WorkLife Harmony #6

The Good Enough Job, feedback masochism, sink or swim

Hello, I’m Rachael. Welcome to the sixth edition of WorkLife Harmony: a newsletter about living a fulfilling life within and outside of your work.

🪄 Top of Mind: The Good Enough Job

As a kid, I ecstatically attended Harry Potter Midnight release parties hosted by the local Barnes & Noble. I’ve since retired from HP fandom. Now I find myself anticipating the release of a different book — Simone Stolzoff’s The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work.

Simone's book is a powerful catalyst for reevaluating our connection with work, paving the way for a happier and more productive professional life. In our society, work has become a defining aspect of our identities, but now, more than ever, people are in the midst of renegotiating their relationship with it. As I read an advanced copy, I find myself rethinking my own relationship to work. I yearn for a different kind of fulfillment, one that transcends my role as a Technical Recruiter.

During my college years, I bounced around various career paths, from law to marketing to tech sales. If only I had a magic wand to conjure up the answer to the ever-elusive question, "What do you want to do after graduation?"

Just like Harry, who went from aspiring professional Quidditch player to Dark wizard catcher to Auror, our career visions can shift and evolve over time.

No Hagrid-like mentor burst into my dorm room shouting, "You're a recruiter, Rachael!" But when I stumbled upon recruiting as a career, it felt like my calling. Like countless young professionals, I became deeply enmeshed in my job. Now, after several years, I'm untangling my identity and self-worth from work. Thankfully, Simone's book is here to navigate me and other readers through our transformative journeys.

Developing a healthier relationship to work is not as simple as quitting your job or taking up knitting. Not everyone has the ability to dictate their hours or choose their profession. What we can control, however, are the expectations we place on our jobs. We can choose to subordinate work to life, rather than the other way around. It starts with a simple acknowledgement: you aren’t what you do. 

— Simone Stolzoff, The Good Enough Job

🗣 Career Bites

In my recent essay, Feedback Masochism, I reveal the breakthrough that liberated me from my addiction to criticism and validation:

Feedback isn’t about some deficit within me; it's about the needs of the feedback-giver. A person's feedback is only about how I can be more effective with that person.

Feedback Masochism

🏊🏼‍♀️ Paradigm Shift: Sink or Swim? 

Having spent four years as a lifeguard before becoming a corporate recruiter, I was drawn to Mark Manson’s video discussing the Navy SEALs’ drownproof test. He explains that the more you fight to stay afloat, the higher the risk of drowning. The key is to allow yourself to sink to the bottom of the pool and then propel yourself back up for a breath of air.

Manson goes on to introduce The Backwards Law: The harder you try, the less likely you are to succeed.

In the quest for happiness, confidence, and control, we often unknowingly distance ourselves from attaining those very states. We drown in our desires. By detaching from desired outcomes, we free ourselves to simply exist. 

Sink into accepting things as they are.

Caught a cotton candy sunrise during an early morning lifeguard shift

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Thank you for subscribing to WorkLife Harmony. Each week, I alternate between sharing curations like this one and long-form essays.

Be well,

Rach