4. How To Make Work Suck Less
I know you're counting down the days until you can finally break free from the nine-to-five life and pursue your dreams of entrepreneurship. When you know your life is destined for more, being stuck at work really sucks. However, unless you've handed in your resignation and you're leaving tomorrow, you need to turn your attention to making work suck less in the meantime.
How can you survive, and even thrive, until the day you can finally leave your job? If every day feels draining and soul-crushing but you know you need to stick with it just a little while longer, this episode is for you. There's a simple but powerful shift that can transform those agonizing days into a manageable and even empowering transition period, and I'm sharing it in today's episode.
Tune in this week to discover a simple, actionable strategy you can start right now to make work suck less. I show you how to relinquish mental drama around feeling stuck in your current job, help you prevent burnout, and you'll learn how to reclaim your energy for what truly matters: your journey towards a life of entrepreneurship.
Want to start making your current job suck less while you're waiting to quit? Download the FREE accompanying action guide for this episode, by completing the form below!
If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to worry about missing an episode, be sure to follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. I would really appreciate it if you could share the podcast with others who you think would benefit, and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
A powerful strategy to make work suck less.
The power of boundaries, selective caring, and self-prioritization.
Why caring less about your job isn't quiet quitting and it doesn't mean doing a terrible job.
How to see what you need to feel better at work in this moment.
My tips for treating your current job like an ATM to fund your entrepreneurial future.
A simple exercise for finding clarity around what sucks, and what doesn't suck.
How to reallocate where your care and attention goes while you're still in your job.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
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Ep #3: When to Quit Your Job: The Importance of a Departure Date
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. It’s a podcast that helps working moms just like you, optimize your time, manage your mind, and start a business that helps you create more freedom, flexibility, and, yes, fun. I’m business and mindset coach Jenna Rykiel. And I offer practical tips to help you ditch the nine-to-five. I have been exactly where you are, and I know what it takes to make the transition without trading one form of burnout for another. So let’s get started.
Hi, mom friends, we made it to episode four. And of course, I’m recording while my son Adley is sleeping, and I forgot one of the mic parts in his room. So, I have painter’s tape holding the mic together, which I actually can’t recommend painter’s tape enough for so many things. I highly recommend perusing social media for all the uses. It’s fantastic to carry in the diaper bag.
This is also my second go at this episode because honestly, I am still trying to figure all of this out. There is so much I have to say on this topic and I’m eager to get you to the finish line as soon as possible and that means my first take of this episode was really hard to digest, way too much information. So, this is take two, which my coach always says it’s better the second time so, I’m excited for that for you.
Let’s dive into this really important topic, which is how to make work suck less because I know you’re counting down the days until you can finally break free and pursue your dreams of entrepreneurship. Episode three was all about picking a transition date and chances are that transition date isn’t tomorrow. So how are you going to survive and, dare I say, thrive, until that transition date, when every day feels so draining and soul crushing? So, what if I told you, there is a powerful shift that can transform those agonizing days into a manageable and even empowering transition period.
I know that feeling all too well, the internal eye rolls every time your boss speaks, the slow erosion of passion for your company’s mission, the Sunday night dread, you’re burnt out and ready to build something for yourself. But for now, this job is your financial lifeline as you plan your entrepreneurial escape. The harsh reality is that abruptly quitting without a transition plan could jeopardize your future business’s success.
You need to treat this job like an ATM machine, putting in your time and effort to withdraw the funds that will bankroll your ambitions. But that doesn’t mean you have to be miserable every day until your exit date. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about caring less as a strategy to make work suck less. I’ll share actionable strategies to help you care less about the daily frustrations, it’ll help you prevent burnout and really reclaim your energy for what truly matters, which is your journey towards the life you want to create.
We’re going to explore boundary settings, selective caring and self-prioritization so that you can make work suck just a little less. Caring less isn’t quiet quitting or doing a bad job. The moms I work with are high achievers and caring so much about the job has been one of the key reasons they’ve been successful in their nine to five, but this is just one part of your life and identity. And since we tend to spend so much time working, we can often over-care about some of the elements of it.
For example, we care so much about hitting metrics and sales goals. We care so much about winning proposals. We care so much about our teams feeling supported. We care so much about projects getting completed by deadlines. We care so much about the business doing well, but it’s time for us to care a little less about all of those things so we can care a little more about what we need in this moment.
After all, the sad truth and what I’m sure so many listeners are experiencing right now, is that no matter how much you care about the company you work for, it’s a business. And that means that in an instant, your role or department could be removed in order to increase profits or the livelihood of the business. No matter how much you care, your company can only care so much about you, especially if it’s a publicly traded company. And I’ve seen plenty of moms burned before, some of who I plan to interview on this podcast because they used the unfortunate push of a layoff to really fuel their entrepreneurial goals.
