Struggling at work
If you’re struggling to succeed at work and are constantly getting feedback about the ways that you are underperforming, it doesn’t mean that you’re incompetent. It could mean:
- Your workload or deadlines are unrealistic
- Your manager has different priorities or expectations for the job than you do
- There is a gap between your skills and the job requirements
These issues are solvable. Workloads and deadlines are negotiable. Priorities can be discussed and agreed upon. Training or mentoring can be provided to raise skill levels.
If your manager is unwilling to discuss and implement changes that would improve your performance, then the job is a bad fit. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad worker if you don’t have the characteristics needed for a particular job. It just means that it isn’t the right job for you.
Why is it so hard to admit our privilege and biases?
Why is it so hard to admit our privilege and biases?
Nobody enjoys being called out for doing or saying something problematic. But in the absence of having wrong behavior brought to our attention, why is it so difficult to consider the ways we’ve received advantages or participated in systems that limit opportunities for others?
I recently read several great articles on these topics, and what they all point out in different ways is that at the root of the issue is fear.
Chris Boeskool published a 2016 Huffpost article, “When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression” that sums up the fear of losing what we’re accustomed to.
On the flip side, what is there to gain by admitting advantages – or lack of disadvantages – that we’ve experienced in our jobs, in our access to housing, and in our daily activities like shopping or exercising?
We might gain a new perspective and empathy for the ways that people can have different experiences than us. It might lead us to examine the way we treat coworkers, customers, or people we pass in the grocery store. Maybe, even if we think we’re already doing fine, it will lead us to do better.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou
Getting work done in difficult times
Even during less stressful times, I sometimes have trouble concentrating on my work. I can spend too much time worrying about everything on my to-do list, or lose focus when I’m interrupted, and then at the end of the day I’m disappointed with my output.
Then at the beginning of March 2020, my day-to-day anxiety spiked with the news headlines and worries about family and friends, and my work productivity took another hit. I knew I needed to break away from habits that were getting in the way of my work and replace them with simple, sustainable actions that help me succeed.
Different things will work for different people, but I have my best days when I do these two things:
- Commit to focusing on one thing at a time.
- Plan for something enjoyable when the workday is over.
Commit to focusing on one thing at a time
It isn’t enough for me to vaguely know that this is a good idea. When I wake up in the morning, I set an intention to focus on the task at hand, whether it is a work or personal project. I remind myself not to multi-task and to bring my attention back to what’s right in front of me if my mind starts to wander.
We’ve all heard about how mindfulness and being present helps us stay centered and mentally healthy. But it is equally true that splitting attention between multiple tasks and thinking about things besides what is in the present is harmful to wellbeing.
I didn’t take this seriously until I had a string of terrible workdays. I had a hard time concentrating and felt scattered because my attention kept jumping from the file I was updating, to the pings I got on messenger, to the meeting reminders, to the phone calls, on and on and on. By the end of the day I hadn’t made enough progress on anything to feel a sense of accomplishment. Instead I felt drained and frustrated.
It can be tempting to just do “one little thing” while on a boring conference call, and we can tell ourselves these little tasks like typing an email, or updating a file are productive, but any gains in time saved are cancelled out by the hit it takes to our brain power. If I’m really having a hard time staying focused in a virtual meeting, I take notes about what is being discussed.
Plan for something enjoyable when the workday is over
This could be anything that sounds nice; it doesn’t have to be anything grand. This is helpful because it gives you something to look forward to all day. It makes any tedious work feel temporary.
A recent fun thing to look forward to after work was having happy hour on my balcony. It was the warmest, sunniest day we’ve had all year and I was excited to have a little more time in the fresh air. I had planned to wrap up my work by 4:30 PM and go outside, even though I knew that my client would probably contact me about an urgent issue.
Sure enough, when I was halfway through a glass of chardonnay, my phone buzzed with a request to talk. It was no big deal. We chatted for all of 3 minutes, and I spent another 20 minutes on my laptop, while sitting on my living room floor with my feet on the balcony next to my glass of wine. Then I got back to enjoying my evening. If I hadn’t planned for my happy hour, I probably would have sat at my desk waiting in case my client needed me and I would have missed out on great way to wind down my day.
Another day’s plan was less ambitious: I decided that after I finished work and dinner, I would play a game on my phone for as long as I wanted before bed. Today’s plan is to bake chocolate chip cookies.
If it seems counterintuitive to be more productive at work by planning to have fun afterwards, consider how you feel when you’re looking forward to a big event, like an exciting vacation. It is a mood booster, and being in a good mood is great for productivity.
