At a recent party I got talking to a woman who told me about her career change.
She had moved from being in the Navy to working in Construction. What I found most interesting was that she was finding it hard to leave work on time. She had an agreement with her manager in place that she’d start her day earlier so that she could collect her kids from school.
Guilty feelings
She went on to tell me that in the Navy there’s a mentality of ‘One in, all in’. So it seemed that she was finding it hard to be her own entity in her new work place. Every day when she left and walked by others working, she felt incredibly guilty.
This guilt is something a lot of people experience. It’s tough sometimes to stand by our commitments and our boundaries and make our exits. But by not doing so, we’re taking away time from other areas of life that are of importance to us.
Turn it around
I asked my new friend if she minded if I made a suggestion. She eagerly nodded and I said to her “What if you focus not on who you are leaving but who you are looking forward to seeing? Your kids. What if you applied ‘One in, all in’ to your family rather than your workplace – which the old mentality conditioned you to do?”
She took that in and then said “Yes! I like that. Turn it around.”
Sometimes all we need to do is turn something around in order to make the other commitment shine as brightly. What’s something you could do this with?
