The Contemporary Woman

Category: 2024

  • 5 Major Benefits of Self-Discipline that Prove It is Exactly What the Contemporary Woman Needs to Succeed   

    5 Major Benefits of Self-Discipline that Prove It is Exactly What the Contemporary Woman Needs to Succeed   

     Almost every successful person accounts their success to self-discipline. It is that cliché that we just keep hearing, just in diverse versions. The question is, is this really all it takes? Is self-discipline all that or is it just overhyped? As a contemporary woman striving to build a career for myself, build my physical strength and without compromising being a present mother, I have been actively working on building self-discipline. I can guarantee that on the days I stick to the daily routine I formulated, prioritized tasks and upheld tie management, I achieved so much—almost thrice as much as I do during the unplanned days.

    So, what do these benefits look like for the contemporary woman?

    You Achieve your Goals

    Yes, successful people—business owners, athletes, authors, and tycoons—do not lie when they attribute their success to self-discipline. In fact, as a woman dealing with the complexities of being a modern woman, one of the best things you can do for yourself is build self-discipline.

    “Self-discipline propels you towards your goals. By staying committed to the process, you increase the likelihood of success in both personal and professional endeavors,”

     Dr Pavana S.

    The Contemporary Woman is always busy, always multitasking. Women are working multiple jobs while still fulfilling their roles as mothers. So, when you add chasing your dream job or entrepreneurship venture to the mix, it becomes hectic. For you to be able to do all this without procrastination or giving in to the fatigue and a million distractions, you need self-benefits. It’s the only way you will achieve your goals.

    And women are doing it!

    You Experience Remarkably Increased Productivity 

    Self discipline includes creating a routine, time management and prioritizing tasks. By doing all these, you will experience fewer distractions and improved focus, which will ultimately contribute to a spike in your productivity levels. The fact is that by being a self-disciplined woman you get to work on your effectively and productively and still get to have a life. You still get to work out, go grocery shopping, meal prep, help with the kids’ homework, relax and binge on your favorite show and even have a social life. You become a boss babe!

    You Consciously Make Better Decisions

    Self-discipline requires you to prioritize tasks such that the most important tasks—the ones that contribute to the realization of your set goals—are done first. This ultimately translates to better-decision making because as a disciplined individual, you must weigh in on the importance of what you want to venture into as well as the consequences of your choices and actions. The best thing about the benefit of improved decision-making is that it will help you both in your professional and personal growth and development and propel you into becoming the woman of your dreams.

    You get Increased Self-Esteem and Confidence

    When you become self-disciplined so much that you start seeing improved productivity, you feel good about yourself. You feel worthy; like you can achieve that goal or dream that seemed way out of your reach. You love yourself; you are proud of yourself. It gets even better when you realize you are meeting some of your set goals, you are overcoming obstacles. You realize you are who you think you are! As a result, your self-esteem and confidence skyrocket. And from there, it only gets better, because the newly found esteem and self-confidence now become the fuel that propels you into a future full of even more achievements.

    Your Mental Health Improves. 

    Once you build self-discipline, it becomes a lifestyle. Time efficiency, high productivity and winning become part of who you are. This ultimately reduces your stress levels because you no longer have to deal with the stress of late deadlines, unfinished tasks and the anxiety that comes with procrastination. You evolve into a contemporary woman who always has a clear mind, a woman who is set on achieving her dreams and a woman with an overall enhanced mental well-being.

    One catch, however, that comes with self-discipline is that it differs for different people. This is based o various aspects such as the set goals, age, current situation among others. The less responsibilities you have, the less self-discipline you need to achieve your set goals. Also, the more you want to achieve, the more discipline you need. Generally, you need to tailor your discipline such that you are disciplined enough to meet all your responsibilities, conquer your challenges while working on your set goals. So, maybe, just maybe, you have not seen or experienced any benefits of self-discipline—or enough benefits—because you need to be much more disciplined than you already are. This is where I lie, but just like you, I’m working on it!

  • 5 Key Tips to Foster Self-Discipline for The Contemporary Woman—The Bonus Tip is the Secret  

    5 Key Tips to Foster Self-Discipline for The Contemporary Woman—The Bonus Tip is the Secret  

    The Contemporary woman oozes masculine energy—she is career oriented. She wants more than to be a mother or wife. Unfortunately, this only makes her life more complicated because it just adds more to her plate. This is where self-discipline comes in. As one of the said contemporary women—a mother—and a career woman, I find that managing time is what could make or break me. I know that if I perfectly harness the power of self-discipline, I can do it all.

    “The foundation of a strong self comes from small acts of daily discipline.”

