Women are Tired of Being Tired at Work
What to do if you know something needs to change
If you are like many successful women, you’ve worked hard in your career.
And now you are tired.
There are so many reasons we are tired—the inside politics, unfair expectations, being unheard, unseen, taken for granted. We see inefficiencies and incompetence that go unchecked. And let’s not forget the endless meetings that could have been an email.
On top of this, we now need to hear men exclaim that AI is coming for all our jobs, and in some industries we see AI actually leading to layoffs. This is not only tiring, but scary.
Some of us have been tired for decades, while others are just realizing the tiredness never ends.
In an economy where jobs are scarce, leaving your current situation doesn’t seem feasible. This is real and valid and another reason the exhaustion compounds. When there is no escape, the burden feels almost impossible to tolerate.
Corporations know we are tired. This is why they offer some version of wellness sessions like yoga on site or a free subscription to a meditation app.
Given the reality of being tired but needing your job, what are your options to get off of this merry-go-round of exhaustion and hopelessness?
The first step is to question the context.
Initially, do this internally. Look at your job setting from where you sit and question the way everything works. Are deadlines arbitrary, is urgency false, are endless meetings necessary, does every stakeholder need to chime in, does HR really need 45 days to approve PTO? For every annoyance, ask yourself if the system is necessary or logical.
The answer in many cases is going to be, “no.” You know this, your managers know this, the CEO knows this. It’s no secret a lot of the stress at work is completely manufactured, not reality. The only time there is an actual work emergency is when a human or animal life is on the line. Getting Q4 projections out by 5pm isn’t objectively an emergency.
Now that you acknowledge nothing is actually on fire, the meetings aren’t necessary, the HR rules or ridiculous, you have choices. The second step is setting boundaries. You don’t need to follow every rule to the letter. You don’t have to attend every meeting. You don’t have to volunteer to manage the social dynamics of your workplace. Be strategic, but start deciding where you are going to have better boundaries and test the edges. If someone throws a meeting into your calendar Friday at 3pm, excuse yourself; better yet, block time as “busy” at end of day so those meetings can’t even get scheduled.
As you read this, you might be starting to feel uncomfortable, thinking, “If I set boundaries, people are going to feel a certain way. I’ll be seen as difficult, not a team player, a slacker.” So the third step is choosing yourself. Workplaces demand we choose work over ourselves. They look for people to have “a committed relationship to work,” “see work as family.” This is because they are extracting your humanity out of you—commitments and family aren’t work. They are life, they are outside of work. And notice the layoffs. That corporation isn’t treating anyone like family and are certainly not committed to you. They are committed to profits. And that is ok. But you don’t have to exhaust yourself trying to meet impossible metrics. And here’s the part no one says out loud, but we know is true—doing a really good job and extra guarantees NOTHING. Often the best employees are first fired and the actual slackers get to stay on. Choose yourself and stop giving your power away to work.
Finally, consider a plan to do something different. This doesn’t mean quit and figure it out. It means give less energy to the day-to-day grind and take some space to consider what else is out there. We all have thought about other work options. I used to fantasize about owning a coffee shop—with absolutely no experience in running a coffee shop. But. I’ve thought about it, I’ve imagined a different way to make a living. Give yourself permission to dream and plan and brainstorm. Even if your ultimate decision is to stay put, having dreams and ideas can give us hope and inspiration.
Ultimately, giving less of yourself to your job is the first step to manage your exhaustion. And believing you can pivot or build or create something different can be a spark that helps you see the bigger picture and understand that you deserve to feel fulfilled and rested.
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