Compassion is commendable. It's a value you have practiced all your 50+ years. You have been praised for it. Now, your neighbor just had been laid off. You feel bad for her and ask what you can do to help out. You also experience a wave of sadness for the 28,000 who are losing their jobs at Disney and the 8,000 at Shell.
Over-identification with the challenge the current unemployed are facing, though, is not praiseworthy. They are jobless. You are not. If you can't embrace that difference you may not have developed your boundaries or sense of yourself.
As a result you might looping around and around in sets of emotions which wear you out. And that in itself can block your ability to give your career your all. For example, your boss misses out on a promotion. You over-empathize. Your administrative assistant, who didn't have the opportunity to do college when youth usually does, Zooms towards his degree at night. You experience guilt that you were more fortunate. By 10 A.M. in the workday, you're already exhausted.
No career coach such as myself should play Sigmund Freud. Had I been a psychologist I would be licensed to speculate why you don't have a solid fix on where you begin and end and where the world operates outside you. That's the development task newborns have to master. You may have missed out on that one.
Instead, I provide exit ramps out of that emotional and social entanglement. Here are 4.
- Accept the reality that life, as the saying goes, is an existential tragedy. There is much suffering, including what's perceived as unfairness. You can help relieve the pain for others. But you are not able to restructure how life operates. That is, unless you are a magical creature in one of those Disney movies before COVID-19.
- The answers are within each of us. Those include your neighbor who lost her job and the boss who strived so diligently to get ahead. It's up to them to figure out their Next. Not you. If you assume that's your role you can be downright intrusive. And annoying.
- Shift your focus to your own goals. Without all that noise going on in your head you might become much more successful. Even in the worst of economic times, human beings can achieve amazing things. During The Great Depression, my immigrant family built up a series of small businesses throughout Jersey City, New Jersey. At age 55, they were able to retire to the Jersey Shore.
- Stop being surprised when your own professional world unravels. Unlike what Mr. Rogers told us, no, we are not special. Bad things happen to us too in our lives. No human being is immune. American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron hammers: Lean into the pain, not attempt to flee it through self-destructive tactics such as rage or addiction.
Once you have created solid boundaries, you'll discover it easier to navigate life as it is. Stress will fall away. Inner peace will be the norm.
Small changes can have big impacts. Results-driven career coaching. Affordable rates (sliding scale). Make an appointment for complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com).
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