I switched jobs recently. These days I spend a lot of reminding myself to be grateful for even having a job during these trying times when a whole host of people would give up an arm and a leg to find a job – especially a job that pays well.
And this is what I keep going back to every time I have the urge to crib – about the long hours, the exhaustion and loneliness of working from home when I have never met my colleagues in person, the complete loss of any time for myself, the absence of colleagues and mentors at work to whom I did not have to prove my worth and who’s trust I had already earned.
And then there is the (mostly) self-imposed pressure to perform flawlessly. The devil itself. They must believe I am a worthwhile hire. They must know I am good, nay, the best at my job. I must not give them the opportunity to question my work ethic.
All of this is made particularly difficult when my colleagues have never met me, and have worked with me for less than a quarter. I’ve obviously set unrealistic standards for myself and my team. This of course led to serious bouts of anxiety and self-doubt every time I made the slightest error, or even when a draft was reworded to suit the existing stylised format. Because to me all of this translated to my incompetence.
I was talking about this to a friend (and ex-colleague) about a fortnight ago and the wise man simply said, “Dude, would you stop gaslighting yourself?” His theory was simple – you can question everything you do and end up with the same answer – your unworthiness as a resource. That you don’t deserve to be where you are. That the firm did you a favour by hiring you because there are so many better candidates out there. However – (i) that’s not true, in that mistakes obviously (sigh) do not make you a poorer resource; and (ii) you do this to yourself, you make it easier for others to pin anything that goes wrong on you. Not to mention this is a vicious, toxic cycle of thought.
This is all very simple – no-brainers – because we all know this already. We’ve known this a long time. It just takes a lot of skill and practice to actually implement it. If I gleaned one thing from going to therapy – its that the hardest thing to learn is to be kind to yourself. Because we’ve learned to do exactly the opposite throughout our lives.
So I got back to journaling – and now each day I take time out to write down all the things I feel guilty about, or things that make me feel like a bad lawyer or in my imagination would lead to my bosses nodding their heads in disappointment. And then I try to map them objectively – against my experience, skill sets, the timelines – objective criteria that apply to me only (i.e., not against peers). And more often than not I end up with empirical evidence to show I’ve been overthinking this, or the fact that things aren’t really my fault, unlike what I instinctively tend to believe. I also consciously remind myself that I actually like my job – well, most of it anyway. And that is truly something to be grateful for.
I intend to practice this to get to a point where it doesn’t take all of my physical and mental energy to just show myself some kindness – because honestly the boulder in my throat and the weight on my shoulder is just too much to bear any longer.
I’ve also started practising this one technique that is supposed to have helped a great deal of people in dealing with stress – it’s essentially meditation deconstructed. But it’s been helpful – so you may consider trying.
PS – Hope you are all well and safe. Loads of love from Twiggy 🙂 And wear a mask!
Mouna Raagam 