It also makes the not-so-fun parts of the workday more tolerable when you know that they will end, and you will soon be doing something that makes you happy.
Making it a habit
There are other things that also help me with energy and focus, like getting outside for a daily walk, eating nutritious food and limiting the amount of time I spend reading the news or social media. But I just do these things, without needing to be quite so intentional about it.
It takes time to build habits. Until it becomes an automatic part of my lifestyle to stay in the moment instead of multi-tasking, and to give myself something to look forward to every day, I need to remind myself to do these things. Sticky notes on my desk, a daily calendar reminder – whatever it takes.
These are stressful, uncertain times, which isn’t ideal for productivity. And yet for the last few weeks I’ve ended each day satisfied with what I’ve accomplished. And now I’ve got to complete my to-do list, which I’m excited about. Because when I’m done…there will be freshly baked cookies. Can’t wait!
There’s more than one way to be an independent worker
I refer to myself as a consultant, and think of it as an umbrella term for many types of independent work. I also don’t want to pigeon-hole myself into one type of arrangement because one of my favorite things about my career is the ability to work in many types of roles.
Some of those roles have been:
- An interim leader managing one line of a business while the employee was out on maternity leave.
- Project-based consulting, when I led a product or initiative through its launch, or developed a strategic plan for the full-time team to execute.
- Staff augmentation, when I performed many of the same responsibilities that a full-time employee would do for a team.
- Freelance writing and editing on a per-piece basis.
There are other terms as well, including fractional leaders and gig workers, that are sometimes used specifically, and other times are generalized to mean “independent”.
GigX is a company that provides a directory of independent workers to help organizations match with people who have the skills and experience they need. One of their members interviewed GigX’s Fractional Chief Business Development Officer about the nature of independent work. It’s a great look at this field: https://www.gigx.com/blog/insights-on-going-independent
Whether you’re an independent worker or are considering this type of work, or are hiring independent workers, I wish you success and satisfaction.
Recovering from emotional fatigue
When we’re physically exhausted, a good night’s sleep is often enough to bounce back. Emotional fatigue can take a lot longer to recover from.
When we’re drained of energy by things like the shock of bad news, being overwhelmed by too much on our plates, or from slogging through a rough day at work, we often don’t feel better the next morning.
It took me many years to learn what helps me recover from this type of exhaustion. My best remedy is spending an entire day or more in a quiet, dark room. I’ll read a book or just rest. The important part is the sensory deprivation, which is my antidote for too much stimulation.
Of course, it’s often not possible to shut myself away from everyone and everything for 24 hours because even on a weekend there are people or things that need attention. When I can’t take a long break, I ask myself, “what is the most supportive thing I can do for myself right now?”
During a rough day last week, the answer was to take a 30-minute walk in the last bit of afternoon sunshine after I finished work. A month earlier, it was to take two hours to be alone in the middle of a weekend spent with others. Even though neither of these were my perfect solution, I felt significantly better in the moment and was back to my normal self within a couple of days. I found a way of starting to regain energy instead of continuing to add to my stress and exhaustion.
Part of why this method works is that I acknowledge how depleted I am and then assign the intention of supporting myself to whatever action I decide take. If last week I had just hung out on the couch, scrolling through my phone mindlessly for two hours, I would have distracted myself but not taken steps toward refilling my tank.
If you’re feeling drained, what is the best thing you can do for yourself right now?
The unideal workplace
When I finally lost my idealism about work, I was embarrassed that it took so long.
In the early years of my career, I believed that the workplace would be a fair and rationale environment. When situations occasionally arose that led me to think, “that’s a waste of company money” or “it is unethical to treat people like that,” I was indignant.
It just seemed…wrong. And shocking, because it was the opposite of my worldview that people are mostly honest, hard-working and strive to do the right thing.
Over time, I realized that I had been extremely naïve. When I began noticing all the ways that workplaces enable bad behavior, I grew jaded.
It was many years later before I changed my beliefs again. My more pragmatic outlook these days is that while people don’t always act ethically, most organizations aren’t riddled with corruption.
I realize that it is human nature to prioritize self-interest. Sometimes the pressure of meeting deadlines or budgets or unrealistic expectations leads people to make choices that they wouldn’t have made if they felt like they had better options.
