The list that has no success indicators for female leaders and businesswomen

By: Catalina Jiménez Combariza- Director and Founder, Sentidos Communications

Article published on https://forbescentroamerica.com/

Being a leader, a mom, a businesswoman, and a caregiver all at once—even when not everything turns out perfectly.

I have a strange relationship with lists. I make lists for groceries, for work, for life, and even lists of my lists. My biggest guilty pleasure is running a highlighter over completed tasks, like someone hanging a medal around their neck. So it didn't surprise me that, while sorting through papers, I found the letter I wrote to myself at 25—and of course, it was a list: an account of what I'd lived through in 2006 and the plans ahead, back when I lived alone in Bogotá, collected boyfriends I nicknamed by profession, and proudly noted every achievement: I live alone, I have a company, I landed a client.

Twenty years later, now 45, the list is different, and I've learned something no highlighter can ever capture: what truly matters almost never fits on a list, has no clear indicators, and is rarely visible.

Today I have an 11-year-old daughter and an agency turning 22. I run both at once: I'm a mom and a director 24/7, with the same body, the same mind, and the same hours in the day. In a single afternoon I can be CEO, journalist, pediatric nurse, chef, crisis psychologist, and birthday party planner. I review a proposal while signing my daughter's school planner, rush to a piano recital, and answer an urgent work call.

Being a businesswoman (and many things at once) isn't just my story: in Central America, entrepreneurship is increasingly a women's affair. In Guatemala, one in three women already has her own business (one of the highest rates in Latin America), and the region surpasses the Latin American average for women entrepreneurs (GEM, 2024/2025). In El Salvador, close to 68% of businesses are now in women's hands (CONAMYPE, 2026).

For years I fell into a trap that I'd bet many women fall into: believing our worth is measured by tasks completed, and completed perfectly. I wanted to be the one who could do it all. No one warned me that this club hands out exhaustion more than medals, and that the list only ever grows. When my parents got sick, I added their list to mine, because we also reach that stage where we're working, raising kids, and caring for parents all at the same time.

Here's something I wish I'd read at 25:

it's okay to be a leader and a mom, a businesswoman and a caregiver, a daughter and a woman. What's not okay is the fine print we were sold—that on top of everything, we also have to do it all perfectly and make it look effortless.

Let's be honest: I've never had everything go right on the same day. If the presentation came out flawless, the lunchbox probably had whatever was on hand; and if the lunchbox looked Pinterest-worthy, something at the agency was left unfinished. Over the years I learned to call that balance, not failure. The truth is that the list that can't be seen is the one that never gets checked off in a planner, and one we have no way to measure success by—it lives in how happy our children are, in the good relationship we have with ourselves, or in how healthy our loved ones can be.

The list that has no success indicators for women leaders and businesswomen

Often we don't choose to do it all: we have to. Caregiving tasks continue to fall mainly on us while we try to grow professionally. And it's not just about vocation or personal fulfillment: many women are (we are) also breadwinners, with no option to step back from either job.

Life finished teaching me this in 2022. My beloved aunt died and left me the responsibility of putting an entire life in order; my dad went into the ICU, my mom faced cancer, and in the middle of all that, I was still a mom, still running Sentidos, and still pursuing a master's degree in Spain and a diploma in London. All at the same time. Life didn't ask if I was ready; no previous list had prepared me for that—but the years do teach you to ask yourself how much you're enjoying the process.

And it's worth looking at the numbers, because this experience isn't unusual. Latin America now has the smallest gender gap for entrepreneurship, and one in two women has already started her own business (Mastercard, 2025). Even so, unpaid domestic and care work still falls mostly on us: in Colombia it amounts to 19.9% of GDP, and women put in three-quarters of those hours (DANE, 2024). A second shift—invisible and unpaid—that begins right when the first one ends.

It was in the middle of that year that I understood something I now consider fundamental:

I stopped trying to check everything off perfectly and started being kinder to myself—basically, understanding that what matters is living. I didn't discover that I could do less, because often that simply isn't an option; I discovered that I can decide how I treat myself while doing everything else.

Treating yourself with more love doesn't mean giving up or working less—it means letting go of the perfect list to recognize the value that already exists in the effort, in showing up, and in the ability to keep moving forward. In the end, it's accepting that some things will go wrong, and that doesn't invalidate everything else. Because honestly, everything is fine, and it's also fine when it doesn't turn out perfect.

So to the women who lead, build businesses, care for others, raise children, and hold it all together, I want to say what I wish I'd heard at 25, at 30, at 35:

you don't have to do everything perfectly to be extraordinary; you already are. Let's trade guilt for pride, lean on other women as a rule, and always build that network of support and community.

Twenty years later, I'm still making lists, and I'm still carrying several lives at once, like so many women. But now I have a certainty I didn't have before: the most valuable thing in life isn't checking it off or completing it, but living it. And while society learns to better share the burden of caregiving, let's make a pact among ourselves: to treat each other with more kindness, celebrate each other more, support one another as a rule, and remember that the only truly essential task on the list is to live. To live awake, fully awake, enjoying the process.