Balance is another term that we often mistake for meaning “equal”. Work/life balance is not about spending the same amount of time and energy on work and “life”. It’s finding an equilibrium, a still point that allows for a sense of stability, even though things are still in flux around us. Likewise, equilibrium does not mean “equal” - where the equilibrium point is could be 80% of A and 20% of B or any other combination. It simply means that there is a stable quantity of each.
If you’ve been considering a career change, you are likely experiencing both waves of excitement and absolute panic about the future. As much as change is the only true constant in life, human beings are hard-wired to resist change, even if it’s likely to lead to a positive outcome. It’s ok – you’re not alone and what you’re feeling is absolutely normal.
Freezing office? It impacts more than just your wardrobe choices. It's time to speak up. It’s July, which means that pretty much wherever you are in America, the corporate overlords have set the thermostat to somewhere in the range of your average refrigerator/freezer. If you’ve noticed that it feels harder to concentrate in your freezing office while furiously rubbing the goosebumps on your arms, it’s not just you.
Life is too short and we spend too many hours of that life at work to settle for something that we don't love doing. Here's one shift you can make to move in the right direction. Throughout our careers, we seek the elusive “dream job” that will check all the boxes and be the perfect environment where we get the chance to “do what you love and love what you do”. The problem is that if we’re waiting for someone to create that opportunity and send us an invitation we’re going to be wasting a lot of valuable time.
ou’re maxed out on tasks that you now see will have no benefit to your promotional path but feel stuck doing them anyway. People see you as the “go-to” person for extra assignments and you only say no when you’re so overwhelmed it comes out as hostile instead of strategic and confident.
If this sounds all too familiar, you may be wondering….
How can I break the pattern?
Change is inevitable and if our only plan to stay on track with our goal is to have everything go perfectly, we’re in trouble. It’s important to keep track of what we are working towards and WHY it’s important, preferably somewhere easily visible so that in the midst of chaos we can come back to our center. What we need is a clear and simple statement that reminds us of what we are striving for and how we can best attain it.
One of the first signs that I was burning out in my teaching career was when grading a stack of lab reports went from taking 2-3 DAYS to 2-3 WEEKS. Even the easiest tasks seemed to take extreme amounts of energy and effort. In order to get your mojo back at this stage, we need to put what we learned through defining our Beliefs and Loves into Action.
