6 Women Share Their Career Struggles
The only way out is through.
photo credit: Brooke Lark
So you can’t ride a horse and drink a cup of coffee at the same time. Neither can we. When it comes to life and career we hold ourselves to tippy-toe top standards. We want to be able to do it all and at the same time too. Newsflash: it’s impossible.
Even the greatest and brightest among us have faced challenges. Like one of our favorite authors and writers Kelly Oxford who once told us she feels like she can’t forge ahead, “every time I have PMS.” The struggle is real, but you’re not alone. Which is why it's all the more important to share these stories, reinforcing the reality that everyone goes through it.
Read through how 6 amazing women mitigate the hard points in their respective careers.
Lauren Conrad on how her relationship to her career has changed:
“I've been able to find more balance in my career over the last few years. There was definitely a point in my life when I took on too much and was burning the candle at both ends. Since then I've learned the value in saying no and learned to delegate. It can be hard to trust others to work on a brand that you spent so much time on, but you can't do it all.”
“I’ve learned the value in saying no and to delegate.”
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Sarah Michelle Gellar on taking a major risk:
“As my career has shifted drastically that has certainly taken some adjustment. At my age it would have been so easy to just stay and continue an already successful career, but instead I took the leap and try something I had never done before. Its been exciting, scary, rewarding and quite the adventure.”
Rachel Bloom on a point in her life where she thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
“I've never fully turned away from the arts, but there were points in college that my self esteem was so low I didn't know if I could make it in this business.”
Kristen Ess on challenges she’s faced:
“The hair industry can be very competitive and sometimes nasty. Other hairdressers/colorists will talk about you as if they know you or circulate gossip and it's a bummer. There were many times when I would hear about something ‘about me’ that was so inaccurate or just plain untrue and I had to learn really early to block that out and know that people who participate in that are just not for me.”
Cleo Wade on a point in her life when she thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
“I think we all have mini moments of that feeling throughout our day. Our brain is constantly second guessing our decisions. I think you know you are doing something great if you have moments of feeling overwhelmed.
“You know you are doing something great if you have moments of feeling overwhelmed.”
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Lauren Paul on the realities of fundraising and non-profits:
“Starting and running a non-pro:t is incredible but when you sign up for this you have to know that it becomes a 24 hour job. It was important for Molly and I to look at the hours we were pouring into Kind Campaign and find a healthy balance between that and our family, friends and personal lives. It was also important to figure out how we could take some of the jobs we were carrying and bring people on board to help lighten the load.
All my sisters out there who work in the non pro:t space know how hard fundraising is. There were many points in the first couple years where we were really struggling to get by financially. We would hold grassroots fundraisers with the occasional sponsor. We made a lot of personal sacrifices as a result. Everything changed a couple years ago when we had a huge fundraiser that raised enough money to make all of our programming free of charge for schools. We are proud to say that all assemblies have been free since 2013!”
Have something you’re struggling with? Share with us in the comments below. It's self-caring.
MORE FROM OUR BLOG
Entertainment: Rachel Bloom
Nothing crazy here.
This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Entertainment List Here.
Nothing crazy here.
Rachel Bloom, co-creator and star of the irreverent musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on the CW, grew up with an affinity for four things: singing, dancing, murder, and death.(#bestfriendstatus?) Her years spent in Southern California’s beachy-clean Manhattan Beach were jointly filled with anxiety and a love for musical theater. An outsider at school, those showy tunes were all she listened to until 18, when the theater nut headed from the shores of CA to the smells of NY to major in musical theater at NYU's Tisch program. But everyone experiments in college. During her time at Tisch, Rachel branched out, started performing with Upright Citizen Brigade Theater, and “fell in love with doing sketch comedy.”
Post NY, back in LA once again, Rachel worked as a staff writer on Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken, but wasn't entirely satisfied. “My first TV writing job was with a bunch of older, more experienced men, and many of them were brilliant but mean to me. I went home and cried a lot during that period.” And she hadn't shook the musical-comedy bug.
"My first TV writing job was with older, more experienced men. Many of them were brilliant but mean to me."
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Six years ago the first video she posted on YouTube, “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury,” about the sci-fi writer, went viral. For his part, Bradbury reportedly saw said video on his 90th birthday and dug it. A second short, involving a singing "historically accurate Disney princess" who coughs up blood and warbles about a blacksmith with a "daughter-wife, ten-years-old and pregnant," caught the attention of her soon-to-be Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator, Aline Brosh McKenna. It was also the first very public mix of all the things that fascinated Rachel a child. (See above: singing, dancing, murder, and death.) Rachel credits those shorts as the most important step in her career. “Filming what I wrote was immensely important,” she explains. Advice taken from her husband, who many years ago told the actress, "‘Film what you write.’ At the time he was way more experienced than I was," she shares, "so I took his words to heart and it really paid off.”
Even if her road to success was paved with tears, they were not for wont. The CW ordered five additional scripts even before the premiere of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Last January, Rachel won her first Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Comedy or Musical. And Crazy Ex is just that: a cherry musical on top of a dark, modern day comedy. The blunt name of the show ironically pegs women in a role men have long loved to brand them as: crazy. But the use of music, clever dialogue, and conversations amongst female characters that have nothing to do with men, debunk and deconstruct the male-driven stereotype.
Rachel says that the impetus for the show was always to deal with the contradictory messages women deal with on a daily basis. Telling TIME, “We’re taught to be strong women, we want to be strong women, but both our western ideas of romance and also our own emotions make us crazy. Women are fed all of these contradictory ideas about what love is and what you should and shouldn’t have and you’re supposed to have it all, but you’re also supposed to fall in love.”
Wise words from a woman who says that “female empowerment means seeing oneself as a citizen of Earth first, and how one's gender informs that second.”
Comedy has always appealed to the songstress. “On a primal level,” she shares, “being funny suddenly made me cooler than I could ever be off-stage. I fell in love with comedy writing due to the creative freedom one could find through structure.”
"Being funny suddenly made me cooler than I could ever be off-stage."
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She’s been very open about her own anxieties, “making it,” and capital F fears. “I have a lot more confidence now. I'm not afraid that every bad idea is an omen of me being a talentless hack,” she says. Quoting an acting teacher who once told her, "Laziness is a form of fear," Rachel says that bit of advice has stuck with her. "It really hit home with me."
And now, we welcome Rachel, her oddities and talent, into ours.