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Can A Pandemic Help You Reengage With Your Job?
Jodi Wellman
Forbes Coaches Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Jodi Wellman is a Founder at Spectacular at Work, a firm that helps companies be great at people, and people be great at leadership.
May 18, 2020, 07:20am EDT |
I've been waxing metaphoric as of late about how COVID-19 has been a wake-up call for us to start living on purpose. With a stark reminder — of global proportions — that life is short, many of us have been motivated to start participating in life a little differently. For some of us, it means that we're looking at our jobs through a whole new pair of glasses. Once we've figured out how not to fog up said glasses while wearing our masks, we just might have an opportunity to see our relationships with work in a healthier and more productive way.
When 26 million or so people lose their jobs around you, the scarcity heuristic tends to kick in — the belief that rare or temporary things somehow hold greater value. Our jobs become valued to the extent that we recognize their potential to end in an awkward termination-via-Zoom. Many of the same people complaining about their jobs in March are grateful to have a job to complain about today. Six weeks ago, legions of the uninspired and unchallenged at work were trolling Indeed and "considering their options," and some of those same souls are thankful to not have to file for unemployment today. Our jobs are like commodities, totally subject to loss, and we can't deny that we appreciate them more in times when they're likelier to be lost.
Let's be clear here — this conversation is not about being post-pandemically and permanently okay with a lack of inspiration and challenge in a job, just for the sake of cashing a paycheck and having health insurance we hope we won't need to use. This is not about settling in a job truly worth complaining about for anything longer than the short term. I am all about getting out of Dodge if work sucks the soul out of us, as long as we've done the work to fix it (which usually requires fixing ourselves first, as I've written about before) and we know for sure we're running to something instead of from something.
This is about using the threat of not having a job to possibly get reengaged with the one we have. This is about appreciating what our jobs actually have to offer us and what we have to offer our jobs (the classic give/take scenario) in an unusual time that has given us the gift of seeing our work in a new light.
One client said that in the aftermath of his team being let go around him, he appreciated even the mundane aspects of his job and wondered how he let a few silly reports each week bother him so much, especially when he had a great boss and was earning a decent paycheck.
Another client said she felt like the uncertainty in the market motivated her to pick up projects that would help her gain exposure and experience at work. She was confident that she wasn't acting (solely) out of fear but out of a rekindled desire to blast through her disenchantment. She knew she was bored and let herself flounder there, waiting for something to happen. Something did happen, and she's grateful for the jolt to approach her job as though it were new again.
Where might you have an opportunity to breathe new life into your job (assuming you're lucky enough to have one), if it's been a bit oxygen-deprived? Do an honest assessment of whether it's worth salvaging. For some, the pandemic dust will settle and they will need to find greener pastures. For others, it's about seeing your job in a new light — like a rom-com where the girl sees the friend who has been there all along for the catch they've always been. Can you initiate a new project that sparks your personal interests? Can you recraft your job right now to suit your strengths, because the deck is getting shuffled and all the cards are out of order anyway? Can you ask for more responsibility during this time of flux? How about leveraging the lulls, if applicable, and being grateful for the breaks if you can take them? Perhaps building relationships with people in your organization by initiating one-to-one video chats (especially now that you get to peek into what their homes look like)? Can you revisit your accomplishments and notice patterns about when and how you achieved those highlights? Can you use this time to gather feedback about your work and ways you can be even better? Challenge yourself to show up, make an effort, go the extra mile ... all the things you'd be proud to look back on in a post-COVID-19 reality.
Researchers have found that the conscious act of tapping into scarcity can spur us to create meaning. Life is way too short to toil at a dead-end job, yet it's also too short to overlook the possibilities in the work that's right in front of us because maybe we've taken it for granted. Try starting tomorrow like it's your first day on the job, with brand new glasses.
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