By Dr. Daneen Skube
Tribune Content Agency
Q. I’ve been dedicated and a workaholic regarding my job goals since I was a teenager. I went to graduate school, got a solid internship and have been climbing the food chain in my industry. The problem is, I’m in my mid-40s now and wondering what’s wrong with me. Lately, I procrastinate, daydream and don’t have the same fire to be productive. Am I losing my edge?
A. You’re not losing your edge. You’re most likely hitting the normal challenge as we age to stop working harder and start working smarter.
When we’re 20-something and have more energy than wisdom, we can afford to throw ourselves into working 7 days a week. However, nature has ways of getting us to wise up, and burn out is one of the best wake up calls.
Clients have told me they’ve started daydreaming about vacations, making tropical settings their screen savers, and found themselves staring at their office walls. They complain that they feel their “get up and go” definitely “got up and went.”
Somewhere in our 40s, our bodies and psyches try to switch gas tanks from a source of raw animal energy to one of strategy and life balance. The t-shirts for mature adults that trumpet, “Old age and treachery will always win over youth and enthusiasm,” are trying to hint at this important change during maturity.
The very young can run around like chickens attempting to make one thing happen. The more mature have to sit back, wisely evaluate the problem, and do the one thing that will work.
Many of my clients nearly panic when they feel their youthful energy going south. They fear they’ll lose their reputations, their promotions, and their jobs. In reality, if they calm down and get strategic, they’re delighted to learn that the only thing they lose is their burn out.
People in their 40s and up just aren’t physically able to be workaholics without high health and personal price tags. The loss of your marriage, or watching your kids grow up, or your health is just not necessary if you’re willing to become wiser at work.
Rather than waiting for nature to hand you an ultimatum to become strategic by getting sick, see the writing on the wall and change now. Take more time before you jump into action on problem solving. Dig until you find the root of a problem and address that one issue rather than running around fixing symptoms.
You also need to learn the important art of disappointing people and saying, “No.” Co-workers will survive you doing less than they feel entitled to, but you may not survive trying to do everything everyone around you would prefer.
When you say, “No,” don’t defend, explain, or justify yourself. Remember, the word “No,” is a complete sentence. When talking to the truly entitled, simply state, “You deserve someone who could give their full attention to this task and I’m not in that position right now.”
At 40, if you keep pushing yourself beyond your natural limits, you’ll most likely have a health crisis rather than a career breakthrough. If you end up suffering with a severe health challenge, believe me, you’ll be forced to work smarter.
When you first apply strategy rather than raw energy, you’ll think you’re cheating. Yes, people younger than you or your age and foolish will keep running around like chickens. You, on the other hand, will sit back, see the one lever to push to get results, push that lever, and go have dinner with your family.
The last word(s)
Q. Is there some reason people in my workplace keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, while vigorously blaming others?
A. Yes, repeating familiar patterns that never work while blaming others for the outcome is emotionally easier than change and accountability!
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.
(c) 2015 INTERPERSONAL EDGE
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
This column was printed in the May 3, 2015 – May 16, 2015 edition.
