📝 Practice: Rediscover your expansive self

An exercise to diversify which parts of your life give you satisfaction, success and structure.

I grew up in the 80s, right before parents really got the hang of funneling children through childhood in pursuit of the perfect college resume. I had some tutoring and test prep, but for the most part, I spent my free time doing stuff for fun: art and dance classes, trips to the mall with my friends — a brief and unfortunate stint with the clarinet. I worked hard to get good grades, but academic achievement was just one part of my life. It was the years after school when I began to slough off any interest that didn’t further my career.

In my research, I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what drives us to put work above all else — growing up poor, feeling like it mattered to our parents, because it was the “right” thing to do. For some of us, it’s a slow boil at the hands of culture and insecurity. For others, there’s never been another way.

No matter how you get there, getting out takes time. The more parts of our lives we put on the back burner the more we rely on our jobs to fill the holes. No time for friends? Make them at work. Can’t make time for your hobbies? Find more ways to express your creativity on the job. Feeling unappreciated by your family? Your boss is a good proxy for approval and you can measure your worth by how much money you earn and how important you feel.

By the time I hit peak girlboss, there was nothing I wasn’t getting from my job. It was my community, my self-expression, my sense of purpose in life. The worst part was that I’d lived that way for so long that I had no idea how to do things differently — my journal entries from those days are littered in fear.

“What else would I even do?”

“If I let go of all this, who will I be then?”

“I’ve worked so hard to get here — I can’t just give it all up now.”

“How would I make enough money?”

“This is just how things ARE. There’s nothing I can do to change it so I’d better suck it up and get with the program.”

I drew a picture in my journal — a sun with a big black ball scribbled over top to blot out the center. This was my life, completely and totally eclipsed by work.

I found a therapist and little by little, I confronted the fear and turned the lights back on in the rooms I’d shuttered. I had to really push myself at first, but once I got going it sort of had its own momentum. The more time I spent not thinking about work, the less pressure I felt about it. The less pressure I felt, the more I was able to really experience and enjoy my life.

The first thing I noticed was that I just started to take more breaks during the day. A month in, I realized I’d been falling asleep without cycling through my to-do list for an hour — but the big win showed up one night when I was putting Oscar to bed. Instead of laying there waiting for him to fall asleep so I could go do whatever else seemed more important, I was just in the peaceful darkness with this little person I love more than the world with nothing else on my mind.

Practice: Rediscover your expansive self

Below is a list of the most common needs people mention when they tell me what they get out of their job. There’s nothing wrong with getting this stuff at work — the issue is more what happens when your job is the primary (or only) part of your life where you are meeting these needs. Everything gets wonky — too many eggs in one basket. I think figuring this out is what most of us mean when we say we want “balance” — we just want to feel like our whole world isn’t dependent on how things are going at work.

This exercise is designed to help you figure out if things have gotten too lopsided and start to understand why. Once you see what’s driving you to care about your job so much, you can start putting your attention on other parts of your life that can play the same role. It should help make the change less scary and help you stop thinking of your job as the main character so you can put it back where it belongs: in a supporting role.

First: figure out where you are now.  

1. Think about your work — what does it give you? Go through the list above and circle any of the qualities that stand out as a need you meet through your job. Don’t think about it too hard — if it feels like a match, circle it. Add anything else I didn’t include — this list isn’t exhaustive!

2. Take a look at how many of things you circled — is it a lot? A little? How does it make you feel to see it laid out like this? Reflect and make a note.

3. Now let’s rank them a bit. Go through the ones you circled and ask yourself “Do I get this mostly or entirely from work?” Put a star next to those.

4. Take a look again — how many did you star? What do you notice about what you starred? Write it down.

Second: diversify your happiness.

1. Looking at the list of starred qualities, ask yourself “Which of these would I be most upset about losing?” Write it down.  

2. Now ask yourself: “Before I had a job, how did I meet this need?” Write down as many things as you need to. Sometimes it’s helpful to think about how you spent your time as a child. 

3. Are any of those things something you have access to now?

   1. If so, which one feels most appealing?

   2. If not, is there something similar

4. Think of one way you can explore it (or something similar) this week. Write it down.

5. At the end of the week, bring this page up and reflect on how it went!

Connect in the Comments

If you’re up for it, share the need you starred with everyone in the comments — I know this stuff can be a little intimate, but I promise you’re not alone. I talk with people about this every single day and we are all struggling — sharing what you’re experiencing is cathartic and may really help someone else going through the same thing.

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In case you missed it

I organize these posts around a theme, and a good number of you are brand new! Welcome, we are so glad to have you here. You might enjoy catching up with the following posts:

✨ What we lose when all we do is we win

🫀 The underrated power of waiting to see

Easter for the Rest of Us

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