So much is going on in my life at the moment. Ellie is about to move up a class at nursery. She is trying new things and testing boundaries constantly at the moment. Paul is still off work with neurological problems (which haven't changed in the last 6 weeks). He may lose his job. He may decide to be a stay at home dad. I am about to start a new job - a new, exciting, different to now job. I am about to change the work life balance from an idyllic 3 work 4 home days to full time work (which is much better financially, but has less child time).
All this is going on. So what am I having sleepless nights about?
Leaving my current job: How can my current team manage without me? Surely my efforts over the last 2 years will disappear? And I will I lose the staff I've just recruited?
Surely it's impossible for the team to carry on without me. My head is so big - I am so outrageously self-important. Only I can be me.
Well, the last statement is true. The others I am recognising are part of my hysterical and misguided belief that I am an irreplaceable, indispensible, super woman. I am starting to realise that the real cause of stress in my life is having unrealistic expectations of myself - or worse, trying to live up to them, or even worse, believing that others hold such equally implausible beliefs about me and trying to live up to those too.
I am me. I am human. On a good day, that's a very good thing to be. On a bad day, it's a less good thing to be - but still OK.
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When I was 17, I worked as a junior technician in a hospital laboratory. I felt as though I completely ran the place! One day I did not feel well and I was advised to go home by a woman doctor whom I very much admired. (After all, I had aspirations of becoming a doctor myself one day.) I refused to go home because I was needed in the laboratory. She then said to me, ‘I was ill some years ago and was unable to come into work. I worried and worried because my patients would deteriorate or even die without my medical expertise. When I returned to work I was shocked to discover that they had all made excellent recoveries without me. So go home!’
The feeling of indispensability is necessary for our continuing motivation, but the truth is that we are all born worriers. The fault is in your genes!
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