Do you come home emotionally exhausted from your work 3-4 times each week? Maybe there are large parts of your job that don’t fit you.
We all have a personality that we were mostly born with, and it doesn’t change much through our lives. Sometimes we have jobs that energize us, because they use our talents well. Most of the time, we have a job because it was there, and we were happy to get anything.
Okay, that may be something of an exaggeration. Let’s look at an example. If you are a leader now, remember one of your first jobs. Mine was typing the item prices and the extended costs for the items on 50 -100 invoices each day through 7 copies on an IBM Selectric. If I made an error, I had to use white-out to cover the error on each copy, then retype the number. It was mind-numbingly dull, but it paid my expenses at college. It also reinforced WHY I was going to college. There were 2 women who did this work every day and had been doing it for over 10 years. This was their regular job. And, they seemed basically okay with it. It fit their personality.
I came back to that family business several years later, with an MBA and a short career path to the Presidency. Then, my daily tasks matched my interests and abilities. I loved coming up with new products, and solving complicated problems that dealt with people. I still had days when I was emotionally exhausted because what I needed to do as the President was not always my best suit. Like you, I did whatever it took. The work that required hours of detailed review left me emotionally exhausted. Not because the work was hard. Because it was not my strong suit.
Next week we will talk more about why we get exhausted with parts of our jobs, and what to do about it.