The Man Who Mistook His Job for His Life: How to Thrive at Work by Leaving Your Emotional Baggage Behind

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Endings need to be marked by rituals to help people move on, but it is important to find out how the individual would like to mark their leaving. Ensuring it is recognised in a positive way reinforces a safe working culture and allows the possibility for future working relationships. How Do Personal Emotions and Psychological Issues Impact Professional Performance and Relationships?

My main focus is working with executives to solve their business problems through a psychological understanding of themselves and their organisations. This can help to explain the unconscious forces that influence our decisions which, if not understood, can lead to irrational behaviour and negative outcomes. By becoming more aware of these influences, you are better equipped to fulfil your potential and find new and creative solutions to business problems.In better news, a better work-life balance and healthier relationship with our sense of worth Shragai believes is possible. The first step is recognising the transition might take time. Instead "set short and manageable targets for yourself rather than thinking you can make sudden and big changes” as change is slow. The book also discusses how leaders’ emotional intelligence can transform organizational culture. When leaders demonstrate empathy, understanding, and emotional regulation, it sets a positive example for the entire organization. This can create a work environment where open communication, mutual respect, and emotional support are valued. Such an environment not only improves employee morale and job satisfaction but also enhances overall productivity and teamwork.

Unless such bad endings are analysed and processed, unfair accusations can become internalised and the person made to feel inadequate. They are then likely to take their aggrieved feelings and project them into their next job, repeating a similar dynamic. Furthermore, the book explores how organizations can play a role in supporting their employees’ work-life balance. It advocates for workplace policies and cultures that respect personal time and promote flexibility, thus facilitating a more supportive and productive work environment. The need to achieve recognition/idealisation at whichever cost is a disastrous human nature. You must cap it down to avoid drowning in the quest to quench this desire. In addition, Shragai points out that professional growth often necessitates stepping out of one’s comfort zone, which is much easier when one is not weighed down by emotional baggage. This can manifest in seeking new opportunities, embracing change, and continuously learning and developing new skills.It all seems to have started pretty well. We ran. We jumped. We chased. We ate. We shared our food nicely. We may even have shared the childcare. And then we started sowing crops. And then we started herding goats. Agriculture was born and, with it, greater gender and societal inequality. “Better-nourished mothers”, Lucassen writes, “had more babies” and so spent more time in childcare. Some households had bigger yields and these “aggrandizers” could take on non-agricultural crafts and sometimes even leadership roles. The seeds were sown for the stratified societies we live in now. The gift of this book is to help us understand who we are, who our co-workers are, in the round, as flesh and blood, not economic units of production. It can help managers and the managed, bosses and the bossed, to find in work and in each other the humanity and warmth, growth and forgiveness that this crucial part of our lives deserves. ” When motivated and ambitious women join an organisation, they want opportunities for development and career progression. Unfortunately, for too many, they are often the default person asked to do the office housework or feel obligated to volunteer over a wall of silence to ensure work progresses. This unrecognised work neither challenges them nor leads to a promotion. Longer-term impacts can be significant, especially if women have more office housework than their core responsibilities. They can be demotivated and have increased imposter syndrome if they feel this is the only work they are trusted to deliver. If you want to get habitual in something, try reducing the friction in the path of getting that habit. One way of reducing friction is by way of designing a desirable environment where actions are optimized and easier to do.

The overall experience felt more like being a courtier in the court of Louis XIV, where your ability to stay or go was determined by how attractive you were to the king, as opposed to whether you were delivering something credible. I don’t like dealing with the yelling and ‘BS’, but I [now] realise that it is just unpleasant in the way that getting caught in the rain is unpleasant. It doesn’t mean anything about me, it just means I get wet.” Projection involves attributing one’s own feelings, desires, or impulses to another person. In a professional context, this might manifest when an employee, grappling with internal insecurities or fears, perceives these traits in their colleagues instead. For example, someone who struggles with feelings of inadequacy might project these feelings onto a colleague, perceiving them as incompetent or underperforming. This misattribution not only affects personal interactions but can also lead to skewed decision-making and conflict in the workplace. Verify how women are perceived in the team and, if necessary, advocate for them to be recognised for their technical capabilities.If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition. Habits form based on frequency, not time or intensity. Walking away from a poisonous environment is strengthening and almost always a relief. Making sense of the experience allows you to not only leave the bad job behind, but the bad feelings as well. The ultimate aim is to depart with your self-worth intact. My client explained: “[My boss] raised a whole bunch of issues which were essentially fabricated. He invited me to resign and if I didn’t I would be pushed out. When I said that it wasn’t to do with operational aspects, but [rather] how he and I had failed to work together, he had a histrionic fit and stormed out of the office. The head of HR walked me out of the building, took my phone and my pass. Shragai emphasizes the importance of self-awareness for leaders. By recognizing and understanding their emotional triggers and biases, leaders can prevent these personal issues from negatively impacting their leadership style and interactions with employees. This awareness enables leaders to respond to workplace challenges and employee needs more thoughtfully and empathically, rather than reacting based on unresolved personal emotions.

Is 2023 the year you want to change your working life? Perhaps you want to stop catastrophising about small mistakes, instil a better job/life balance or find new mechanisms to cope with a nightmare boss. Solutions to these problems, as well as an array of other office issues, are what Naomi Shragai offers in Work Therapy. If you're searching for a new way to handle office politics, you could well find the answers in this book.' - Sunday TimesIn hindsight, I realised that fundamentally it wasn’t down to a failure on my part, it was down to someone who was deeply flawed, and in subsequent years since leaving that’s been validated by the success that followed.” Shragai shows how change often begins with understanding. She is wise, experienced and often gives good advice”