Evaluate your work like you do your relationships
I met up with a friend over drinks recently. While we caught up about life, hobbies, and upcoming ayahuasca trips (more about this in other posts), we inevitably made our way through our frustrations about work.
Work.
I’ve spent countless hours ruining good conversations and equally good old fashioneds because I was too busy bitching about work. Now, bonding with friends and coworkers about how undervalued and overworked we feel can be therapeutic, but more times than not, we repeat the same cycle week over week without making any real progress. We over analyze why we didn’t get the promotion, why David from accounting only interrupts women in meetings, why Karen won’t have our back, and why no one gives us credit for the project we spent multiple weekends working on. We use our friends as unwilling audiences to vent, dissect, and overanalyze our work week, and in turn, we expect them to validate our frustrations and inject back some semblance of confidence and self-worth.
We’ve all been victims of this self-perpetuating cycle. I’ve spent a decade bitching about my job. As a recovering workaholic, I look back and ask myself why it was so hard for me to find the answer to my dilemmas.
Why couldn’t I solve my frustrations in a pragmatic and logical way? Why did I get lost in the details, gave up my power, and felt helpless and trapped in the situation?
We’ve been conditioned to believe our career, like our romantic relationships, are a reflection of our self worth. It’s what we do not who we are is a cliché no one truly believes. Who you marry and where they fall in the totem pole of success is just as important as what title we get to use in our Linkedin profile. So then, we enter the job market with one goal in mind - sacrifice everything to get the socially coveted job and then find the equally acceptable partner to start ignoring them for the job we never really wanted in the first place.
Luckily, we are starting to shift this attitude to one that honors ourselves and our needs while we learn to mindfully copilot our lives with our partner. And in this same way, we can start to shift the mindset we have towards our careers. The same principles apply - prioritize the relationship we have with ourselves, find time for self-care, and learn how to keep our individuality when we’re in a relationship.
So then, using these same fundamental blocks, I began to ask myself - How do I keep my individuality in a demanding career? How do I keep from losing myself to the demands of the job? How do I recognize red flags when my career is disrespecting my boundaries?
I recognize it’s easy for me to criticize our lack of work-life balance from my financially stable viewpoint. For most, we have no choice but to graduate college thousands of dollars in debt and come to the realization we need to sacrifice our passion and mission for financial security. So we enter a system that expects you to work to the point of exhaustion, to prioritize it over your family and friends, and who glorifies those who lose themselves to the demands of the job.
We get lost in careers fueled by saturated markets all selling the same products to people who have become desensitized by the methods we use to pitch to them. We condition ourselves to do this until decades later we find ourselves depleted, angry, and bitter and happy hour bitch fests are the only therapy we can afford.
Image by @skybanyes
That being said, I think all of us can have a healthier relationship with our attachment and sense of identity we derive from our work. If your current workplace is making you miserable, can you make small changes that enable you to feel more in control of your circumstances? And if changing careers is not an option, how can you keep your sanity and sense of self-worth without getting caught in the story at work?
I started here:
You are not your job. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat 100 times. But in order for you to not feel you are your job, you need to get a life outside of it. Get a hobby. Volunteer. Set up a goal to explore your city or go to the gym more often. I know that’s the last thing you want to do when your mind is fried from a jam packedday of slack messages, useless emails, and meetings, but the way to break the cycle is by looking forward to something outside of the office.
Be efficient while you’re at work. Get shit done. I am a big fan of setting no more than three goals in a post itnote, and prioritizing your day to get through the list. It helps you to recognize the amount energy you spend on tasks that don't align with your overall goals, which in turn helps you to shift your focus. This also makes you feel incredibly accomplished at the end of each day.
In the long run, the habit above allows you to home without taking your work with you, you gain a sense of control, and you’re able to put some space between your work life and home life.
If you can, stay active in your network and stay in contact with recruiters. We feel trapped in our jobs when we feel our whole self is invested in it, when we let our imposter syndrome take over which, in turn, makes us feel self-conscious and insecure. The reality is the company you work for needs you more than you need it. Their success is a direct result of your effort and creativity, and you can take that same perseverance to another workplace. So although annoying at times, stay in contact with other companies and see what they offer. Have data points from different organizations to compare how they stack against your current company’s package.
An hour later, my friend was still psychoanalyzing her lunchtime meeting, but instead of letting her vent yet again, we went full Erin Brockovich, ordered another round of whiskey, and worked through a plan for the next two months, complete with milestones and goals to reflect throughout the process.
You can follow these guidelines or create some that work for you. The steps themselves are not as important as empowering yourself by having a plan. Not every guideline will work. Consider this a living, breathing process, one which you'll adjust as time goes on. But the ultimate goal is clear - continue to grow professionally without losing your sanity. I have learned to set boundaries at work, time manage my time wisely, and work towards my goals outside of work. Learning to balance my time will always be a struggle, but in small steps, I've empowered yourself, controlled the aspects of my career that I can, while letting go of the rest.
So try it. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. And next time you're catching up with a friend, stop being so basic, and keep work talk in the back burner.