What is dilemma-stress?

Our generation women are more likely to suffer from dilemma-stress than other generations.
Women today have so much more possibilities in their lives than the generations before us. Their lives were much more predictable and so were their possibilities.

We have a choice; do we want a partner? Children; if yes, then when and how many? A career if yes then how and when? Which studies to take, where do we want to live, how do we combine everything and what has higher priority and why?

Many women in their thirties en forties are struggling with all these dilemma's.

When you find it hard to choose between all your possibilities, stress may be the result.
Many women struggle to make choices and to be content with them. When we have made a choice, we often have doubts about it and we still focus on all the other possibilities we didn’t choose. We end up feeling frustrated, restless and stressed.

Other women are perfectionists. They make choices, but are aiming at perfection.
That means a lot of juggling between work, partner, children, social life, personal development, etc. These women lose their balance because their days are fully booked and they have less and less time to spend. This also causes stress and frustrations and above all, these women are very tired.

I have noticed that we women are very sensible to the "hidden" demands of media, society en other women. Women have to face up to so many expectations; we have to look beautiful and young, we’re supposed to have a thrilling relationship, our children have to be sweet, sociable and original, having dinner is likely to become a culinary experience, exotic holidays etc. We are expected to combine, control and sustain it all, without any difficulty. We tend to compare ourselves with other women who we feel, are doing so much better than us. It all seems so doable, so if you can’t cope with it, you start doubting yourself and you feel it’s probably your own doing!

Many times I hear women sigh: Is this all there is? They seem to have everything anybody can possibly desire, but they feel restless, tired and frustrated. The reason is that they lack balance in their lives. As a personal coach I focus on rebalancing their lives.

Read more about how I put this in practice.