Do you also notice an increasing number of people overwhelmed with several things to take care of in life?
Let me start with this most popular & common one. In this new, fast-paced, ever-changing, fiercely competitive world, it is not enough to protect the job or income but there is an ever-urgent need to grow your income so that growing needs of the changing lifestyle can be met & standard of living can be improved. Everybody deserves a better life.
However, to grow the income in a perpetually changing world, people feel the need to upskill or reskill themselves because old skills are either not relevant any longer or are not valued enough to grow your income. This means people are required to invest to learn new skills or tools or methods or whatever is required. One cannot reap before sowing. So, one must make an investment before one can grow income.
In addition to learning or re-educating oneself, the need to educate your kids in the best possible way in the current world is more pronounced now than ever before with exponentially increased competition. Do you agree, the investment required in education has sky-rocketed due to various reasons in recent times? It is hard to settle for a compromise on this need.
Living expenses & keeping up with a decent standard of living in the growing economy also demand a higher level of income.
The need for maintaining and keeping up one’s physical & mental health is paramount as well
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All these needs and influencing factors are leading to an ever-increasing need to grow the incomes urgently. This is one of the reasons for the level of stress, pressure, anxiety, and overwhelm for a lot of our folks.
Can you feel the increase in pressure and overwhelm in life?
It kind of explains why many of us feel we are on a hamster wheel, right?
The stress & worries are way too high for people to find ways to release the pressure from their life.
So, the need to relax through hobbies, fun, movies, holidays, music, entertainment, meditation, yoga, or whatever that serves is becoming non-negotiable. So, we feel the need to run faster on the hamster wheel so that we can fulfill these must-needs.
It looks like many of us are on a never-ending, ever-looping vicious cycle.
It seems to work like (see illustration), ‘growing needs in the new world’ cause you to ‘grow your income’ and to grow your income you need to ‘invest in upskilling’ which in turn is leading to further growing the need to find our way in the new world.
How does one break out of this cycle?
How a lot of people are solving this cycle without actually fully resolving it?
Whether you are a working professional or a young graduate, since the driving need is to get a higher income, most people seek to find what skills pay well and focus on developing that by investing in education or upskilling themselves in that area. Do you know students choosing the stream based on how well one gets paid? This is how generally many (if not all) decide what they want to do, right?
It certainly serves the purpose of getting a job that pays well or a hike.
However, do you ever wonder then why so many people are not happy with their jobs? And why do so many working professionals express they are not liking what they are doing? They feel stuck. Do you ever wonder why they eagerly look for weekends more than Mondays? Many of them may feel happy on pay-days and paychecks but a lot of them feel something is missing for them to feel happy, charged & motivated in what they do. Many of them start to feel drained, uninspired, and forced into the job. Why?
One important criterion they miss while choosing to do what they want to do. A sense of satisfaction & fulfillment from what they are doing.
The leveraging principle would break the vicious cycle.
They underestimate the importance of evaluating the work based on ‘their likeability’ to the work involved in the job. Their decision is clouded by the overpowering need for higher income or a hike.
I would invite them to introspect, ask themselves to figure out ‘what is that they love doing?’ and do what they love.
It is a simple but unignorable principle for addressing one of the significant causes of stress, overwhelm, and anxiety. Because work is one of the important aspects of our life.
It is not something obscure or unknown to many. I can almost say this insight is hiding in plain sight. But most people do not pay heed to this principle when they are deciding or making choices about ‘what they want to do?’
Let me explain how choosing based on this principle can work and simplifies a lot of things in life.
If you do what you love you will,
One may think this will take a lot longer than quickly reskilling oneself. On the contrary, I would say it is a matter of finding it, applying yourself to it, and because of your enthusiasm for the work, energy your growth will be a lot faster.
Your confidence, energy will reflect in other areas of your life.
Love what you do & thrive in life!