Even people at the highest levels of organizations who sometimes seem truly rotten can at least be understood, if not sympathized with. They may be driven to succeed at all costs because of insecurity or by a lack of empathy. They may be pressured by their stakeholders. Or maybe they just don’t have the capacity as a human being to treat other people with respect – and that’s sad.
It’s much less surprising or disappointing to me now when I see bad behavior. Instead of focusing on the wrongness of it, I try to widen my perspective to include the possibility that the people involved are doing the best they can with the circumstances they’re in. It’s not ideal, but it’s real.
Learning from experiences
Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.
-Victoria Holt
Lately I’ve had several work and personal situations that followed the same pattern:
- I put a lot of time and effort into a project.
- It did not go as I had hoped, and I was disappointed.
- Then, something changed, and the project turned out even better than I planned.
After noticing this trend, I reflected on how I had dealt with the disappointments. I was glad that I hadn’t wasted too much energy feeling frustrated, angry or sad because in each case, things ended up better than I had originally hoped for.
I’m glad for the positive endings. But even if I hadn’t been happily surprised, what good would it have done to dwell on the negative? Naturally, I was dissatisfied when at first, I didn’t get the results I wanted. However, those feelings were softened by focusing on what I had learned from the experiences.
In addition to the coincidence of this pattern occurring several times within a few weeks, what I remember is that the positive outcomes were unexpected. I was going down paths with clear visions of end results that did not materialize.
As it turned out, the work I did along the way was the important part. I learned from the experience…and it turned out wonderfully.
Everyone at Deadspin quit
By November 1, 2019, every writer and editor at Deadspin had quit.
If you haven’t heard the backstory, it reads like fiction: the Gawker Media website published a sex tape involving Hulk Hogan, who then partnered with billionaire Peter Thiel to sue the site (Thiel held a grudge against Gawker for outing him). Upon winning the suit, Gawker was forced into bankruptcy and Deadspin, one of its blog-sites that covered sports, was sold to Univision Communications, who later sold to a private-equity firm that created a new company called G/O Media Inc.
G/O Media’s owners and management team did not integrate well with the existing staff. There were accusations of gender discrimination and writers and editors were baffled by their leader’s demands that weren’t in the best interest of readers or staff, or even the bottom line. When a beloved deputy editor was fired, the entire staff quit in protest.
I was shocked. Perhaps belonging to the GMG Union provided sufficient solidarity to band together. It’s much more common for peers in a toxic work environment to quit one-by-one, in a slow trickle, when each person either finally finds a new job or hits the limit of what they are willing to accept.
If you’re dealing with your own toxic workplace, don’t expect your peers to stand with you to the end. When people feel like their jobs are in jeopardy, they are more likely to focus on self-preservation. Instead, focus on making the best choices you can. For some, that might mean quitting as soon as their integrity is challenged. For others, it might mean putting their family’s need to stay housed and fed first – and then finding a better job.
Know when to go
A common mistake among people who quit their jobs is that they wait too long to do it. When things start going badly, it’s natural to ignore it at first, and then take a wait-and-see approach, hoping it will get better. If it doesn’t, you might find that your self-esteem erodes, your health suffers, and you start to doubt whether you can find a better job somewhere else.
It is especially difficult if you are in a specialized field, or if you live in a place with few other employers. You might feel trapped.
You’re probably not trapped.
Yes, quitting whenever you want is a privilege for those with wealth and opportunities. But if you’re earning an income, you can take steps to build up your bank account and create more choices for yourself. I wrote about this in more detail in my Savings = Options blog from 2014.
Beyond financial needs, the biggest blocker is often a person’s own mindset. It’s easy to get discouraged and lose sight of possibilities. When you’re in a negative work environment for an extended time period, you can develop a trauma-like response. Your mind starts filtering out the wider world because you’re in survival mode, focusing only on what’s in front of you.
It can be hard to pull yourself out of that state, but people do it every day. Just knowing that fear distorts perception is a start. Don’t believe everything you think about yourself.
Ask people you trust if you have an accurate belief in your employability. I was once asked by a very clever person who had a solid track record in his day job and a successful side hustle if I thought that other companies would want to hire him. Yes! Definitely!
Another thing that people do when they’re struggling with a bad job is to find reasons not to pursue new ones. People invent justifications before investigating whether their assumptions are true or not.
“That company’s office is too far away, and I hate to commute.” Maybe. But maybe they would let you work at home part of the time, or if it is a tech giant, maybe they have a free corporate shuttle with Wi-Fi. Or your work schedule would let you miss the worst of heavy traffic. You won’t know if you don’t pursue the role in the first place.
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