There are some common pitfalls that women I see could find themselves in. Indeed, they are not even pitfalls as that implies you were not in the hole to begin with, whereas many clients have never known life outside the constraints of these walls.
Paula Davis-Laak writes on these eloquently in her blog on Happiness as she maps out 8 of these areas. In summary:
- Maxing out isn't healthy, and doesn't make you happy. The physical and emotional consequences of striving to be the best academic, worker, friend, child, wife, mother etc. are deep, and take a significant time to recover from. She argues that women would be best served by finding their own boundaries and defining success according to those boundaries.
- Experience more, and buy less. Being trapped in an endless purchasing cycle is in fact a predictor of unhappiness, and living at the edges of your ability to afford