How to navigate the first few years in the workforce, and maintain wellbeing!

Growing up, you are often conditioned to be risk averse. Follow the rules, listen to authorities, raise your hand to speak, do your homework, get good grades, always say yes to extra credit, and do as you are told is often the recipe to “success” and staying out of trouble. Your entire value in the schooling system is attached to your grades and extracurriculars. This way of thinking tends to rule our lives up until entering the workforce.

Some workplaces do still follow this mentality, where the reward system heavily relies on doing as you are told and executing work on time. However, many (corporate) workplaces completely flip your world upside down where you have to completely uncondition decades of learned behavior in order to survive.

The reward system may now be based on playing a game, where there are no rules. Kudos is given for disagreeing with others, saying no, proposing new ideas, being favored by the right people, and pointing out errors in a relied upon system. There is no teacher with a standard rubric for grading your work, and instead a group of people with all types of personalities and working styles that you have to foster a working relationship with.

Navigating workplace politics may become a part of your day-to-day. Favoritism, sexism, racism, and ageism are all at play with systemic issues in the workplace that continue to manifest over time (though some improvements have been made in the past couple of years) — but it becomes your job to overcome it if you want to “succeed”. Documenting all work and conversations become a necessity in order to defend yourself if anyone decides to question your work or retaliate against you.

Reporting incidents to HR shifts from something laughed about in TV shows and skits to becoming a very real part of the experience — but you must remember the power that some people hold and how they may be protected despite any strong evidence against them. Leaders may lash out at you and forget that it happened within hours, while you receive it as a traumatic event with each following day flooded with anxious thoughts of job security. Mental health is communicated as important, yet any issues that interfere with your work may cost you.

Burnout is a very real part of the experience, and you may think “This will never happen to me, I have been grinding for decades in school”. But it does happen, and to the best of us. Your disregulated nervous system becomes trapped in a constant state of fight-or-flight for years, which will eventually take a heavy toll on your mental and physical health whether you anticipate it or not. Thousands of dollars may be spent on therapy, medication, and doctor’s visits for several years to come, just to undo the lasting effects that a couple years in a workplace had on you.

Now, these are all very harsh truths and I fired them one after another — but I prefer to help others learn as early as possible how to navigate them before it is too late. And these opinions are not just based on my own experiences, but also from friends, peers, and articles in the media reflecting on all types of jobs and companies — it tends to be a collective experience (though I can only speak for myself). Some people absolutely love their workplace experience (as we all hope for), but that is not to say that these systems are not present.

Saying no, setting boundaries, prioritizing life outside of work, and taking extra measures to maintain health is absolutely mandatory. You have to shift your mentality that your job, title, and company do not define you; your self worth cannot be solely attached to your performance at work or others’ opinions of you. Given the opportunity, find things outside of work that spark passion and creativity within you — even if it’s just for a few minutes a day.

For my fellow stubborn people who still don’t believe burnout could happen to you — my advice is to prove me wrong and grind as hard and fast as you can. I myself chose to ignore repeated warnings from peers and leaders that I would burnout, and lo and behold — I’m still actively healing my nervous system. My hypothesis is that if anything were to manifest mentally and physically — the wake up call would happen earlier rather than later (which is the best possible outcome).

Perfectionists and people pleasers may have the worst trouble with entering the workplace, as they have spent their whole lives rewarded for “perfect” behavior and are now suddenly being criticized for that same behavior. Corporate workplaces do a really good job of highlighting how no one is perfect — which can really take a mental toll on anyone not used to failure.

The silver lining to all of this is that you learn conviction, and how to walk away from something no longer serving you. You learn to stop fighting the constant battle of trying to “win” people over — your well being is most important. If your current role is making you absolutely miserable, you can give yourself permission to release any expectations of workplace norms and find something new (even if it’s only been a couple days or months).

As far as being interested in playing a positive role in fighting systemic issues in the workplace — this I can comment on but cannot give advice on as everyone has to form opinions on their own. For me, making it a domain I worked in only caused me to become more frustrated. I feel a better impact when I am involved in a mission outside of work or as part of a work community.

I also used to think it was my job to choose domains that had a reputation of being the hardest to work in, only to realize that some leaders’ priorities were not in alignment with mine. Rather than going in areas where it is the hardest to make change, I now sway towards going in areas where change may be the most receptive. But again, to each their own and I acknowledge that positive change comes in all shapes and sizes.

For anyone struggling in their first few years in the workforce, know that you are never alone and many people have a hard transition. So many things are not taught beforehand, so though you may feel like something is wrong with you — you are most likely having a very normal reaction to a brand new environment. Spend some time to pause and reflect on your own experience! See if any tweaks can be made in your routine, working style, or priorities in order to maintain wellbeing and help you feel the most fulfilled in your job. Put yourself first, always!

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