What’s important to you?

I’ve managed to be involved in more than one career in my short time in the working world. Does that mean I have answers about how to go about starting a new one, or changing yours to suit your circumstances? Of course not. Does it mean I’ve had plenty of time to submit some incorrect or incomplete solutions to this problem? Absolutely.

Sure, it’s great to get a job. To get that job that you wanted is even better. You’ve made it this far – so what now?

It’s time to sit down and think about what’s truly important to you, and forget about the rest. If you don’t define what it means to be successful and happy in your own life, it can leave you feeling empty, lost, and incomplete.

Maybe your priority is money. Maybe it’s family. Maybe it’s influence or change. Maybe it’s serving a purpose. Maybe, just maybe, it’s about being happy. Whatever it is – you need to know. You need to know what you want and, more importantly, what you don’t want.

Something I’ve observed a lot is that we’re seemingly never happy with what we have; we want what others have too. This is especially true about money. If you don’t know how much you need, the default becomes thus: more. And more. And so, your critical energy is diverted from your calling and toward filling your bank account.

We seem to start out with a vision of what’s important to us, but once we’ve achieved what we want, it can be easy to lose sight of our priorities. We go down the path of wanting to have more than everyone else – to have more success, to get that promotion, to make more money, to get more credit.

We can all get trapped in this regard in our work – we can all say “yes” unthinkingly, because we think it’s what we should be doing, out of some vague attraction or, even worse, out of greed or vanity. It’s easy to think that saying “yes” will let us accomplish more, because we might miss something if we say “no” instead. Some people pride themselves on the mantra that “if I’m good at my job, I can do someone else’s”. Is that a good thing? These extra responsibilities prevent us achieving the very thing that we set out to accomplish. All of us can waste our time doing things we don’t like, to prove ourselves to people we don’t respect, and to get things we don’t want or need.

It can be easy to forget or overlook this when you’re just starting out, but so many of us jump right into the middle of something else before we’ve mastered what we began with. When you combine insecurity and ambition, you get an inability to say “no” to things. Eventually, you can say “yes” to too much, chasing Moby Dick like Captain Ahab for reasons we don’t even understand any more.

Why is it that we do this? Most of us begin with a clear idea of what we want in life. We know what’s important to us. However, the success we achieve, especially if it comes early on in our careers, or in large quantities, puts us in an unusual place. Because now, we’re in a new place and have trouble keeping our bearings. The farther you travel down the path of success, whatever it may be, the more often you can meet other people who can make you feel insignificant. It doesn’t matter how well you’re doing, how much of what you originally set out to achieve has been done, their accomplishments can make you feel like nothing. It’s a cycle that goes on to infinity – whilst our time here does not.

We unconsciously pick up the pace to keep up with others. But what if different people are running for different reasons? What if there’s more than one race going on? There’s a certain irony in how badly we chase those things that are of no value to us.

If only we could all stop for a second.

Seneca’s Euthymia (translated as The Tranquillity) establishes and emboldens a sense of our own path and how to stay on it, without becoming distracted by all the others that intersect it. In other words, it’s not about beating someone else, it’s not about having more than others. It’s about being who and what you are, and being as good as possible at it, without giving in to all the things that draw you away from it. It’s about going where you set out to go. About accomplishing the most that you’re capable of in what you choose. That’s it.

I’m not saying that competitiveness is not important. Because it is. It can drive some of humankind’s most impressive accomplishments. It’s on an individual level, however, where it’s critical to have a clear sense of the space you’re in, who you’re competing with and why.

Only you know the race that you’re running. That is, unless you decide that the only way you can have value is to be better than, have more than, everyone. Each one of us has a unique potential and purpose; that means we’re the only ones who can evaluate and set the terms of our lives. Far too often, we look at other people and make their approval the standard we feel compelled to meet and, as a result, squander our potential and purpose.

So here you are, on the precipice. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Only you can answer these questions. Only when you do, can you understand what matters and what is nothing but a waste of your time and energy. Only then can you say “no”, can you opt out of races that don’t matter or even exist.

Anybody can buy into the myth that if only they had that thing that someone else has, they would be happy. It took me a few times getting burned to realise how empty this illusion is. It can be easy to find yourself in the middle of some task and not understand why you’re there. It will take courage and faith to stop yourself.

Find out why you’re after what it is you’re after, and set your targets based on those things. Write them down and stare at them. If you had achieved these things, would you feel good? How do you know you’ve made the right choices? Trust me, you’ll just know.

Stand by your reasoning and ignore anyone else who tries to sway you from your course. Let them covet what you have, and not the other way around. To know what you like is the beginning of wisdom: happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold. Happiness resides in the soul.