    But self-discipline does not come easy, you have to sweat for it. You have to choose to do the small habits that will eventually build the character of the woman you want to be come. She is the one who will achieve your goals. It might be hard, but that will make the success that much sweeter. And while it might be hard, the key strategies below—when done correctly—are all you need.

    Set Clear Goals.

    Setting clear goals is the first step to realizing self-discipline. When you have clear goals, you know hat you are working for which comes with great determination and focus. It is also best to set realistic and achievable goals. As a contemporary woman juggling between the many nitty gritties of what it means to be a woman in the society today, breaking down your goals into short-term goals is deal. These goals are smaller, and seemingly doable—achievable. They make it easier to stay focused and motivated. The best part is that when you achieve these smaller goals, the thrill from achieving them becomes even more motivation that fuels you into completing the other set of smaller goals. And within no time, you have achieved those long-term big goals that seemed unachievable.  doable

    Create a Routine and Stick to it.

    Setting clear goals is easy, achieving them is not. After all, “success is 1% planning and 99% doing. So once you have the set goals, creating a daily routine is the holy grail that will help you achieve them. When you are juggling between being a traditional woman—mother, wife—and a modern career woman, chances are you always feel overwhelmed. You are almost always tired, stressed, and overstimulated because you have to block your feminine energy and tap into your masculine energy. This could result in procrastination because its never the ideal time to work on your goals. Creating a daily routine will clearly outline your daily tasks and help you work towards your set goals. Of course, the routine will only be effective once you stick to it.

    Prioritize Important Tasks

    Once again this comes down to the chaos that come with being a contemporary woman. You always have something or you to do, whether it’s for yourself or for others. To ensure you are focused on achieving your set goals, prioritize your tasks, because the idea that you can do it all only weighs you down when you find out you cannot.  Identify the most important tasks you need t complete each day and focus on accomplishing them first. Prioritize them on your daily routine. This way, your activities will ne more organized, fewer, and this will stop you from feeling overwhelmed.  

    Be heavy on Time Management.

    At this point I right sound like a broken record but being a woman is a lot! It comes with plenty of responsibilities especially when you are a mother and a career woman. Is a lot. This way, apart from creating a routine and prioritizing tasks, practicing time management is the only way to accomplish your set goals.  Time management helps you to do so much work, I seemingly very little time. It helps you to curb all the distractions that come in between tasks enabling you to be tie efficient. It relieves you off the mental load and the anxiety of always feeling you have so much to do, but not enough time.

    Consistency is Key

    When all is said and done, it all comes down to consistency. How consistent are you in creating a routine, prioritizing tasks, and managing time? How consistent are you in building self-discipline? To build self-discipline ad realize your goals, you must stick to your daily routine, even when you do not feel like it. You must stay consistent, do what it takes, because that’s what it takes.

    “True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

    Bonus Tip: Have an Accountability Partner

    I know we said staying consistent is the way to achieve self-discipline but when you are doing it alone, it might be hard to do it. When you are not accountable to anyone, it means no one will know whether you do it or not. So technically, you will not feel like you failed. This is why for a bonus tip, I decided to weigh in on the magic that is having an accountability partner. Share your goals with someone —preferable someone with as much drive as you, someone you hold in high regards. They will keep you committed and motivated to building discipline to achieve your set goals. Because apart from yourself you want to make them proud too.

  •  7 Major Signs of Blocked Feminine Energy in the Contemporary Woman

     7 Major Signs of Blocked Feminine Energy in the Contemporary Woman

    Most women of the 21st century were raised by women who were oppressed by the societal stereotypes of women. Women who felt it was their femininity which was holding them back. These women were very adamant on empowering girls. The cherry on top, of course, was the rise, and growth of feminism.

    This was great. It led to the rise of women in leadership, powerful women. Unfortunately, it also resulted in masculine women. These women raised us to believe we couldn’t make it while we still maintained our feminine energy. We had to lose it. So now we are dealing with an epidemic of women who have zero to very little femininity in them. Because femininity was associated with weakness.

    This resulted in the rise of a generation of women who are more masculine than feminine—women with blocked feminine energy. Sadly, these women are almost always stressed, overwhelmed and fatigued. Because masculine energy is not what comes naturally to women.

    Women just had to mimic masculine energy to survive. To get a seat at the table. Because the generation of women before us felt that is what was necessary for women to thrive in the patriarchal world of toxic masculinity that was very averse during their time.

    But women are meant to be “soft” “emotional” and empathetic. These are the traits that make for great women leaders. Because these are traits that do not come naturally to men. So, this is where women outdo men.

    So, what are the most rampant signs to look out for to identify whether your femininity is blocked?

