The new year means it’s time for resolutions: adopting new habits that improve your life and maybe making changes to leave in the past things that no longer work for you.
It’s time to take a long look at some work behaviors and see if there are bad habits worth breaking in order to make 2023 a better year for you overall, including improving your mental health and securing a better work-life balance. Here are five habits worth throwing out with the 2022 calendar.
Skipping breaks and meals.
Your body needs fuel in order to function. It just does. Your mind needs breaks in order to function as well. This is just the way it works! If you find yourself regularly passing up a short break for coffee, or taking the time you are legally required to be allowed to have lunch, you’re not doing yourself any favors. You’re going to end up hungry (and possibly hangry), with a brain that isn’t able to focus as well. Take a coffee or water break. Take the lunch break — if it needs to be abbreviated, every once in a while, fine, but take it — and do yourself the favor of taking care of yourself during the work day.
Ruining your Sunday.
When you leave work on Friday, you leave the work week behind. You’re supposed to, ideally, not think about work again until Monday morning. But the idea of the “Sunday scaries” has taken over, with work stress creeping into our time off and making us nervous, anxious and worried about the never-ending to-do list that’s awaiting Monday morning. Stop that! It’s not helping you at all; there’s nothing you can do about it until you get back to work (and you’re not getting paid to be stressed on the weekend). Don’t let work wreck your weekend. This is time you’re supposed to be using to rest, recharge, handle your other responsibilities and have FUN. Focus on that more and on the four-letter W word less. Reclaim your time!
Procrastination.
It’s so much easier to put off tasks that feel big and overwhelming, but that adds to your stress. That’s not helping anyone. Odds are, whatever the project is, it won’t be as bad as you think it will be. Big projects can be broken down into smaller components. Things that feel overwhelming might need a little work and a few conversations to be reframed and more understandable, but you can do them! The longer something is put off, the more stress it causes and the longer it’ll take to be done and off your to-do list.
Apologizing or explaining yourself too much.
We’re all human people. None of us is perfect. And none of us has the time to spend apologizing for small mistakes or providing a detailed account of why this decision was made or why that approach was taken. Do your job. If something goes wrong, admit responsibility, learn what went off the rails and pledge to do better in the future. Move on. The weight of our mistakes holds us back; learn from it and don’t do it again. Onto the next.
Staying in a bad job because it’s easier than finding a new one.
Raise your hand if you’re in your job because you don’t have time to look for a new one, or you’ve convinced yourself there’s nothing better out there. If a job is having a negative impact on your health — a case of the Sunday scaries, for example, is a regular occurrence on Saturday morning, or you find yourself skipping lunch because you just don’t have time to step away as there’s far too much to do — and you find yourself miserable at the thought of going to work every day, it’s time to look. You owe it to yourself, your health and well-being and your own personal happiness to try and see what else is out there. Yes, every job will have its drama and its headaches, but you can find something that makes you happy and pays a good wage. It’s not impossible!
Time to make a change? Resolve to call Sterling Personnel in 2023 and find a great new job!
Now is the time to start adopting good habits and making positive changes to set yourself up for success in every aspect of your life. Out with the old, in with the new!
If you need to jumpstart your job search, call Sterling Personnel. We work with great companies that are looking for people just like you and you owe it to yourself to work in a place that appreciates you! Take a look at the jobs we currently have available and see what might be a good fit, then give us a call. Let’s start 2023 off on the right foot together.
