Ditebogo Modiba, our Chief Financial Officer at Momentum Multiply, shares how she found her balance.

In a pre-Covid world, I used to think I could do it all. I had no problem grinding out 12-hour days, Monday to Friday, with a healthy dose of work on the weekends. That was the norm. Little did I know that I was actually eroding my emotional core and turning myself into a ticking time bomb of burnout. All I needed was a triggering event.  

Enter Covid-19. It didn’t take two months before I completely crumbled under the pressure. As a businesswoman and mother, who is committed to her children, I was trying to desperately keep it all inside as I strived to tick all the work-life balance boxes. I’ve since learned that we are all only human. Everybody needs help eventually.  

In the interest of helping others struggling to keep their mental health in check on their journey to success, I have put together some guidelines to help you to be the best you.  

Get your priorities in order 

You can’t do everything at once. But what you can do is dedicate your full self to everything you do in the moment. Now, when I’m working, I’m fully at work. When I am with my kids, nothing else matters. It takes time but I’ve found that the key to making this work is to build the right support system around you. 

We all need help 

You need to lean into other people, ask for help, accept the support and push forward as a team. Sometimes, in order to do this, you need to give yourself the space you need to reflect on who you are.  

Time is of the essence  

If you are struggling to cope, you should know that you are probably not making the impact that you think you are. Take a moment, take a day and re-evaluate your life. Do this and you will be able to make a better impact and contribution when you get back.  

You don’t get over it, you learn to live with it 

The most important lesson of all is to recognise that mental health issues are not something that one can simply get over with a few guiding principles. The truth is that you never get over it, but you can learn to live with it, manage it, embrace it and work around it.