Work Hard, Relax Hard

Let’s face it, a lot of us have demanding jobs that require lots of work. Be it physical or mental, work can be a long string of accomplishments or a long string of disappointments. Loving your job and work is not required, but doing it the best you can should be.

Secretly, in places we don’t like to discuss, we all FEAR failure. Failure to complete a task, failure in a peer’s or superior’s eyes, or just a fear that you won’t be able to accomplish what you know you can. Before this gets too preachy, let’s examine a few things.

In our example, you love your job. You love the people you work with, but you hate the WORK. Those mundane, repetitive tasks that make you cringe, or that you leave until the deadline to do. These things cause you stress, but your coworkers help out and the job gets done. Most people have some degree of this in their jobs, and it’s OK! You don’t have to like every single thing you have to do, but you do have the responsibility to make sure it gets done. And being the generally good person you are, you try to do it the best you can. The best advice to decrease that stress is to get so good at these tasks, that you’re doing them on autopilot. You make checklists to burn through these tasks quickly, ensuring no mistakes. A bit of time management and planning can virtually eliminate this stress.

Another example is the difference between administrative things that must be done that really have no relationship to your job. Things like performance evaluations or required training. These examples are present in almost EVERY job. From being a fry cook (not that it’s a bad job, I could never be one, or I’d eat all the profits) to being a CEO, sometimes there are things all employees must do. You can plan ahead on some of these too. Keeping a record of accomplishments throughout the year makes eval time a breeze.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have to bring work home with you, you still need to find time to relax. If you are on-call, you still need to find at least an hour a day to disconnect (and no, sleeping doesn’t count) and do what makes you feel happy. Sit down and talk to your spouse, read a book, take a long shower. Whatever it is that helps you flush all the negativity you collected during the day should be able to be cleansed every day. Built up negativity leads to a poor attitude at work, and remember, you’re a generally good person, you don’t want that.

If you don’t de-stress each day, that built up frustration, anger, and negativity is going to explode forth in a flurry of hurt. Whether it explodes at work in front of coworkers, or at home to your spouse, you can be sure the outcome will not be pleasant.

Don’t discount that your coworkers may have these same stresses, and that a bit of communication between the team can help to relieve stress, as well as perhaps find solutions to shared problems. Communication in work relationships is as important as at home. If no one is talking, there’s nothing to listen to.

The moral of the story is that yes, work is stressful. You can help make it better for you, your spouse, and your coworkers by taking action.