    You have a  Do it All Attitude

    This is the biggest sign you are out of touch with your feminine energy. Feminine energy is more inclined towards sharing, collaboration and diplomacy. Masculine energy, on the other hand, is inclined towards the need to control, to take charge, to lead. Thus, as a woman, if you find yourself refusing help so you can do everything all by yourself, even when it’s hard because you feel you will be giving up control, that’s a HUGE RED FLAG! Get back in your femininity and let people assist you. It’s less work and you get time to relax and do your skincare for that undeniable feminine GLOW!

    You Don’t Take Care of yourself. 

    Nothing saying feminine energy more than a woman taking care of herself. Minding about your appearance, hair, scent, clothes etc. A woman deep in her feminine energy even takes longer showers.  So, when you find that you do not care about yourself, the scent you wear, you are not specific about the lotion you use, and have no single product meant to elevate how you feel or appear as a woman. When you realize there is no difference between your grooming routine and that of man, your feminine energy is definitely blocked.

    You Consider Femininity as Weakness.

    Most contemporary women, as stated before- were raised to believe that the more we tap into our masculine energy, the more powerful we become—Think like a man. The society also made it seem like we have to compete with men which meant being more like them, and not competing with them by being better women. This is misinformation but unfortunately, most of us were already brainwashed by it before we knew any better. This is why, most women who are more inclined to their masculine energy see femininity as weakness. The truth is, being soft, empathetic, compassionate does not make you weak as a women, instead it makes you a WOMAN. While it is not your fault if you deem femininity to be weakness—because that is what you were raised to believe—you do hold the power to change that.

    You do not Connect with your Intuition

    It is a fact that women have stronger intuition compared to men. In fact, feminine energy strongly relies on intuition to make decisions. Without connecting with your intuition, you do not trust your thoughts and feeling—your gut. This results in women making irrational or desperate decisions or simply use logic while blocking your feelings (intuition) resulting in unwise decisions and choices that would otherwise have been avoided.  

    You are Always competing with Men—Trying to Prove Yourself

    Masculinity is based on competition and thrives on acknowledgement from others. Men lobe to prove themselves to others, just to feed their ego. So, if you find yourself as a woman always trying to affirm your value through your accomplishments, your femininity might be blocked. It’s even worse if you find yourself constantly comparing your progress or achievements to men because it means you feel you will only be validated if you prove yourself to them.

    You Attract Weak Men

    Women with blocked feminine energy tend to always attract weak mean. When are woman is more inclined to her masculinity somehow attract men who are more inclined towards their feminine energy. So, if you people telling you that you ‘wear the pants” in the relationship—or learn this yourself because you are always the one initiating date and any other plans within the relation—this is your proof that your femininity is blocked.

    You Struggle with Romantic Relationships

    Women with blocked femininity have a very hard time staying in romantic relationships. If you are such a woman, you women are to focused on their careers that they do not have time for romantic relationships. As a masculine woman, you will also consider romantic relationships to be a waste of time—time that you would rather spend working. Another common dynamic is that as a masculine woman, you hate feeling controlled, inferior. Unfortunately, to sustain a relationship you must compromise, you are accountable to another person. A woman who is threatened by all these cannot sustain a relationship.

  • Are you a Single Mother or a Single Woman?

    Are you a Single Mother or a Single Woman?

    Yes, there is a difference

    Today, there are so many new words, terminologies and ways for people to define themselves especially in regards to their sexuality. It’s so hard to keep up and you can find yourself in trouble for using the wrong label on a person. Similarly, many relationships do not seem to last these days, divorce is at an all-time high. This means that the dynamics of relationships and homes have significantly changed. A perfect example is the rise of situationships even in marriages where many couples find themselves living as mere “roommates,” and even the “throuple” marriages. everything is confusing with so many burred lines.

    This raises the question to many women, are you a single mother or a single woman? Because with the vast change in dynamics, it is easy to confuse and mislabel the two.

    A single mother generally means a woman who raises her child(ren) alone. So yes, there are women who are married but are single mothers. It is worse for these mothers because they have an additional child in their husbands. The situation is even worse for married single mothers whose husbands are alcoholics and drug addicts who steal from them and even physically abuse them as it adds to their burden. Most of these women are mostly in rural areas where the idea of marriage is over-glorified. This means that even when a woman leaves an abusive marriage, they are considered a failure because “it is the woman who builds her home. “

    But there is good news, there are modern women who are single mothers by choice. The dynamics of the world today mean that women have more freedom, and more options. So, some women choose not to engage in relationships or marriage seeing that they are so fickle today—and instead, they choose to be mothers.

    So, who is a single woman?

