Finding Your Power

I recently started some contract work and I was shocked at how quickly the way I used to work showed back up.

It took a whole 4 days to recondition to corporate life.

On Day 1, I considered skipping my crochet class, which I love and costs money, to work instead.

On Day 2, I was stressed about some pre-planned appointments and how I'd still get my hours in.

On Day 3, I ate lunch at my desk while working.

On Day 4, I noticed I was ignoring my body's signals that I needed a break.

4 DAYS! 4 days is all it took to get sucked back into self-abandonment.

It may be hard to hear me call what I just described as self-abandonment. But that's what it is.

And I know why it happens. We don't think we can choose something else. The pressure to work is too great. It's really hard to hold boundaries in the face of expectations that are fit for machines and not humans.

But what I know to be true is that we all have more power than we think we do.

Yes, the culture of work, and even "bad" managers, can add to the pressures. But we...I...also choose to prioritize work over ourselves. That's MY choice, regardless of all of the stories I tell myself that support the idea that I have no other choice.

We get to choose the kind of experience we want to have at work. There are all kinds of things that are out of our control, but we also have a habit of ceding our power to the corporate structure.

No one told me not to take a lunch break. No one told me to skip my class. No one told me to keep working when I felt sick from sitting at my desk all day.

I did that to myself.

And it makes me think of how common this is for many of us. It's easy to pin the blame on things we can't control. The question is... how are our own choices contributing to stress, burnout, and a lack of wellbeing?

Today I'm gonna choose me. And I encourage you to choose you.

In solidarity,

Jill