But what’s important to hear is that at the end of the day, you need to care more about you than about your company. Everyone benefits when this happens, even your company, because when you’re taking care of yourself and feeling energized, you do better work for the remainder of the time you’re there, I promise. Okay, so I feel like you’re on board with caring less, at least my clients always are. I’ve officially given you permission but now how do you make that happen without burning bridges and how do you make it happen with your perfectionist tendencies and high standards?
Let’s talk about a couple of things to consider. First, I want you to assess what sucks and what doesn’t about your work. Not every aspect of your job is miserable. There were likely good reasons you took the role initially. I want you to take an honest inventory of the pros and cons. Which tasks or projects still engage you? Which relationships are worth preserving? Getting clarity on what sucks and what doesn’t suck, makes it easier to care less about the former while still bringing your best to the latter.
I know it’s easy to feel powerless when you’re at your wits end, but trust me, no one can control how much energy you invest or how much you care about any one element of work. We’re going to talk a little bit about boundaries and saying no in a little bit. But even in cases where there is absolutely no way you can say no to a meeting or a project, there’s still room to care a little less about the things that don’t engage you or don’t align with you. Because here’s the thing, I promise, you can still do a really good job while caring less.
So, what I want you to do is get a piece of paper and if you aren’t able to do this now, be sure to download the action guide from the show notes and refer back to this activity later once you’re able to really sit and reflect for this exercise. The action guide will lay out this exercise so that you don’t have to remember all of this, which is great, especially for the visual and hands-on learners out there like me.
First make two lists. One less is going to be titled ‘sucks’ and include all the projects, people, tasks, elements, you name it, that have really been getting to you about your job on a daily basis about your role, maybe it’s even the commute that sucks. Write it all down. The second list, of course, will then be the ‘doesn’t suck’ list. Now, this one may feel impossible but stick with me here. Find at least a few things about your job that doesn’t suck, even if it’s just the paycheck. Remember, this job is now your ATM machine, which doesn’t suck.
Even if you’re getting underpaid, you likely have money entering into your bank account on a regular basis. You probably have health insurance, and maybe you even get paid on days you aren’t working, a little thing called PTO. Challenge yourself to think about the relationships that are valuable and the people who really don’t suck at work. I promise you’ll miss having a team when you’re flying solo. So, take time to consider all those people and clients and projects that might not entirely suck. And for this list, ask yourself why those tasks or relationships still resonate and how can you spend more time in those areas.
For the sucks list we’ll talk about ways that you can start to detach, but I also want you to think about how you can spend less energy caring about those elements. Remember, at this point, you’re just passing through. So, caring a little less about some of the things that drain you is going to be okay in the long run. Now that you have those two lists, let’s talk about ways you can strategically detach yourself from the things that suck at work. The most actionable thing you can do is start to set boundaries and say no unapologetically.
You want to have less on your plate to care about? Stop taking on work responsibilities you don’t want or have capacity for. Yes, this is easier said than done, but you have to find ways to get it done. When I start working with clients, we always start with figuring out a way for them to continue showing up to work each day and not feel so depleted at the end of the day. And what I tend to find is that there are so many opportunities for boundaries to be set.
One of my clients, an executive level leader at her company, couldn’t even go to the bathroom during the day because she had so many meetings. When we did an audit of which meetings were absolutely essential, it was clear that so many of them she was going to because she cared so much about her team and being visible and showing them that she cared. When she said no to many of those meetings, she was way less resentful on a day-to-day basis and actually had time in her day to do her job and go to the bathroom, of course.
Saying no and setting boundaries may require overriding people pleasing tendencies, but caring for yourself has to be the priority now. It’s no good for you, your family, or any of your personal relationships if you’re a shell of yourself at the end of the day. Saying yes to anything, it means you’re saying no to something else. How you’ve probably been operating is that you’re saying yes to work commitments and saying no to different ways that you can preserve and protect your energy for the things that matter. So, this is permission to stop doing that.
So, in your day-to-day and when you practice the power of saying no and use it liberally when another commitment would stretch you too thin. Honestly, this doesn’t just have to be for work commitments. This is also for all the things you’re signing up for to show your kids, and maybe your kids’ friends’ parents that you’re a good parent. It’s the volunteering at school, the making cookies for the party, hosting all the playdates. Now, if you want to do those things, that’s perfectly fine but if you feel resentment doing those things, practice saying no.
