Archive for November, 2014
Two Tips For When You Feel Stuck at Your Job
When you feel stuck in a job, you can get tunnel vision that focuses on what isn’t working.
When you feel trapped because your salary pays the bills and provides health insurance, and gives you the means to support people who depend on you, it can seem like there aren’t very many good options. You may reject ideas about how to improve the situation or not have any ideas in the first place.
When you’re working in a job that isn’t right for you, it is draining. It is typical to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. On top of that, if you’ve been in an environment where you’ve been frequently criticized and your contributions haven’t been valued, it is common to lose confidence in your abilities.
I’ve had people tell me that they were so discouraged at work that they actually preferred being at home sick with the flu to going to the office!
This isn’t a good emotional state to begin creating a better job or work environment! But the truth is that there are many possible ways to improve work situations. It is just harder to access those possibilities when your perspective is narrowed by fear and discouragement.
You’ve got possibilities. Write ’em down!
One way to remind yourself that you do have options is to make a list of all the ways that your work situation can improve. This is a brainstorming-style list designed to open your mind, so including things that don’t seem realistic is actually a good idea. Things like, “My boss gets fired and a great new manager takes over the department,” or “A friend at another company recruits me to join his staff.” Or even, “I quit my job and go back to school to become a naturopathic doctor.”
If you are more visual and prefer not to write lists, mind-mapping is a great exercise. Take a blank piece of paper and jot down a single word or short phrase that represents what you’re ideal job situation would be. Then draw lines to connect the words that have common themes, and soon you’ll see patterns emerge.
Lists and mind-mapping are great ways to broaden your perspective when you feel stuck. These exercises tap into the part of your brain that has unique ideas and flashes of insight. In the short-term, taking these actions can boost your attitude by reminding you that there are many possibilities to improve your job situation. Then, with a more open mind, you might decide to pursue one of your ideas or discover a new opportunity that you might not have seen before.
Clearing Your Mailbox Reveals Where You’re Stuck
Yesterday was one of those hectic days when I juggled meetings, appointments and phone calls while my most important task didn’t get addressed until evening. I owed a new client a document that I was excited to work on. I could have approached the project many different ways, and all day long it was in the back of my mind.
Yet when I finally finished my meetings and had time to focus on the document, I did something else first: I cleaned out my mailbox.
I didn’t just deploy the Clean Up feature – I spent an hour overhauling Outlook. I already had a good folder system in place, but was bogged down by hundreds of old mails. By the time I finished, I’d deleted over 600 mails, archived folders that I didn’t want to see anymore, and realized that cleaning out a mailbox can reveal a lot.
Emails that you want to keep but haven’t filed reveal the topics that don’t fit neatly into the rest of your life. Email you haven’t responded to shows what you’re avoiding.
Are you ever going to reread those old articles or click again on the links to interesting websites? If not, it is time to let them go. But if those emails are full of tips that you can use, or ideas for your business then it is time to make a new folder for “Tips” or “Business Ideas”.
Cleaning out my mailbox showed me where I was stuck. When I was finished I felt lighter and energized, like I had freed up wasted space in my mind. I believe visual clutter leads to mental clutter whether the clutter is physical or virtual bits of data clogging up your PC.
When I finally started working on my client’s document, I quickly decided how to approach it and the project flowed smoothly. This afternoon the client told me I’d exceeded his expectations. That’s one of the best compliments I can hope for as a consultant.
I’m going to remember this the next time I want to have a clear, focused mind to start a new project. The first step will be to create space for it.
Clear inbox, clear mind
Might as well deal with your stuff now
If you use work to avoid what else in your life isn’t working and then you quit, or get laid off, or take a new job that doesn’t demand twelve hour work days, all of a sudden you’re going to be confronted with that stuff.
If you are so busy and distracted with work and your other obligations that you don’t notice all that stuff that you’ve been avoiding, it will be front and center in your life as soon as you have more time.
Think of all the people around you who complain about being too busy. Maybe you are one of them. If you weren’t too busy, then what would you complain about?
Your stuff will eventually catch up to you. When you start having more time, you have more time to think about damaged relationships, health concerns, financial chaos, or dreams that you put aside. Then what?
It can feel like doom and gloom, but it is actually an opportunity to get more of what you want in life. A little effort over a sustained period of time is how any great achievement is earned. Relationships can be repaired, greater health can be achieved, finance goals can be set, and dreams can evolve.
Might as well start now.
Still Using Your Company Email Address for Personal Business?
Last week Microsoft announced another 3,000 layoffs. The news inspired me to check out the Mini-Microsoft blog that used to be a great gut-check of the view inside the company. It is largely inactive now, but as I scrolled past comments about the layoffs back in July, one of them caught my attention.
The anonymous commenter had a great perspective. He acknowledged that while being laid off hurt, he was going to view it as an opportunity to discover what else he wanted to do. He closed by saying “I think it also may be healthy for me to not have my identity associated with my MS email address.”
Yes.
If you use your employer’s email address for your personal use, every time you hit “send”, you’re associating your personal identity with your place of employment. You’re signaling that you, as a person, are tied to your company even for personal matters.
If your identity is tied up with your employer, your job title, or the type of work you produce, it is smart to start building up your sense of yourself that is separate from work. This is a good thing to do anyway, but it is especially important if you’re about to leave a job. If you’re not prepared, you could slip into an identity crisis.
If you are using your work email address for personal business, make the change. Retrain your friends and family to use a personal address.
You are more than who you’re employed by.
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