fuel for the burning
Work has been kicking my ass this month.
On one hand, I'm proud of how I've handled all the curveballs and time-pressures. I've been thrown into back-end system implementation of a brand new process, and I've managed to iron out the countless resulting errors efficiently and successfully. I like to think I've proved myself to leadership and more importantly, to myself.
On the other hand, my life lately has felt not much different from a newborn baby's. Eat, shit, sleep, repeat... except replace "shit" with "work".
This busy month of work has revealed a few things to me.
- I have a deep-seated fear of being taken advantage of.
- I have issues with work-related boundaries and pacing myself.
- Stress primarily drives my spells of not taking care of myself properly. (An astute conclusion, I know. Yes, it really took me twenty-nine years to figure that out.)
The Fear of Being Taken Advantage Of
It's a common experience that when budgets are tight and team members leave, the rest of the team tends to absorb extra work without additional compensation.
I began at this company less than a year ago, so I am still feeling out its culture and learning the annual cycle.
Within the past few weeks, the workload and deadlines have exploded. I have had a few ugly anxiety spirals because I am increasingly worried that I will get more and more work handed to me without recognition nor compensation. It's not an unfounded fear, because I've seen it happen to so many others. And it's happened to me at prior workplaces, too.
Of course, it is too early to know what will happen down the line. Perhaps I will be rewarded generously. Or perhaps I won't, and will be forced to assess whether I need to explore other opportunities despite my desire to stay put where I'm at. I somehow have to learn to accept that uncertainty. I still need my paycheck to live, after all. And I do enjoy my job most times.
My short-term "cope" is that this is simply a busy period and it is natural to need to hunker down and put in extra hours right now. It will balance out in the slower months. My industry is highly seasonal, so I'm going to choose to tell myself this for now and see what happens later.
Boundaries at Work
I have a pattern of taking on more and more without being fully cognizant of my own limits. My confidence in my ability to figure shit out is perhaps too sharp at times — I think I can do everything, until I realize that I actually can't. This isn't isolated to work. This is a pattern I have identified in the broader landscape of my life.
Thankfully, I've learned to become more unapologetically vocal with self-advocacy, which feels like a huge superpower. Still, it can be intimidating to speak up at times, especially when dealing with an environment that I'm still getting used to.
Girls are not socialized to be assertive. We are socialized to be agreeable and accommodating, which often feels at odds with how one is expected to behave in a corporate environment. I often feel like I have to go against my "instinct" to get what I need, which feels draining and challenging. I guess my fear of being taken advantage of comes from this too — If I don't behave contrary to how I was socialized, I will be walked on, stepped all over, and tossed aside.
I feel this way in my personal life, too. Being soft is not winning me any points lately. It seems to only yield disrespect from others.
Stress and Self-Care
A new revelation: The times when I've struggled to care for myself properly have been times of acute stress.
When I've struggled to take care of myself properly, I've always self-blamed. "I'm not disciplined enough, smart enough, strong enough"... so pounds gained, sleep deprived, and energy lost, I viewed as my own moral failings.
How did it take me so long to realize this? Well, I think it's because I've rarely seen my stress-states contrasted with any alternatives. It's sad, really, to think how much of my life has been spent in a state of stress.
June and July were eye-opening for me. Work was manageable, I connected with new and old friends, and I felt settled into my new home. As a result, I got my diet under control, got back into lifting several times a week, and was sleeping incredibly well. I still had bad days, but I felt pretty damn good most days. I didn't count calories, I didn't weigh myself, I didn't worry about fixing what was "wrong" with my body or my mind. I practiced accepting myself as I was and caring for myself from a place of love rather than hate. Miraculously, the resulting positive changes to my health habits felt effortless and enjoyable.
Cue: August.
This crazy work month has brought on immense stress. As a result, I've had far less energy to move, to cook, to clean. I lift less frequently — maybe twice a week, if that. I've been ordering takeout more. My apartment is a mess and I'm barely able to keep up with cleaning it. I doomscroll on social media far more because my mental energy is too zapped to do anything more cognitively demanding.
I always thought of mental and physical health as two separate, but related things — improve one, the other improves. I realize now that they are completely holistic and intertwined.
I'm accepting that for now, I will hit a lull in my physical self-care and that's okay. For now, I just need to focus on surviving this crazy work period. Once I make it through that, I am setting my sights on refining my boundaries and stress management strategies, with the greater goal of being able to protect my physical and mental health against inevitable "stress bomb" periods like the one I'm experiencing now.
It won't be perfect, but it just might be good enough.