but going after positions at different levels. Because we both had different networks, we were able to tap into different connections, alumni pools, and job databases.

My wingman comes from a relationship established during a MBA semester exchange. We connected initially because of our field and then became friends over time, first through classwork and next through our job search. We held common interests that allowed a friendship to develop. First it was joining each other for industry conferences and discussing the current state of the market. Next it was the discussion of how certain meetings were either more or less successful and why. Then, once we knew each other, there came the occasional recommendation of person or firm to connect with.

Over time we had developed trust because we were not a threat to our individual job search, but found a way to complement one another and to support our egos. As either of us became aware of roles not suited for our own needs but the other’s, we shared leads and potential recommendations into the company.

This new friendship has also helped me identify some of my own personal weaknesses in the job search – and how to overcome them.

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