3 Easy Steps To Stop Having Work BS Take Over Your Life

As the work day ends, are you texting someone to tell them the BS work story of the day? Does it start with? “Can you believe it happened again?”

Are you telling your kids about it when you pick them up from school?

Is it a regular topic at happy hour, the gym, or at dinner with your family?

Or are you keeping it to yourself, but it plays over and over again, endless to yourself?

If so, you aren’t alone

A major study by Gallup, reported by the Harvard Business Review (1), found that "employees around the world are experiencing stress at an all-time-high level, and worry, anger, and sadness remain above pre-pandemic levels. These emotions are organizational risks: If leaders aren’t paying attention to employee wellbeing, they’re likely to be blindsided by top-performer burnout and high quit rates.”

Yeah, well there’s that.

Personally, I found myself talking about work issues, outside of work, way more than seemed healthy. Why was I wasting precious life energy talking about this? When I took inventory of how often I do this on autopilot, it was staggering.

So, in addition to fixing my own pattern here, I did a ton of research and wrote a book. I want to help others build resilience, so they don’t have to endlessly suffer workplace BS:

• If that means if they leave their current job, they can do that stronger with new skills - instead of bringing the same poo everywhere they go.

• If they start a side hustle, they can do so in a place of strength and not an angry “I’ll show you” perspective.?

• And, if they stay, they won’t have to endure the same stuff any longer.

While I recommend the book’s proven 13 approaches to thoroughly address workplace issues, here’s an easy three step approach for now. At the very least, this will help you package some of this up and not have work BS take over your waking hours.

Here are the three steps:

1. Recognize It. If you are human, you have likely talked about some work BS story. You may repeat one regularly. I call this your greatest hits. Just recognize that this pattern is happening and notice if there are any specific stories that are on your greatest hits list.
2. Package it. Pick one work BS story. It can be new or old, big or small. Just pick one specific one. If it’s one you don’t know how to handle, this can be especially useful. Okay, now you are going to pretend it is a little cloud, about the size of a football. Give it a color, a sound, a smell, and notice how it moves. Once you have it defined, see it floating by you and away, forever out of your eyesight. You can repeat this if you need to. It can be challenging to let these go sometimes. If you really need it back later, you can get to it.
3. Stop Talking About It. Yes, this thing was bad and shouldn’t have happened. It’s outrageous. But just talking about it endlessly only brings you more stress. Until you have an action plan, stop giving the BS more life by repeatedly talking about it. Yes, this will take practice. You may slip some. That’s okay. Just catch yourself and make efforts to not have this be a greatest hit anymore.

Now, to be very clear, if your work BS story is one of abuse, breaking the law, or anything you consider severe, you’ll need to immediately take action to report this and protect yourself. This three step process is not for those extremes. And, while these steps will help stop this festering inside of you, there will still be some actions to take to resolve whatever is going on.

If we are honest, most of us have some incredibly annoying work BS that we don’t yet have the skills to resolve. We don’t yet know how to get past just putting up with it or “taking it in stride.” These three simple steps give this crap a place to go until we do have an action plan. They also give us space to breathe and focus on the things we love instead of replaying the BS story.

Want more? You can find Boost Your Bullsh*t Resilience At Work on Amazon in paperback, Kindle eBook formats, along with a workbook (coming May 11).

And, if you are a leader and want to chat, please feel free to message me here to see if there’s some way I can help you.?

Boost Your Bullsh*t Resilience Paperback | Kindle eBook