Let me tell you a story.
Look – I never was a slacker. I was always ambitious and strived to perform at my highest level, from writing great homework and getting good grades at school to going the extra mile at work. Doing my best at whatever I was doing. In the past, more often than not, it cost me. It became sort of normal to end up sick after every exam or deadline coming up - or just end up feeling sick of it all. Whether at school or in a job, for over a solid decade straight.
Over time, two things became clear.
First of all, not everyone is constantly exhausted or drops almost-dead for a week or two after every peak.
Secondly, there clearly is a way to do it differently, without burning and crashing time and time again.
And that sounds hopeful, doesn’t it?
Let’s take it from the beginning.
About two decades ago, when I was figuring out what to do with my life, I decided to study psychology. I wanted to learn as much as possible about how humans work with the wish to make a positive difference in people’s lives. This desire never left me, and I never regretted the academic route I took – even though (and especially because) making the call to focus on work and social psychology has brought me to starting my professional life in human resources, and to many, many twists and turns further down the line. If you’re curious, you can see my professional history here and find out what experiences it gave me in the ‘about me’ page.
During my university years, I started on the path of working in big multinational companies. But as you likely know, every corporate job has it’s complexities: it’s not only your job description and key responsibilities, but also additional projects on top, bureaucracy, matrix structures, layered hierarchies, policies, procedures, workarounds, urgencies, escalations, politics – and of course, recurring changes impacting all of the above. You can consider yourself successful (and indeed, it often is one of the measures of success at work too) as soon as you manage to learn how to navigate this all. Nevertheless, even as a success in its own right, it rarely makes one truly happy.
And so I kept thinking…
Despite navigating the system for years and becoming a “measurably successful professional” at what I did, I found that I still lacked a sense of true fulfilment. A bit more balance in it all... a bit more joy. I realized that there has to be more to working life than struggling and somehow managing. That it must be possible to find joy and feel comfortable in how we live and work, regardless of the type of job you have or size of the company you work for. That satisfaction at work – and through that, in life - has to be possible, and should not be seen only as a rare, above-the-standard luxury.
Sure, not every job is cut equal in how much seasonality and rest (or lack of) comes with it. But neither is every person cut the same way for how they do their job and tasks. That’s both the difficulty and the beauty of it. You need to – and you can – find your own path. One that builds on your strengths, mirrors your values, and meets your needs. And it’s possible - even when it’s a corporate one.
…and that brings us to today.
More specifically, to where all of this took me until today - towards doing that for myself, and to helping you do that too.
The end.
(Just kidding! This is just the beginning.)