“I’m super excited for school to start!” said my kids never. In reality, they are excited for high school…to play soccer and see their friends. It’s all the getting up early and going to class parts that they’re not such big fans of. Learning is, of course, super important. However, I’ve found that the best learning doesn’t take place in a classroom (please don’t tell my kids). The most impactful kind of learning happens when we venture out into the world. When we try new things and figure stuff out for ourselves. And, most especially, when we fail in those endeavors, learn something and try again. Along this line of thinking, and, upon reflection, I think there are some lessons my kids might learn from things I failed at during my career.
I’ve previously written about lessons I learned about being successful at work and about what I consider to be management best practices. I certainly wasn’t able to apply these lessons and principles every day. Sometimes things got crazy, and the reptilian portion of my brain would take over as a survival mechanism. Maybe that reptilian version of me came out of the cave more often than I care to admit. Why though?
Applying a little root cause analysis to this question, I come up with three important things I failed at while I was working. Yes, self-reflection can be a bit scary. But, perhaps just as a post-mortem is useful as a learning tool for all but that one person, this assessment may be as well. And yes, that’s a bit grim. In truth, I don’t intend to repeat these mistakes again should I find myself in a new, highly consuming career. So at least there’s that bit of good news.
3 Things I failed at During My Career
- Allowed my physical well-being to take a backseat
- Stressed over too many things
- Didn’t seek out help
1. Allowed my physical well-being to take a backseat
There was a time during my career when I failed so badly at taking care of myself that I started to experience pain in my right wrist and elbow from too much mousing. It wasn’t as if I was walking, biking or working out (I was quite literally doing none of those things). My physical goals had been boiled down to simply not mousing and typing myself into oblivion; and I wasn’t even doing that. I eventually got that part of my work life back under control, but trust me, it was the bare minimum I should have been doing.
A couple of my non-work friends once asked me why I wasn’t obese given my lifestyle. “Stress diet” was my answer. More on that in the next failure but they asked a reasonable question. Between the sizable amount of time spent at work and the precious little time with my family, I failed to properly prioritize my own physical well-being. Or, for long stretches of time, prioritize it at all. I was super active in college, playing tennis or basketball or both daily. My inactivity became the frog in the pot that I allowed to boil alive as work kept progressively turning the heat up.
I finally began to block my calendar off for thirty-minute walks during the final four or five years of my career. However, these walks were the first thing to be deprioritized during crunch time. Forming habits, as I wrote in another post, is the only way I’ve found that I can make real change stick. Scheduling a “walking meeting” was at least a start to better health. It just wasn’t a step (pun intended) far enough.
Habitual Walking
I used to scoff at people (including my wife) who wore a Fitbit watch. Walking around all the time trying to get to 10,000 steps. It just seemed like craziness. Now in retirement I regularly time the three mile walks we take nearly every day, trying to beat our best pace (15’46”/mile in case you’re wondering). Tracking steps or miles or pace on my smartwatch helps keep my walking habit on track. As is the case more often than not, my wife was right (sorry babe).
Of the things I failed at during my career, this one almost certainly contributed to the next two failures.
2. Stressed over too many things
The “stress diet” I mentioned above was simply times when I’d hardly eat because work stress had my guts tied up in knots. It’s not as healthy as it sounds. 😉 One morning I went to the on-site medical center because I was feeling dizzy, and my heart was racing. I didn’t want to use the “Attack” word but I was quite concerned. The on-duty RN asked me what I had for breakfast. “48 ounces of coffee and a Sudafed”, I replied. “Well….that was dumb”, she advised.
There is goal pressure and some amount of stress involved in most jobs. Unfortunately, I too often allowed more than a little stress to creep into my workdays and affect my approach to the day. Foregoing eating was just one symptom of such a day. Poor sleep was another outcome on days when I stressed over work. At night, I’d replay conversations, emails, and meetings. Predictably, none of the past events I fretted over ever changed.
Feeling some goal pressure can be positive. It can focus the mind and quicken the pace so that we “hit it out of the park” on the most important aspects of our work. Trying to hit everything out of the park and perfectly satisfy all the daily demands we face is just not possible. Just the pursuit of doing so can actually be destructive. It was for me when I allowed the stress to mount across too many things.
No doubt the stress I experienced resulted in poor sleep and inconsistent nutrition. It also ultimately led to feeling burned out and depressed. My mindset was to keep powering through those feelings. Which brings me to the third thing I failed at during my career.
3. Didn’t seek out help
Little physical activity, constant stress, poor sleep, and bad eating habits sounds like a recipe for burnout. For much of my career, I was slow cooking a thick pot of burnout. The thing about burnout is that not only does it bring about overreacting and negativity, but it can also physically change the brain. Fortunately, it seems burnout-driven changes to the brain can be reversed through engaging in hands-on activities like cooking and gardening. Cognitive behavioral therapy also seems be a real help for the burned-out mind.
I didn’t seek out help to address the challenges I was facing during my career. This was a mistake and certainly sealed my fate as far as burn-out was concerned. The stigma surrounding mental health has decreased in recent years. However, a relatively small percentage of men make use of mental health services. It’s something I wish I did while I was working.
My plan was to retire by the time I reached 50 and things worked out that way in the end. However, I have a feeling that I may have wanted to work past this age had I sought help at various points during my career. Without this help, changes to my brain caused by burnout and the oddness of working from home during a pandemic pretty much ensured I didn’t want to continue working. Better coping methods gained from cognitive behavioral therapy might have at least made it a more open ended decision.
Avoid the Failures, Avoid the Reptile
These failures probably seem like “life failures” rather than “work/career failures”. For me, it’s always been hard to separate the two aspects of my life. I believe that had I avoided these failures during my career, the reptile inside would have gone into hibernation, only occasionally making an appearance. I feel I would have been a more present husband and patient father. I would have been a more complete leader and attentive manager. I know there are other things I failed at during my career, these just seem to have had the biggest impact in my life.
They say hindsight is 20/20. I’m not going to replay my career (thankfully) but perhaps others can avoid these failures with the benefit of my hindsight. Afterall, failing has to be good for something, right?
Written by: A. Reed Reviewed by: B. Holman
Itís nearly impossible to find well-informed people for this topic, but you seem like you know what youíre talking about! Thanks