Don't snitch on your boss
Otherwise you will be considered a sycophant. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't speak up. “It's not easy,” Robbins says. — It all depends on the situation and the boss. Some bosses may respond, “Thanks for letting me know. I'll deal". And others will say that it’s not your place to care about the quality of work of your colleagues.” You may be at a disadvantage. Think about the form of the statement. If you go to your boss and say, “I can't move forward with this project because I'm waiting for Bill to finish his part. What should we do?”, then you will convey the idea without making yourself look like a sneak.” But if you're directly asked to describe a colleague's work, you should be honest, Robbins says.
Scientists have explained why office work is more exhausting than physical labor
Why do people who spend the whole working day at the computer return home exhausted? Are the muscles involved in typing on a keyboard and operating a mouse really that draining on the body? Scientists from all over the world have been struggling with this mystery for many years. At the moment, they have two main hypotheses in this regard: resource depletion and lack of motivation, Life.ru reports.
Scientists suggest that during the day we use a limited supply of mental energy (willpower, self-control). When this “fuel tank” is empty, we can no longer achieve our goals. Some experts call this phenomenon “ego depletion.”
However, this theory still has more critics than fans. The study found that a brain experiencing mental stress expends no more energy than is contained in one Tic-Tac tablet. The body spends much more resources on “background” processes: the work of the heart, stomach and other organs.
“In terms of energy expenditure, your brain doesn't care whether you're watching TV or solving a complex math problem,” explains National Institutes of Health spokesman Kevin Hall.
Psychologists put forward another hypothesis. According to them, prolonged concentration on one task leads to the fact that we become uninterested in performing it. That's why we turn our attention to our Instagram feed or YouTube videos instead of doing things. The result is overstrain and fatigue.
Recently, scientists from the UK have provided new arguments in favor of the “motivational model”. 100 nurses participated in the study. Over the course of two 12-hour shifts, they periodically reported how they were feeling. They also wore devices that track physical activity. The more nurses worked, the more tired they felt. But it turned out that not everything is so simple.
Nurses who felt less tired had better control over their actions at work. Perhaps the feeling of having extra energy increased their motivation, the scientists noted in their report.
Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, also found confirmation of the “fading motivation” hypothesis. Together with Marina Milyavskaya from Carleton University, he monitored the sensations of 159 students at McGill University (Canada) for a week.
“What influenced the feeling of fatigue the most was the number of temptations to which students were exposed. Multiple active browser tabs and social media interactions significantly reduced interest in their core activities,” says Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto.
“We are forced to constantly solve several problems at once - finding food, a sexual partner, shelter, and so on,” explains Inzlicht.
According to the scientist, these tasks compete with each other for our attention. That's why the brain periodically signals to us: stop doing the same thing, it's time to do something else.
According to scientists, increasing motivation can easily relieve the feeling of fatigue. One study found that a cash bonus could be an additional incentive. Similar results were obtained in studies of physical endurance. It turns out that people can easily be forced to work in a mode that, in their opinion, lies beyond their capabilities.
Why does careerism lead to mental health problems?
Work takes up almost all of my time
Many companies reward overtime with bonuses and promotions. You are praised and noticed. But long hours in the office or in work mode (telephone, mail) are a big price to pay.
When you engage in an activity intensely and a lot, it becomes a part of you and crowds out other areas and relationships.
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Fear of not meeting the expectations of family and society
Career achievements are highly valued in family and society. When success at work becomes a goal in life, people feel disconnected from loved ones if they cannot (or simply do not want) to achieve a certain level of professional success. Fear of failure and isolation causes people to focus on achieving what is expected of them. Ultimately, such a person becomes synonymous with his work. They are perceived as one whole.
When work becomes hard labor
There are a number of circumstances that can turn even interesting work into a burden. Let's consider the main factors of professional destabilization of personality and ways to avoid them:
- Misunderstanding of loved ones
Let's imagine an ordinary family in which a woman disappears for days at work. The husband is nervous: he would like to live not with a leader in production, but with a gentle creature who smells of pies and cutlets. Children and elderly parents also do not share the career interests of a workaholic in a skirt; they require care and attention.
This creates a conflict between work aspirations and family responsibilities. In such a situation, even a job to your liking will be perceived as an unloved job that violates the marital idyll.