Work-related stress is becoming dangerously acceptable

“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.” – Richard Carlson

Many people appear to be stressed, or claim to be stressed, but I’d suggest most people accept it as part of modern life. Particularly in this age of being constantly reachable, via phone or email, I believe that work-related stress has become one of the largest threats to the health of the population at large.

Being under pressure is a normal part of life. It can be a useful drive that helps you act, feel more energised and get results. I believe that being respected and appreciated by significant others is one of the most fundamental human needs. Consequently, people go to great lengths to gain acceptance and approval. These actions, and the pursuit of further acceptance, can often lead to stress. Such experiences may have far reaching consequences in terms of health and well-being.

But if you often become overwhelmed by stress, these feelings could start to be a problem for you. It’s important to remember that stress isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis, but it can lead to one. It’s closely linked to your mental health in two important ways:

• Stress can cause mental health problems, and make existing problems worse. For example, if you often struggle to manage feelings of stress, you might develop a mental health problem such as anxiety or depression.

• Mental health problems can cause stress. You might find coping with the day-to-day symptoms of your mental health problem, as well as potentially needing to manage medication, heath care appointments or treatments, can become extra sources of stress.

This can start to feel like a vicious circle, and it might be hard to see where stress ends and a mental health problem begins.

Stress is a difficult issue to tackle, especially in the busy, competitive world that we live in. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid it completely. Being more honest with yourself about the stress in your life can help you start to feel calmer and more in control at work and in your life.

Whether you’d like to admit it or not, your health should be of greater priority to you than your job. Should there be a choice between being happy, and working in such a way that makes you more stressed than ever, because of the pressures you put on yourself to achieve what may be impossible?

The truth is: your stress levels could be killing you. The more I read about the matter, the more I am convinced that there are a lot of people out there doing themselves some harm. I’ve written before about the link between body and mind. Long gone are the days when the medical world viewed them as two separate things; the current consensus is that what goes on the body is strongly related to the mind. As an example, recall the last time you had a headache or couldn’t sleep. Was it something to do with stress or worry about work? These are prime examples of the body following the mind’s lead.

This process is called psychoneuroimmunology and it is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body. There have been countless studies showing that stress can:

• Lead to an increased chance of weight problems;
• Cause poor sleep which can lead to other health issues;
• Impairment of memory and concentration;
• Have an impact on your heart’s health; and
• Impact your immune response.

These (and the onset of other mental health problems) are serious and, over time, can do lasting damage to your body. It is extremely important for our health that we understand how stress affects us and learn a few things to get it under control.

And yet, despite the topic being covered in hundreds of papers published every year, work-related stress is still an evasive concept to many.

Only 19% of British people believe stress is an acceptable reason to have a day off work, according to research from mutual health and wellbeing provider Benenden. (Additionally, the researchers found that an even lower 17% of people considered broader mental health issues as a reason not to go into the office).

A YouGov poll commissioned by Mind found that of those workers who had needed to take time off sick due to stress, just 5% admitted to their employer that it was stress-related. It’s no surprise that staff worry about opening up about their mental health given that this research shows most people don’t view mental health problems and stress as being as serious as a physical health problem.

The most obvious thing to say here is that this standpoint must change. Stress can develop into a more serious problem over time that can have a negative on not only your life, but those around you. Admitting that you need some time to gather yourself because of stress isn’t weak. It’s an admission that can bring you back to the strongest version of yourself.

As health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a positive state of complete physical, mental and social well-being (WHO, 1986), a healthy working environment is one in which there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but an abundance of health-promoting ones.

It’s easy to get into the mindset amidst the career ladder that you must try to be perfect and to be all things to all people. It’s easy to become too thinly spread, attempting to please everybody. Remember that it’s okay to say no sometimes, to make time for yourself, to switch off and not feel guilty about it.

If you find yourself becoming stressed, try to think about how far you’ve come, not how much you have to do in the here and now. How well are you doing today, compared with how you did yesterday, last month, or last year? When you think about what you are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that you may make some mistakes along the way, you experience far less stress. Psychologically, it’s often not whether we’ve reached our goal, but the rate at which we are closing the gap between where we are now and where we want to end up.

A dose of self-compassion when things are at their most difficult can reduce your stress and improve your performance, by making it easier to learn from your mistakes. So, remember that to err is human, and give yourself a break.

There are ways to both overcome stress and manage it. Acknowledge and accept your feelings and thoughts. Being under stress can make it seem like there aren’t enough hours in the day, or even make you lose track of the days. Identify the causes of your stress and make time for yourself, to relax and follow those things that you enjoy.

Take care of yourself, talk to others, take a break. Don’t be your own worst enemy. It really doesn’t suit you.