On being behind, and never enough

Boredom, burnout and finding the ideal career/life

It’s 11.56 am on a Thursday and I’m tired. A sudden wave of panic is giving me nausea. There are half a dozen emails on important projects in my inbox that I need to reply to. But right now, I just can’t.

This morning I woke up at 2.30 am, an hour ahead of the alarm. I don’t usually have to get up at 3.30 am but did today to take my son to the airport for a school trip.

Sometimes I envy people who can sleep through deadlines and be late for work. People who don’t wake up at 1.30 am, wide awake with cortisol instantly coursing through every fibre of their being thinking about the next day’s unachievable to-do list.

I have a stack of new books that is growing almost daily that I desperately want to read. And at least the same number of webinars and courses I’ve signed up for that I want to begin.

The heavy silence in my house is not peaceful. It’s making me more anxious. I can’t just sit here and relax after no sleep and a very trying week. No matter how much I get done, the voice never goes away. It’s not as good as it should be. I’m behind. I should be somewhere else in my career/life by now.

My to-do list harasses me constantly. Though it’s out of sight, in a closed notepad, it might as well be a chip in my brain.

And I know I’m not alone.

For many people, the pandemic changed our definitions of success and our ambitions at work. For a lot of us, suddenly, life was no longer about racing to the top of the corporate ladder. Because, then what?

The pie expanded. It’s not the salary and job title taking up most of the space anymore. The other wedges of the pie, always there and shouting for attention, finally got a look in.

In fact, a new study in one of the world’s leading psychology journals showed that a key contributor to the Great Resignation was COVID-19 driven death anxiety. Faced with the confronting prospect of no longer being around, employees resigned to seek more meaningful work that provided a sense of greater significance.

In my research, I talk to hundreds of people every year who are in a job they don’t love, and also don’t know what else they might do. After investing years studying and following the yellow brick road to career or business “success”, an alarming number of people feel underwhelmed.

Why do so many of us feel behind and that we haven’t figured out our careers or lives (no matter how long our lists of things we have actually done)?

And what do we do about it?

There are thousands of books on finding our purpose and planning out the ideal career and business. I never resonated with any of the prescriptions of what I should do.

My entire career has been driven by a trait that I was made to feel bad about as a child. I get bored easily.

This, we are told by life-hacking, hustle culture experts is terrible.

If we aren’t filling our days from the minute we get up (at 4 am to partake in some punishing physical routine) until we review our completed tasks/habits/routines/achievements in the latest productivity app before we go to bed, we are somehow inadequate.

The world might be bereft of the work of choreographer George Balanchine if he had taken on the optimization mantra and outsourced the seemingly wasteful task of ironing. Balanchine found he did his best work while ironing in the morning. Any of us who find pleasure or inspiration in small details or “time-wasting” tasks can breathe a sigh of relief.

Getting bored pushed me to take leaps and try new things in my career, to explore possibilities that I might not otherwise have done.

“You have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story.” – Neil Gaiman

In fact, research has shown that boredom is actually very important for creativity. It’s not the boredom itself, but the gap it creates that pushes our brains to explore a new creative urge, what matters to us, and what we are passionate about.

Many change initiatives and attempts to figure out the ideal career/life fail because we attempt to solve the presenting problem instead of the actual problem. To unearth the real issue, we need to spend time in the space between what we think we know and what we think the problem is, and the end point we think we need to get to. The destination that we assume will solve the problem.

Change, at its simplest, is about getting from here to there. Too often, however, we fill out a Gantt chart with neatly planned steps or we define the end goal without taking the time to explore and appreciate the value of the liminal state.

Liminality is a state of transition, or being in between something. A liminal state can be physical, emotional, or metaphorical. It originates from the Latin limen – a threshold – any point of entering or beginning. Doorways, lobbies, hallways, and airports are examples of physical liminal spaces. Such physical spaces give us different perspectives.

In an airport, among the painful delays, security lines and fast-food outlets lurks a primal thrill. One might go anywhere.

The space is the threshold of journeying to somewhere new. The liminal space of travel is physical as well as metaphorical. When we travel, it’s common to unearth a new version of ourselves, new likes, hopes, and dreams.

When we approach change in this way and appreciate the significance of getting from here to there, we enter the mode of discovery instead of doing things the way we’ve always done them. And instead of seeing things from only one perspective.

Change doesn’t come easily in ourselves or in organizations.

Liminal thinking is uncomfortable. It requires us to question what we think we know, to slow down, to wait for the information to emerge, and for the actual issue to become clear. Noticing how difficult this is to do is a great starting point.

What beliefs do we hold about what is necessary to be successful?

Just putting ourselves into liminal spaces can shift the dynamic. Hold a walking meeting. Choose new spaces, places, and experiences where we can’t help to notice and see things in a different way.

One of my favourite quotes is Tolkien’s missive that “not all who wander are lost”.

Perception is not reality. The map is not the territory. What do you have assumptions about in your career and life that aren’t true?

If they haven’t worked so far, try putting down the career/life prescriptions, and let boredom open up new adventures.

I’d love to hear your experiences with this in the comments.

The quarterly issue of Revista is out now - a themed guide to reimagining business and life here https://www.libbysander.com/revista