The challenge of going back to work is that “work” feels the same and we feel different. But we’re not alone.
Episode 37 of the Make Saints podcast: “Back to Work”
the episode script
Going back to work is a thing.
After a vacation. Or time away. Staying home with the kids. Or Covid. Perhaps after medical leave. Or bereavement.
All of these experiences offer such different emotions. But there is something they do have in common:
Setting foot in a space that values The Same and right now, you aren’t.
Sometimes, going back to work involves dealing with challenges. Like this.
- How do you force yourself to do something you don’t want to do?
Maybe you liked the time. And I don’t mean in the way everyone prefers leisure, “so suck it up,” we say. I mean, something fundamental is triggered. And this thing you’ve been doing just isn’t it.
So we may find ourselves feeling like we must will ourselves back into it.
This may be a sign of burnout. And we can’t will ourselves out of burnout. It’s like willing ourselves out of trauma. We can’t. It’s not possible. It’s like using a hammer on a screw. It’s the wrong approach; the wrong tool for the job.
And trying to just power it almost always makes it worse.
This is a case in which therapy, counseling, spiritual direction, or simply more time is in order.
- Do What You Love
We think that if we only pick things we want to do, then getting back at it will be fun. This is the theory behind the adage: “If you do work you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Or however it goes.
This is the lifehack approach to preemptively tricking yourself into making work easier by liking it first with the expectation that this will make it easier to come back to it. This has a maximizing-your-productivity vibe, doesn’t it?
There is support in the psychological research for using these sorts of tricks to get your mind to respond differently to certain stimuli. Of course, these are, fundamentally, tricks that reorient how we approach a thing. And because they are fundamentally based on how our brains work, they are more or less effective for everyone.
- Only choose to do what you want to do
We can take ourselves in a totally different direction to achieve a similar goal. Instead of forcing ourselves to like something or tricking our brains into liking it, we can instead take control of how we relate work to our lives.
We can simply choose not to do things. To go in a different direction.
One More Thing
Now, I don’t know about you, but when people talk about work and the human challenge of returning to it, reading tips and tricks about getting back in the groove always feels like it should help.
Essentially, we’re trying to reach out and fix a problem by enlisting an author, podcaster, or youtuber. Someone who can give us something we can do on our own. The very definition of self-help.
But so often, it leaves us empty. Either it doesn’t actually help in any way. Or it comes in the form of a laundry list of new things to do when we’re already overwhelmed with doing stuff!
Think about it.
If our to-do list is too long, and we look for help, what do we always hear? “Here’s what to do so you can do all the things.” When we’re overwhelmed, by all of the things, doing actually adds to the problem. Our brains treat it like part of the problem.
Or it treats it like a replacement for the problem. Your brain says “Instead of doing these 18 things I don’t want to think about, I’ll think about this one thing instead!” Now our brain is thanking us for giving it a new distraction!
Unhealthy Balance
Underneath our whole approach to work, health, and satisfaction is an unhealthy vision of work itself.
Some people can regulate themselves well. They achieve what we frequently call work/life balance. And they seem satisfied all of the time.
But most of us fake it. Or we’re convinced we’re doing a good job of regulating when we’re really not.
As I described in the previous episode of the podcast about getting unstuck, for many of us, our brains seem to be hardwired to a default of an unhealthy vision of work. We power through even when all of the evidence points away from that. All the experts say cut that junk out! And we go, but this is what I’m supposed to do!
We’ve adopted a work-first mindset in our hearts and our heads are pretending we’ve got work and life equally balanced.
If we actually want the two to balance (like we say we do), then we can’t always put work first. And we can’t put work first 75% of the time, either. Balance has to actually balance.
Which likely means we have to approach work differently.
Better Work
This summer, I thought alot about my post-vacation life. Asking myself what it would be like to bring more of the restorative freedom vacation offers to the rest of the year.
I know this isn’t a new idea, and a big part of the passive income movement is just this exactly! But for those of us who work a regular schedule, we never actually think like this. We often think of work like a grind full of obligations.
So while we might ask ourselves if we’re in the right job or trying to figure out how to balance a stress-filled job with a stress-filled life, perhaps we’re asking ourselves the wrong questions.
Perhaps the problem isn’t us. That we need to get better about work.
With epidemic levels of burnout across many industries and fields, why would we insist that the individual is the problem? Like we need to find a better job while our jobs want to find better people.
Maybe we all need better work. Healthier work. And a life that is filled with more rest and joy.