Rocking Single Working Women’s Day
As a single lady myself, I recognize that sometimes sh*t gets tough. When you’re struggling in business, you don’t have anyone else’s income to rely on.
But there are a lot of positive aspects to being a single woman running your own business… chief among them being you can do exactly what you want to do when you want to do it. Though of course, that goes for single life in general.
Stats for the single life
Most of the women my age (Gen X) and older are married or have been married. But Millennial women are increasingly living and loving the solitary life.
You may have heard that getting married is good for your health, but that’s only true for men. They benefit from having a younger wife.
Surprisingly, women are best off (if they get married) with someone who’s their own age. Women don’t live as long if their husbands are older, and their lives are even shorter if their man is younger. Which probably explains the lack of May-December hetero romances where the woman is the older partner.
What’s the happiest demographic? Single women with no husband and child, believe it or not! And we’re likely to live the longest too.
Support for single women entrepreneurs
Part of the reason that men fare better when they’re married is that women tend to have stronger social bonds than men do. Marrying a woman brings them more social support.
This support is also a great advantage for single women because we do need social ties (even introverts). Having a friend’s shoulder to cry on or to bounce ideas off is incredibly helpful in every aspect of life, including business.
No one can do it alone, and being able to delegate or simply drop things that aren’t as important is a skill that many of us single women have. I think we also tend to have different definitions of success. We skipped the whole marriage + kids + white picket fence thing, so we go after different passions and ideas.
That may be part of why we’re happier. Keeping up with the Joneses makes people miserable, but single women pretty much have opted out of that.
Single women are super efficient in business and in life
Since we do have to handle a lot by ourselves, it’s important for single women entrepreneurs to be as efficient and effective as possible. Being productive and getting the important things accomplished leaves more time for the other things that make us happy.
I think we tend to be pretty good at prioritizing, and we know no one else is going to pick up the slack. So everything has to be as finely tuned as possible so that we don’t get overwhelmed or burned out.
Work-life balance? Critical. Recharging time is key when you’re the only breadwinner in the household.
Recap:
If you’re a single woman entrepreneur, celebrate yourself on August 4! Single womanhood leads to greater happiness and longer life, so give yourself (and your brain) a break from your business. Make the most of it!