How and Why You Should Care Less About Work
Do you hate work? Are you thinking you really want to quit but can’t, yet everyday is a huge source of frustration and pain? Try caring less. It will make you happier. I promise.
First of all identify whether you’re taking work life way too seriously and personally:
Are you fed up of putting in 200% effort, to do a great job, to not be rewarded for doing so?
Have you been so frustrated with the way your company is doing things that you could almost scream with frustration?
Do you spend ages perfecting an unimportant email?
Are you rushing around from the moment the clock hits 9am, making sure you’ve answered all your emails and met everyone’s expectations?
If you have answered yes to these questions then maybe you need to care a little less.
Being passionate about your job is a double edged sword. It can make you extremely conscientious and no doubt you’ll be adding value to every piece of work you do. However it can also leave you frustrated when your value is not recognised, jaded from working your ass off and frankly boring. Who wants to spend their life complaining and moaning about work? No one on their death bed ever regrets not having worked harder. People regret not spending more time with friends, family and exploring the world, NOT work!
Don’t get me wrong, your frustrations may be completely valid, your boss could be making the wrong decision and the entire leadership team can be completely useless, but when you’ve thrown the kitchen sink at it and they are not changing course the only thing you can do is to not let it start negatively affecting your own personal happiness. And that is to not care so much. Why let other people’s incompetence ruin your week? Check in for work and then CHECK OUT.
As with all things in life, there is a balance to strike. This is not about not doing your job properly or skiving. We’re saying that instead of putting in 200% effort, maybe try just 100%. Actually hell no… try 80% because I bet your 80% might be most people’s 100%. And don’t forget that when you’re consistently putting in 200% you’re only actually devaluing yourself when your company isn’t recognising it, as they begin to see that as the norm, that that is your 100%. And you can’t endlessly keep upping your efforts and letting it bleed into your personal life.
So when your colleagues or bosses are being incompetent and making the wrong decisions, you can ask if they have thought about X , but if they don’t listen, well shrug your shoulders (in your head of course) and breathe. There is more to life than some person or persons disagreeing with you at work. It doesn’t lower your true value. It really says more about them that they cannot see your value than it does about you. No matter how much you try to prove your value, your great ideas, your solutions that have worked, they just won’t see it, so just try being that tad less passionate. And push that passion into other areas of your life where you can see a return, where more effort = more reward.
That might be learning an instrument, learning a language, gardening, blogging and watching your page views grow, creating an exciting date night with your other half, learning new recipes, or dare I say it moving to a new job where people do value you more.
Okay so maybe now you’re convinced that you just need to chill out a bit over work and not take your work life so seriously. But how do you do it? It’s not a switch you can just flick off. If someone is are acting like an idiot at work, you can’t just turn that emotion off right? It takes time and practice to chill out so below are a few ways to help:
1.) Remind yourself that your job is for paying the bills, and the lifestyle you want.
Your job is purely to fund your personal life, home life, family life. Your job IS NOT the most important part of your life.
Set goals in your personal life. For example for me I want to buy a house, and I know that my job contributes towards saving for that house. This is what my job is for, my job doesn’t define me. Just because a colleague was being dick today doesn’t mean I’m shit, it means I’ve ticked off another day towards getting paid, and towards living in that dream house with my husband.
2.) Remind yourself that there are more senior people than you who can do the caring.
There are leaders in the business who are probably paid more than twice what you earn so let them deal with it. So if they are happy to let the company make the wrong decision or turn a blind eye to problems, why are you caring more than them?
If your company is rotten, you’re not really going to be the one to change that. These are systemic, structural and cultural problems that you alone will not and should not be responsible for fixing.
3.) Put across your opinion, but if they don’t follow up, shrug it off and let them reap what they sow
Again there is a fine balance between not giving a shit at work and caring less. So still use your brain, offer your opinion and practice using your voice. You don’t want to get into a habit of not thinking and not being confident enough to air your views, you may eventually move to another job where people do value your thoughts so you don’t want to lose that muscle. However if your company isn’t listening, then that is their problem. End of.
4.) Realise that there is no point constantly trying to prove your value to people who cannot see it
Some things in life you will never be able to change. If your boss or company have labelled you as junior when you’re not junior and they don’t respect or value you then it’s possible you will never be able to change their minds. If you’ve already thrown everything you can at it and there is no improvement accept that they will not change. Don’t get into the downwards spiral of constantly trying to prove yourself. Your 200% effort will become the new 100% and so you’ll have to put in 300% effort and then 400% and so on, just to try and prove you’re more than what they see of you. It ain’t gonna happen. This is when work starts to become your whole life. Don’t let work take over your entire life or let it define who you are or how you feel about yourself.
5.) Try ranting a bit less! Create boundaries between work life and personal life.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to offload frustrations. But set a time limit like 30 minutes and then start living your personal life. Do you really want to be that person where your friend asks you how you’re doing and you spend the next entire 2 hours moaning about work?
The more you start creating stronger boundaries between your work life and personal life, the more you stop work becoming such a core part of who you are and letting work define whether you’re happy or not happy.
This means switching off from work when its 5pm. It also means taking your unpaid for lunch hour. Of course there are times you may need to work overtime to get some things done, but on the whole try to really limit working more than you need to.
Make sure you spend dedicated time towards the other spheres of your life: Family, Friends, Hobbies, Exercise etc.
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I’m at the beginning of my journey of caring less, and it’s not that easy. Sometimes I find myself already complaining at 09:10 in the morning when I’ve read an annoying email. The difference is I’m stopping myself within 30 secs. I’ve seen the light. I tell myself: “So what?! Respond and move on. I’m looking forward to my curry tonight and watching Breaking Bad on repeat. All is good.” :)
I hope you find this article comforting. Let me know your thoughts and how’re you’re doing in the comments below.
GOOD LUCK.
Women On The Ladder
