Time to read: One little minute or less
When you are stressed out, stuck, frustrated, maybe even angry, working crazy hours, falling into bed exhausted, feeling unmotivated or just plain burned out, what do you do?
As a first step, assess, what is the structure of your situation?
Within every circumstance, structural issues contribute to the experience you are having. Here is what I mean:
- You operate within a matrixed reporting structure with many leaders giving direction. This creates confusion and makes determining priorities hard if not impossible.
- Your role serves multiple stakeholders who have no visiblity to each other. They all believe they are the only one pulling on your time and talent.
- Your industry has seasonal pushes, like tax time, a semester, or summer programming that pre-determine your annual schedule.
- Your role is global so your colleagues are in Asia which means early morning meetings.
The bad news is that you have little influence over these structural issues. Of course you can advocate for changes, and if you put all your energy into trying to change the macro structures, you will deplete yourself.
The good news is that you have little influence over these structural issues. This means that you DO have agency over how you navigate a tricky structure, how you operate day-to-day, the ways you care for yourself, and frankly to decide if this structure is something you can tolerate, or not.
You always have choices.
It's not the structure that exhausts you. It's fighting the structure that exhausts you. Separate out the structural issues then look for places to claim your agency and power. You will find yourself with more energy and less stress.
I hope this helps!