One thing I keep forgetting and relearning is how important it is to us that people appreciate our work. The following thing has happened multiple times: to me, my partner, my friends, associates, and people I’ve just observed over the years.
We have violent swings of emotions between being in a titanic pose on the front of a ship and feeling like life doesn’t matter over the course of one to two days or weeks.
And if you look at what changed, it is the perception of your boss and management and your peers of the work that you are doing.
So if you come up with a new idea or initiate a new project, all of management and your peers are like,
Oh my God, this is amazing. I can’t believe this. We’re gonna retask. We’re gonna head in this direction. This is tremendously valuable to the company, etc.
You feel like this is the best job you’ve ever had, and you’re the happiest you’ve ever been.
And conversely, the opposite feeling, is something like you propose things and nobody listens or even responds. And then you start hearing about meetings you weren’t invited to. And then you start hearing praise from management or peers towards other people on the team.
And intellectually, you know already that this doesn’t really bother you, or at least it shouldn’t, because you already don’t like this company and you don’t like the management. Or maybe a lot of your teammates are empire-building idiots or whatever. Or maybe they’re good people, but they’ve been captured by the rotten culture.
But either way, you suddenly realize that you do not want to get up in the morning. You do not want Sunday to come because it means that Monday will come afterwards. And you just start to have this feeling of dread and worthlessness. This is absolutely fascinating to me and something I don’t think we study nearly enough.
If we heat and reduce this down, ultimately what we are saying is that our work is supremely valuable to us, and a deep, primary, and evolutionary level, and the currency for that is appreciation from the primary stakeholders. In many or most jobs, that is: your boss and management in general, your team of peers, and then the wider organization.
I think a practical takeaway from this is to ask yourself where you are in terms of mental health right now. Oftentimes, we don’t know why we are happy or sad, but this mostly comes up when we are sad or depressed.
I think perhaps the very first question we should ask when we feel very low is:
What is my current state at work right now? How respected and appreciated am I, and my work, at work right now?
I bet there is a massive amount of explanatory power in this question and answer.
It’s also extraordinary how fast this can change. You can have a year and a half of being respected and appreciated, and feeling generally pretty good about your job, and mostly being okay with Monday. And then there’s a management change or some new person gets added to the team, and all of a sudden there is this major energy shift.
When this happens to you, the very next question should be:
Can I change this situation? Or do I need to find a new place to work where I can get that respect and appreciation for what I am doing?
If you’ve been following me for a decent amount of time, you know that I think the amount of this type of fulfillment that we can get from traditional corporate jobs is declining, and that this decline will dramatically accelerate in the next months and years.
And this is why I am strongly advocating this whole human 3.0 approach to building a life and career.
One way to capture this whole H3 thing is to say that we are trying to build a career in which we have the maximum amount of respect and appreciation for the work that we do. And that we should not be trying to milk this out of stones within corporate jobs. That it’s no longer the place to look for this fulfillment and respect and appreciation.
That we have to build this for ourselves. Doing the things WE think are most worth working on.
So, if you’re down right now, do me a favor and ask yourself:
- If you’re respected at work.
- If people listen to your ideas.
- If management values you.
- If you’re respected by your peers.
If the answer is no, and you don’t see a path to fixing that relatively quickly, with a relatively high chance of success, I recommend you plan an escape.
Ideally you’d start your journey towards doing your own thing, but you might need another regular job or two before that’s possible. And that’s fine.
But pay close attention to the relationship between your mental health and how things are going at work. I think it’s one of the most important correlations in our lives.