There is only one way out: if the position you hold really brings you joy, you need to explain this to your relatives. Looking for another job to please the selfishness of loved ones is a crime against yourself, a betrayal of your interests.
- Banal fatigue
If, when you wake up to the alarm, you feel like you are in intensive care, then your strength is running out. Is unloved work to blame for this? Not always: this happens when a person in the service takes on an overwhelming burden of problems. Due to an exhausting work schedule, even a night's rest does not restore the body's energy resources.
The situation will be changed by the rational organization of working time. It involves the distribution of cases according to their priority and urgency. The most important ones are worth taking on yourself, and the rest can be shared with trusted colleagues. Such a reasonable approach is the best prevention of overwork at work.
- Damaged relationships with colleagues/boss
Disadvantage 3 - Waste of energy
At first glance, sitting in one place in front of the monitor does not mean unloading cars. This is true! Sitting in an office is even in some respects worse for energy expenditure and health than physical work in the fresh air. The fatigue that appears as a result of prolonged monotonous work in front of a monitor is not at all similar to the fatigue resulting from physical labor. It's more like a kind of nervous fatigue.
If you put a person in a stuffy, unventilated room full of people and show some numbers on the monitor without interruption, he will get tired within a few hours, even if he does nothing. Physical fatigue, moderate forms of which are even pleasant and useful, is caused by muscle work. And nervous tension is provoked by stress, continuous impact on the senses, internal experiences, and distractions. And this is not at all useful. To feel this tension fully, you don’t even have to do anything.
Moreover, the latter type of fatigue is well neutralized by the former. After a hard day at the office, I happily went for a run, as it perfectly relieved the feeling of heaviness in my head and tension in my eyes caused by fatigue. It was nice to be “physically” tired!
But it's not just the fact that there is less energy available. The question is what is it spent on!
Actually, not much effort is spent on the work itself. A lot is spent on subway trips or waiting in traffic jams. Noise, lack of personal space, and little movement contribute to rapid fatigue. Even if you take the work itself. What kind of work do they spend their energy doing?
How do you know that your personality has become part of your career?
Answer the questions.
- How much do you think about your work outside of the office?
- Do you find it difficult to communicate with people who are not related to your work?
- How do you describe yourself?
- How much of this description relates to the job, position or company?
- Are there other ways you would describe yourself?
- How quickly do you tell new acquaintances about your work?
- Where do you spend most of your time?
- Has anyone complained that you spend too much time working?
- Do you have hobbies outside of work that are not related to your professional skills and abilities?
- Can you learn other skills?
- How would you feel if you could no longer be in this position?
- How sad does this make you?
If these questions have you feeling anxious and work is increasingly consuming your personality, there are ways to change the situation.
Reduce speed
If life becomes not a joy, you should clearly decide for yourself: is it worth it to have health problems in the near future? If you are at the finish line and need to endure just a little (until the end of the project/promotion, etc.) in order to minimize losses, you need to take control of stress. Rinat Shamilevich suggests doing this with the help of simple exercises: “When working very intensively, which in itself is a source of professional stress, we can recommend using simple techniques that will help, if not avoid stress, then at least reduce the degree of its destructive effect on the body .
- Take ten-minute breaks every 40 minutes, don't let work control you. These “smoke breaks” (smoking is harmful!) will allow you to work more productively in the remaining time. You need to rest until the first signs of fatigue appear.
- Shift your gaze away from the computer screen into the green (if there is greenery in front of the window) - this is good for your eyes.
- Plan your working time, distribute the workload, delegate authority if possible.
- If you see that you have more responsibilities than you can handle without compromising your health and business, then going to your boss is simply necessary. The main thing is that it does not look like a complaint or a claim. This should be a reasoned, constructive approach with motivation about the possible and serious harm to the common cause if you leave the race ahead of time, and about the great benefit for the company if you continue to work in a slightly smaller volume, but with higher quality performance, according to Lenin’s thesis “Less is better!”
- If possible, lead a healthy lifestyle: go out into nature and breathe fresh air, be physically active, and relax with special exercises.
There are no magical techniques that can instantly return a person to an active life, as well as a conditional “reset” button to reboot the brain. There are programs that do this professionally and efficiently, using the most modern and highly scientific methods. Listen to your body, be attentive to yourself, and the results will not take long to arrive! After all, the consequences of stressful destruction can completely deprive you of your favorite job, and not only that..."