I also want you to start setting communication boundaries and stick to them. This can be something like no emails or work after seven, or maybe it’s that you don’t look at Slacks when you’re in meetings. Maybe you take Slack and email off your phone entirely. I remember working with a manager a few years ago who said they’d never take their work email off of their phone and it was one of the happiest coaching moments when that manager went to Hawaii without their work email on their phone. It was such a big win.
But I want you to really list out and claim these boundaries for yourself. Make sure your team is aware of them and maybe even your work bestie or your partner. These are boundaries you’re making to yourself, and it’s important that you actually honor them.
Something else I want you to start doing is to leave at your scheduled time even if others are still working. This is especially important for leaders who have a team because you’re modeling healthy boundaries. Working past five and burning the candle at both ends might have seemed to benefit the company in the moment because they got a ton out of you, but it led you wanting to escape and get the hell out of there. It’s in the company’s best interest to have employees who have boundaries because it helps to prevent burnout. So, while you’re still there, start modeling these healthy boundaries and leave the place a little less draining than when you found it.
So we talked about figuring out what’s worth your energy at work and some boundaries that you can set to protect your energy. Now I want to talk about the power of good enough. For all the things that you can’t say no to, it’s important that part of what you care less about is perfectionism. Part of caring less means releasing the need for perfection and accepting good enough. Getting every detail perfect provides diminishing returns compared to the stress it causes. Your extraordinary effort is better directed towards your actual goals and priorities now, the transition plan and the business you’ll have at the end of it.
It’s so important to first acknowledge areas that maybe you tend to maintain a high standard of perfection, identify areas where you can let go of perfection in favor of good enough without major consequences. Now, if you work in the construction industry, I realize that perfection is important. The measurements have to be exactly correct, or else you’re creating a lot of extra work for yourself. But even in these industries we can find ways that we can let go at least a little bit of perfectionism without consequences.
So be honest with yourself here, one of the limitations of a podcast, instead of us being in a two way conversation, is that I can’t point out some of the blind spots or help you figure this out unless you email me of course. So, I’m leaning on you to recognize for yourself where you can let go of things being perfect in your work. When you catch yourself obsessing over small details, pause and ask, “Does this really matter?” Remember, done is always better than perfect.
So, loosen up a bit, take your standards down a notch. This is going to be an important skill for entrepreneurship as well because perfectionism is the death of getting things done. Nothing’s going to be perfect the first time you do anything, especially with your business. So, get used to turning in B minus work so that you can keep moving forward rather than investing all of your energy on one thing until it’s perfect because who decides what perfect is anyway?
This entire episode has been about caring less. And I realize that sounds a little direct and bold. I talk about caring less with my clients because it gets their attention, but what I’m really talking about is reallocating your care. You’ve spent years pouring immense care and passion into this company. It’s time to slowly start redirecting that care towards yourself, maybe your family and definitely your entrepreneurial dreams. I want you to think of it as caring just 20% less about work and 20% more about your life’s new priorities.
And I’ll say it again, caring 20% less about work doesn’t mean that you start doing a terrible job. I’ve actually experienced the opposite with clients. When they start caring less, they start to do a better job than when they were completely resentful and frustrated. So, let’s talk about what reallocating care really looks like. First of all, it looks like delegating more responsibilities to others as you mentally disengage. It’s good transition practice. Soon enough you won’t be there, and all of your responsibilities will be delegated anyway, so start now.
Get people on your team trained up in the things that you’re responsible for, everyone wins with this. You get to care less about certain things. Someone on your team gets more responsibility, which they’ve probably been craving, and your company is set up for success when you leave. Even if you’re mad at your company, remember that we don’t want to burn any bridges. You want to leave seamlessly and with grace. So, delegating some things now is a great way to make the transition more seamless when that day comes.
Reallocating care also looks like having more non-work conversations with loved ones. Invest emotional energy there instead of obsessing over work conflicts. We’ll talk about this more in later episodes, but stop complaining about work. When you care a little less about work, it becomes less important to talk about and complain about it all the time. Even those that love you don’t want to hear you complaining all the time, it’s likely the same stuff they’ve heard before, and they’re probably thinking, why doesn’t she just leave if it’s so bad? And maybe they’ve said that to you, maybe they’re just thinking it.
The more we talk about work outside of work, the more energy it consumes unnecessarily. Don’t give it that power. If someone asks you how work’s going, use it as an opportunity to talk about the new business venture you’re working on and what your plans are for the future. That will energize you rather than deplete your energy. Which brings me to the next thing you can do to reallocate care, which is to spend time exploring your business ideas and getting excited about your future.
