Home  Work/Life Balance Feeling pressured? Who me?
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Feeling pressured? Who me? |
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By K. Proctor
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Prayer for balance brings relief.
Some years ago I worked at a start-up dot com that was a new model in the spirituality and personal development space. It was a thrilling job, creating something from scratch that has meaning – it was great. I was so happy to be working there and working like crazy to manage a 24/7 website. Dream job - for real.
You waiting for the catch? The catch was it was a very demanding job - in terms of mental capacity and time. I suppose my work/life balance was a bit "off" at times - working 12 hour days was fine for a while but then I started to resent some of it. I still loved the work and wanted to be there - but why was I killing myself? I know it was self-imposed. I'd work very hard and then burst and then work hard and then burst. My boss, a spiritually composed person, would listen and offer ideas – and she helped me realize it was all self-imposed.
So I wondered how I could feel less pressure. I loved working really hard and striving. But what didn't I like? Part of it was how I treated myself - I made my own deadlines in most cases. My boss knew I was hard working and could do most anything. Why did I have to keep overworking myself? Why was I always feeling pressured?
Part of what was driving me was the desire to get this great site in front of as many as possible. That was an all-consuming but healthy desire because of the spiritual nature of the site. I truly wanted to help others.
I turned to prayer about my work, my strength, and finding greater balance. When I pray I open myself to listening to a Higher Power. I work to raise my own thoughts about the situation to focus on what is true on a spiritual level. In this case I prayed about how I could be most useful and most reflective of God’s nature. I thought about how God must be all-knowing and how He truly manages everything in the universe. And if that was true then my life could be ordered by this divine Intelligence and not only reliant on my personal education or will. In fact, I could even go beyond my personal will when guided and supported by Spirit, or Mind. To me, this type of guidance is all about efficiency and purpose and effectiveness. If I am reflecting the divine nature, then I must be reflecting these qualities too. So I started listening more to Spirit and less to my own will.
And I asked myself would the world end if I gave myself a little more time to complete a project? I think my boss asked me this and then I really realized that everything didn't have to happen at the same time - I could multi-track the projects and make good progress.
So I tried a little more sane schedule and found all worked out fine. Some things on my to-do list actually fell off and sometimes the request went away. Sometimes the timing changed on the projects. What I found was the more I was willing to stop PRESSING things into my own sense of time and listening to Spirit more, everything really worked out.
Ok I admit I still had the 5 minute lunch at my desk, but I didn't work 12 hours every day. And while I read at home at night and on weekends - I liked it. I still loved my work. And I still had time for my personal relationships – especially with my boyfriend at the time (and now we are happily married - for 3 years ). We found time together each weekend and both of us still had time to be dedicated to our work. It can be done.
I think part of the lesson here is to stop doing things just to prove something - like how fast I am, or how smart I am. I seriously respected my boss and somehow felt like I had to re-prove myself constantly. I wanted her gratitude and kudos. And all the while she was praying for the whole team and I know that helped me too.
It's an interesting question - do we press ourselves into tight deadlines and over-commitments to prove something? Like to prove we are the best employee, or spouse or friend? I wonder if more of us could find peace and a less hectic schedule if we stopped trying to prove something and just lived by the Divine design - according to God's plan for us.
Does that make sense? Well for me, it was a critical lesson. Never again after the job did I feel unending pressure. And that wasn’t just because of a change of job or responsibilities because the level of responsibility just kept growing. I went from managing 1 person to managing 30 and did it in stride (more or less).
The lessons I learned at that dot com I cherish often and am so grateful for. Read more from this blogger at Spirit and Entrepreneurship.
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