{"id":564,"date":"2022-02-22T22:13:04","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T22:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2022-02-22T22:17:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T22:17:26","slug":"being-human-and-learning-to-care-less-about-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/22\/being-human-and-learning-to-care-less-about-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Being human and learning to care less about work"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” z_index=””][vc_column width=”2\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1566406304942{padding-right: 10% !important;}”][vc_column_text]I recently started working with several clients who were bothered by work stress – one of them signed off work for 2 weeks. All hold significant roles and are finding delivering against expectations \u2018too much\u2019.\u00a0 When I started working with these high performing people it became clear they had a long standing pattern of high anxiety at work and mostly they were \u2018managing\u2019 year after year without previous therapy, without medication, without any help \u2013 just holding on the edge of the cliff<\/em> as one said vividly. \u00a0The personal cost was high and the price rising.<\/p>\n

These people went beyond high standards. They were perfectionists \u2013 nothing less was good enough. \u00a0They had to do it right and be praised and if not, they would be criticised and would have failed and be<\/u> a failure.\u00a0 Admitting they struggle with anxiety \u2013 was a clear indication of failure.\u00a0 Not being on top of their jobs, not being a great leader, not being liked were all indicators of failure.\u00a0 My guess was that they felt these things a lot. \u00a0And I wondered whose expectations they were really fulfilling?<\/p>\n

Working with these people reminded me of past colleagues \u2013 many in fact \u2013 working in a high pressure, high expectation environment where people get a lot done, go the extra mile and are impressive.\u00a0 Organisations love and promote them.\u00a0 However, people often don\u2019t like working for them \u2013 as they never stack up to the standards demanded.\u00a0 There is a cost in the unsustainability of it all – in stress, in burnout, in anxiety, depression, turnover, broken relationships.\u00a0 The roots of perfectionism lie in earlier life, and it is not easy to unpick this and shift to a \u2018high standards\u2019 perspective where one delivers very well AND accepts mistakes get made, people stumble, need to regain energy and take time for a more rounded, sustainable life.\u00a0\u00a0 Humans are not perfect \u2013 ever. We all stumble, make mistakes, have some people not like us, find we cannot do everything.\u00a0 Working ever harder will never make us perfect.<\/p>\n

Usually, I ask these clients if they had ever seen this pattern earlier in life (and there almost always is).\u00a0 One client talked about moving around a lot across cultures and languages as a child and teenager due to his father\u2019s job.\u00a0 Each time he said he sought out the coolest gang and made sure he got into it and stayed there.\u00a0 However, like clockwork, he had to do it again and again and again.\u00a0 All of this he described dispassionately.\u00a0 He could not fail. Failure meant being alone \u2013 on the outside. And at home he could not express his challenges or fears \u2013 he just got on with it mostly alone. \u00a0He had dissociated from the high stress and anxiety of the past and yet he was repeating this pattern every time he moved into a new role and was clearly in anxiety now.<\/p>\n

My job with all of these clients will be to help them understand and accept their anxiety and be better able to manage it while learning about mistakes, about failure, about criticism, about not being perfect and to accept themselves as they are – imperfect. \u00a0\u00a0I want them to care less about work, but I do not want them to be careless. They could each be more mindful and accepting of their humanity and through that release themselves from a lifelong pattern of caring too much about ever greater success and other\u2019s opinions and move toward being more caring of themselves.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently started working with several clients who were bothered by work stress – one of them signed off work for 2 weeks. All hold significant roles and are finding delivering against expectations \u2018too much\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-mindfulness","category-wellbeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}