What is career fatigue?

So what is career fatigue?

Career fatigue is characterized by a sense of detachment, decreased productivity, and a general feeling of apathy towards your career. 

Why do you get career fatigue?

Career fatigue can often start because there’s a sense of imbalance between what you feel you’re putting into your role vs what you’re getting out of it. Whilst salary and a benefits package can play a part in that, it’s definitely not just about this. We also want from our job:

• A sense of personal growth / development – i.e. that we’re learning and improving our skills; that there is an understood future path of further development for us
• To feel that we are valued and appreciated; that we play a worthwhile role in our team / company
•  That we’re accepted – work is a key social network that we identify with.  We want to feel that we’re an integral part of a group, and that we’re supported by the other people within that group – and that they’re also all putting in their fair share of effort towards collective goals (which we all understand and align with)
• Social interaction with people that we enjoy spending time with – and some sense of fun / enjoyment around this also

When you become aware of an imbalance between what you feel you’re putting in vs what you’re getting out, you can start to feel frustrated. You can feel as though you’re being taken advantage of. This can lead to feeling unworthy – ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘maybe I don’t deserve better’ which can lead to poor self-esteem and decline in confidence. It may present as anger – which may be held internally – but also may be directed at other team members (if they are deemed part of the problem) as well as managers.

Over time and if undealt with this can lead to feelings of resentment towards your manager and/or employer – which if left to fester may lead to a decline in your performance in your role. This in turn may create a negative loop back through how you feel about your job and employer.

Increasing volume of these negative feelings overall can then impact life outside of work, for example in our close relationships – that we stay in our more negative state after the working day has finished and this becomes part of how we are with other people too. Constant erosion of our self esteem and our confidence has an obvious wider implication for our personal life as well as our future career. Over time, with consistent negative feelings and emotions being present a lot of our waking time, multiplied by declining feelings about our own sense of self-worth, then if not dealt with this could lead to depression.

How does work affect our overall wellbeing?

Most of us spend around 1/3 of our time 5 days per week in our jobs, which is a significant proportion of our waking time.  It’s not possible for us to feel negative all day at work and then positive and happy the rest of the time.

If we feel connected to others, part of a team with lots of positive social connection – this in itself is proven scientifically to have benefits for our overall health and even how long we live.

If we feel like we’re growing and have a healthy level of challenge and balance of learning/new with things we feel we already know how to do then we have satisfied our need for growth. And feeling valued / appreciated for our contribution supports positive self-esteem and builds confidence.  This will undoubtedly spill over into our personal lives where we’ll be a better version of ourselves for loved ones, have positive energy and because we feel good about ourselves we’re also more likely to make good and healthy choices for how we live our lives.

What to do if you have career fatigue

1. Quickest fix: try and identify for yourself if there are areas (of the above list of things we all want) where they could be improved in your current place of work – and then talk to your manager about what these are to see if some changes can be made in your current role.
2. Short term alternatives: what can you do in your time outside of work to bring more of these positive feelings in? For example, if you don’t feel you get the social benefits you’d like from work then could you make more effort to get social interaction outside of work? Or if you don’t feel a sense of personal growth, are there things you can do for yourself to improve this – for example by doing some volunteer work, or by starting up a side hustle?
3. Longer term it may be that you need to review either your employer and find somewhere else you can work where these areas are satisfied for you – or you may need to do a wider review of where you are in your career and what you want out of the future. You may benefit from working with a coach who can support you in understanding how you’d like to move forwards and where you want to go with your career – and to support you in taking those steps needed to move you along the journey from where you are now to where you want to be.

 What are the warning signs that your job is affecting your mental health?

If you’re experiencing any of these, then take it as a wake up call that it’s time to do something about it:

• If your sleep is suffering – for example waking up through night thinking about work
• If you’re unable to switch off from thinking about work after the working day has ended
• If you consistently dread either going into work or switching on the laptop if you’re at home.

It is normal to go through short periods of time when work can feel particularly challenging, but if this becomes the norm then it may be time to consider a change of either job or career.

Further reading on career fatigue

I was recently featured in an article on stylist.co.uk about this subject. 

Next steps if you have career fatigue

If you’d like any support to help you with making changes in your career then you may find my online course useful, or feel free to book a free 30 min call with me using the form below.