I recently started my career, and am struggling to overcome stress and enjoy the job I worked so hard to reach. We spend so much of our lives at our job, and when I was a teenager I dreamed of having a job that I truly enjoy. Now that I’m here, starting my career, stress and nerves are threatening to kill my enjoyment of my job. My goal: to find joy instead of stress in my job. I think of my career like a marriage: you have to cultivate positive thoughts and appreciation to get the most out of it, both for yourselves and for those you interact with at work. Nothing is perfect, and I know I have so much to be grateful for. My aim is to find peace and joy in my career.
I bombard myself with negative thoughts about myself and my performance all throughout my working day, and then re-live the day and worry about my decisions in the evening. Perhaps this does motivate me somewhat to improve, but mostly it makes me hate every moment and want to run away and give up, which doesn’t lead to improvement. So, the first thing I will try will be to refuse to think about or do work within certain hours. I do a fair amount of researching on my own time, and the knowledge of what else I have to look up hangs over my head during my relaxation time. I need to find a balance where I can read enough to feel prepared for the next day or week, but not overwhelmed and burned out. I think limiting the amount of time I’m allowed to spend researching will force me to focus on the really important information. Here is the timing I will try first. I can’t research after 9 pm on any day. I am allowed to research between 8 am and 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays, but at no other time. If I find myself stressing about work in unhelpful ways outside work hours, I will take 5 deep breaths and focus on feeling my heart beating. This includes feeling dread about going to work. I also spend the first 20 minutes of my day lying in bed dreading going to work. Instead, I’ll set my alarm a little bit later, put my phone across the room and get up with the first alarm to eliminate this period that I don’t enjoy.
My phone reminds me of things that I need to research. I will set these reminders to come on only during the set hours, and will reset them if I don’t complete them during the set research hours so that I don’t see them every time I look at my phone.
This week will be my first trial of this. I will try many other things to find the most enjoyment and least stress in my work life.
