https://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/job-skills/workaholic
Let me be clear from the beginning – this post does
not contain a definite respond to the question in its title. And neither is
helpful any search in 'career advice/inspiration/I’ll-tell-you-how-to-live-your-life’
literature. There is a more or less equal number of articles providing practical
ways of “how
to stop taking your job personally” and explaining ”why
‘don’t take it personally’ is terrible work advice”. One side references
all the burn-out and over-stressed consequences, together with inability to
separate your work-self from your-self. The other side responds with million
examples of successful people who stayed focused, creative and full of ideas
because they were personally and emotionally invested in their work.
Indeed, the more I think of it, the more paradoxical
it sounds. It is quite difficult to imagine how someone can quickly and
successfully progress in a career without being highly motivated to do his/her
job, looking for more tasks than required, or spending more time than required trying
to come up with innovative and creative solutions. Does a worker who shuts
his/her computer down exactly at 5 pm and does not even think about his/her
work until the next day 9 am (hello, the perfect ‘work-life’ balance!) get a significant career success?
On the other hand, ‘my job is my life’ actually works well
only in the circumstances of the private businesses or small start-ups with a
high degree of flexibility and freedom where the aforementioned innovative and
creative solutions are welcomed. It does not work so perfectly when a worker is
a small pawn in the company with many more managers/bosses above him/her who do
not share his/her creative or innovative views and who prefer him/her to simply
follow the long-established rules and do what he/she is asked to do. It does
not work so well in - let’s be honest – most of public companies/organisations where
a ‘personally invested’ worker gets frustrated and tired of banging his/her
head against a brick wall and yields to ‘it’s just a job that brings me money
and social security’ mantra.
Among many articles and books advising either one
or another and not solving the paradox, I have found only one that actually seemed to come up with a compromise. The author points out that the
key to career success is not how personally invested a worker is in his/her
job: it is worker’s self-determination. It means that regardless if what job position
it is and what type of company, a worker him/herself decides what to take from
it and where to go with what he/she takes:
Career
self-determination doesn't require you to start your own business. My friend
Mike has been insanely successful in his career working for well-known
employers. What makes Mike successful is that he decides what he wants to do
next rather than letting the job ads or inertia decide for him. When one job
has given Mike all it's got to give, he moves on. He doesn't really care what
his boss thinks about his performance. He cares what impact he's making at work
-- impact that he can talk about later, with other employers, when it's time to
move on! […]
Mike
is self-employed in his own mind, although he works for other people. He loves
his career, has plenty of time off, gets paid very well and best of all, is
healthy and happy. Mike is not a suck-up or someone who needs to get external
approval to feel good about himself. He simply knows what kinds of Business
Pain he solves for employers, and that knowledge makes him very valuable as
well as content in his own skin.
Liz Ryan Hard Work Won't Make You Successful -- But Doing This Will, Forbes
I guess the solution proposed here is this: in order
to succeed in career, it is not necessary to take one’s own job personally, but
it is essential to be personally and emotionally invested in one’s own career plan
and vision. In short, the personal career plan is the determining factor of
deciding where and how much to invest personally in the current job tasks. And
if one or another job task doesn’t contribute to the career plan, why take it personally?
Useful (and not so much) resources: Duncan Coombe “Don’t
Take It Personally” Is Terrible Work Advice, Harvard Business Review; How
Liking Your Job Will Help You Succeed, University of Southern California,
Online Master of Science in Applied Psychology; John Rampton 15
Behaviors Blocking Your Success; John Fawkes 10
things you must stop doing if you want to be successful, Medium; Becky
Hagle 5 Things That
Happen When You Take Your Job Too Seriously, Odyssey; Liz Ryan Hard
Work Won't Make You Successful -- But Doing This Will, Forbes.