    A single woman is a woman who is not married or not in a relationship. This means that even when a woman is single and is also a mother, but co-parents with their children’s father, they cannot consider themselves single mothers. The aspect of being a single mother only comes into play in the context of parenting alone. But when a father is actively present in the lives of his children, then a woman cannot consider herself a single mother because they do not go through the parent’s emotional and financial burden of doing everything alone.

    So, what is the take away?

    A single mother is not to be confused with a single woman or vice versa. And better yet, there are married single mothers and there are single women with children.  

  • What is Post Separation Abuse? What are the Various Post separation Abuse Tactics?

    What is Post Separation Abuse? What are the Various Post separation Abuse Tactics?

    Domestic Violence (DV) is a very common occurrence in marriages, and sadly even typical boyfriend girlfriend relationships. However, in the case of marriage, leaving is more difficult since a marriage involves more ties and becomes even more twisted when there are children involved. Because of this, many partners, especially women stay in abusive marriages to protect their children. Because they do not want their children to come from a “broken home.” In other cases, women fear that when they leave, their partners will no longer care for their children, or even be available for them which makes them feel like they will deprive their children of their father which is enough guilt to make them go through years of torture and literally hell on earth.

    The good thing is that today, there is more information and successful cases of divorce and separation which help women to know that they do not have to live through the hell.  So finally, when their partners finally hit the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, many contemporary women leave. Mostly because they fear for their lives and in worst cases because they fear for that of their children, and because they know better. The problem is these people who support women and advise them to leave their toxic marriages or relationships sell them this idea that once you leave, that’s it! Your life goes back to being all smooth and perfect. The phrase mostly used is to sell this bliss is that “you go back to being a girl.”

    “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love.”

    Jennifer Weiner

    While this happens to many women—successful divorces—the dynamic is quite different for those who were married to abusive narcissist and especially those who had been married for years, built assets together and better yet, had kids together.

    Unfortunately, the patriarchy is so deeply rooted that now that the contemporary woman has learned to run away from domestic violence through divorce, there now comes the rise of a different type of abuse, , The Post Separation Abuse. This abuse continues to escalate and might even surpass the domestic violence that was in the marriage. This is especially when the abuser is bitter, they were left, and is narcissistic enough to blame the victim for leaving mostly saying that they want to turn the children against them. The abusive ex-partner hates that they no longer have control over the situation so they attempt to gain some level of control over the situation in any way they know how.

    This can manifest in various post separation abuse tactics:

    • Stalking and Threats- This is the most common form of PSA. The toxic partner(ex) actively bombards the healthy partner with phone calls manipulative, abusive, and threatening messages. They even go to the extent of monitoring the whereabouts of the healthy partner on social media and even physically and impose physical threats.
    • Isolation-The toxic partner spreads lies rumours, and made-up narratives to the friends, family, and entire community of the safe parent just to destroy their reputation and make it seem like they were the problem.
    • Neglectful and/or Abusive Parenting- This is also one of the most prevalent forms of PSA. In these cases, the toxic parent exposes children to unsafe content, threatens them, uses violence, manipulation, ridicule, and always putting their needs above those of their children.
    • Counter Parenting- In counter parenting, the toxic parent opposes the other parent’s parenting just to spite them. This includes withholding and denying them content for certain child needs even during serious situations such as medical needs.
    • Legal Abuse- In some incidents the toxic partners misuses court proceedings to harass intimidate, coerce and emotionally and financially drain the healthy partner, especially when they gain legal custody of the children.
    • Financial Abuse- This yet another famous form of PSA. This involves the toxic ex-partner withholding, mismanaging and or delaying support payments even when they are ordered by the court. The toxic person might even go to the extent of blocking bank account jeopardizing the career growth of the safe parent among others, just to make them despair.
    • Coercive Control- For this form of abuse, post separation abuse narcissist creates a sense of fear to the healthy partner and safe parent’s life. They constantly belittle, undermine, criticize, gaslight, manipulate and emotionally abuse them just to regain some form of power and control over them. This is the most common form of PSA in the case of broken “come we stay” marriages.
    Post Separation Abuse Wheel OMB

    Unfortunately, the only somewhat related resources to help victims of Post Separation Abuse are mediators, attorneys, and judges, and these unfortunately do not distinguish PSA from high-conflict divorces. Thus, victims of PSA only get help during the few months of the divorce as they deal with paternity cases and custody battles after which they are left on their own to deal with the gruesome PSA that only grows.

    All this may just seem theoretical but there are many contemporary women (and men) dealing with severe Post Separation Abuse and its time that people spoke up about it such that there is educate information on how to navigate it.