"We have to let you go..."
We conjoin our personal identity too tightly with our professional one. And, that can be a real problem.
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Key Takeaways
Your life is managed through domains
Domains give your life structure, organization and balance
Overlapping domains create friction increasing stress
Being present doesn’t mean forgoing technology; it means recognizing the domain you’re in and embracing that portion of your life without intrusion
What we do is one of the heaviest parts of our existence.
It’s often the first thing people ask about us and a place our minds drift to. After all, it is the thing that takes up a more than generous portion of our lives.
What we do is also one of the things we are most proud of in our lives.
Why shouldn’t we be?
For many, a tremendous amount of resources have been poured in its pursuit.
But, a profession is nothing more than one of many domains in which we exist.
Our lives are a complex tapestry of many domains each operating within a framework that drives our actions, personalities, and motivations.
At work, we take on one form, at home another, with friends another, and so forth.
In each of those domains, we have attitudes and actions that lead to success for our desired goal.
At home, consistently beating your kids at Mario Kart is an honorable and worthy goal.
At work, putting forth extra effort for a raise or promotion is not an unreasonable goal.
Each domain has within it a unique goal set for you to achieve.
After all, being wonderful at Microsoft Excel may serve you well at work but preparing a delicious chicken alfredo is a more meaningful use of skills at home in that domain.
Securing goals generate incentives to motivate our movement within a given domain. That’s why it’s so important to develop healthy relationships with goals and understand the incentives surrounding that goal.
After all, addiction is nothing more than incentive retrieval and we can be addicted to a lot of things.
So, where exactly is the problem?
The problem is how we prioritize domains and the devotion we set into it.
Time isn’t the problem; triaging our domains so they fit within the constraints of time is.
Issues arise when we spend too much time and resources in one domain to the exclusion of others.
Domain overlap wreaks havoc
Too many domains competing for your time and mental space at one time leads to poor outcomes. The friction between domains eventually generate conflict.
Our finite focus can only be devoted to one domain at a time. Multitasking domains lead to serious burnout and emotional distress.
If you’re at home, it’s best to be at home. We all know that but the phone calls, texts, and emails drag us back into our work domain.
Before we realize it, what started as a brief phone call or “just a few minutes answering a couple of emails” transitions into hours absorbed working when other domains call your attention.
Eventually, though, the cognitive dissonance resolves itself and
SNAP!
Something gives. The weight you’ve shouldered is unburdened and mostly not in a healthy way.
Typically, this is where we see evidence of burnout, anxiety, or flash anger.
“We Have to Let You Go”
One of the best things that happened to me and my family this year was being told "we have to let you go” from a job that I truthfully enjoyed.
My dismissal exposed the boundaries of my life’s many domains and forced a reconciliation.
For me, this came in the form of being dad when it was time to be dad, paramedic when it was time to be a paramedic, and teacher to my now homeschooled kids when it’s time to be a teacher.
I became “more present in the moment” to steal from today’s cliché pop culture mental health ideal.
You may be in a less than ideal position in your life or career. I advise to take an overview of your life and decide which domains are truly important and which ones you can back away from.
