How to See Behind What You're Experiencing at Work

Aug 6, 2024

As a professional certified coach specializing in helping leaders avoid burnout, the questions I get asked most often start with “HOW”, like:

• How do I know whether I need to leave my job?
• How can I tell if work is what's making me feel [fill in the blank here with all kinds of words like "tired," "irritated," "frustrated," etc.]?

“What am I going to do?” only has one answer. "How can I figure out what I am going to do?" has endless possibilities!

I love these questions because “how" questions are chock full of possibility. 

They are about process and assume nothing about the outcome (which is great because when you’re feeling at the end of your rope, the outcome can seem fuzzy at best and downright terrifying at worst).

“How" questions focus on the steps you can take to get to a different place.

Something To Try

If you’ve got “how" questions related to changing up your relationship with work, you are not alone. Our relationships with work can be layered, complex and contradictory.

• How do you reconcile when you want something else but there are also good things about where you are?
• How do you balance the fact that your role is not a good fit with the fear that making a change would be abandoning your colleagues or somehow feel like failure?

The first step to seeing your situation more clearly is to start noticing. Here's something you can try... 

At regular points, ask yourself:

• What is happening in this exact moment?
• What thoughts do I have about what is going on?
• What emotions am I having?
• How does my body feel?

Try this exercise for a couple of weeks. Set an alarm if you need to be reminded to stop and notice. Write down what you notice and then take a look and see what you see.

• What types of situations are connected to what types of thoughts/feelings/sensations?
• How often do these situations occur?
• What are the circumstances that are typically part of these situations (ie, who is involved, what is the topic/environment/time of week or day)?

Voila! Now you've got an indication of what might be behind what you are experiencing. This is an important step towards identifying the right fixes. After all, you can't fix what you don't understand.