I talked about this a little in episode three, and it’s worth talking about again in this context. Before I left corporate I started working with clients after work during the work week. On the surface this seemed like a death wish for my energy. Normally when I got home around five or six from work, I’d want to just crash and didn’t even have the capacity to talk to my partner, mostly because I was so drained and resentful. But I figured that this would be a good test to really know if coaching would be something that aligned with me for the next chapter of my career.
So, most nights I’d wrap up work around five or six and immediately jump into at least one coaching session at 6:00pm, sometimes back-to-back coaching sessions at six and seven. Now, in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the healthiest thing but that’s before I had all the tools and a language to really take care of myself. But what I want you to hear is that every single day that I had a coaching session after work, I felt more energized than days I wrapped up work without one.
Spending time in my business after work was a boost of energy rather than depletion. This is wild to me and why it’s so important for you to explore this for yourself as well, whatever that looks like. When I signed off at 6:00pm without clients, I was miserable and couldn’t even have a decent conversation with my partner because I was so bratty after work. And yet, when I worked until seven or eight, but was seeing clients for those last two hours, I was a whole new person.
I wish my husband were here to drive this point home because it was a game changer for our relationship even before I transitioned out of corporate. When I started to reallocate my energy towards my business and future endeavors, I was much more pleasant to be around. And he lived with me for nearly half of the time I was in corporate. So, he knew all the ups and downs, policy changes, drama, draining clients, unrealistic metrics, all the things. But all of a sudden we had something else to talk about when it came to my work. We started talking about what my business could look like and who I’d want to serve and the inspiring things I was now part of.
Right now, you probably feel like you’re burning, a flame that’s slowly depleting, but reallocating energy to your future endeavors is like pouring gasoline on the dwindling flame. I promise it will light you up. Thinking about and planning your entrepreneurial lead is incredibly exciting but as you map out your transition plan with my help, of course, this nine to five job remains your financial lifeline for now. Which means you need strategies to prevent those daily frustrations from draining you completely.
So, in this episode we talked about ways to do that, including assessing what aspects of your job still provide value versus the ones that suck the life out of you. We talked about setting boundaries and saying no more often. We talked about the importance of embracing good enough in your work. And of course, reallocating your care towards yourself and maybe your family and future goals. And remember, all of this is in the action guide. So, if it was a lot to digest, I encourage you to download that resource from the show notes and really marinate on some of these action items.
It’s the difference between you burning everything down before you’re actually ready and truly creating an exit plan and runway that sets you up for success for what’s next. I’ve heard too many stories of moms burning it down without a plan because they’re just so fed up and then they feel completely blindsided when they try to figure out what’s next. If that’s you, it’s never too late to be intentional about the plan, so keep listening to this podcast, it will definitely help.
And if you’re still with your job, we’re going to make work suck less, so you don’t have to burn it all down. You can keep your ATM pumping and lay the foundation for your business. It’s all about caring a little less and reallocating that care to you and what you need right now. By slowly peeling back how much you care about office politics, over-performance, and other draining aspects, you actually reclaim energy for what truly matters now, which is laying the foundation for your next chapter with a healthy mindset and financial runway.
This podcast is your guide to making that life changing entrepreneurial leap, one step at a time. I’ll continue arming you with practical strategies and mindset tools so you can build unstoppable momentum towards what’s next, because you shouldn’t have to tolerate soul sucking misery for one day longer than necessary.
Next week, we’re going to be talking about how to create time and energy for your business. Now that you know how to take back some of the energy you’ve been committing to work all those years, I’ll show you some easy ways to start building in time for your business. I know, it seems like you have no time at all to add anything else, but I promise you do, tune in next week and I’ll show you. Until then, start caring more about you because that’s how you start to build a life and business you love.
You’ve got this, mama. Your family is so fortunate to have such a passionate, driven woman showing them what’s possible. I’ll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Hi, mom friends, we made it to episode four. And of course, I’m recording while my son Adley is sleeping, and I forgot one of the mic parts in his room. So, I have painter’s tape holding the mic together, which I actually can’t recommend painter’s tape enough for so many things. I highly recommend perusing social media for all the uses. It’s fantastic to carry in the diaper bag.
This is also my second go at this episode because honestly, I am still trying to figure all of this out. There is so much I have to say on this topic and I’m eager to get you to the finish line as soon as possible and that means my first take of this episode was really hard to digest, way too much information. So, this is take two, which my coach always says it’s better the second time so, I’m excited for that for you.
Let’s dive into this really important topic, which is how to make work suck less because I know you’re counting down the days until you can finally break free and pursue your dreams of entrepreneurship. Episode three was all about picking a transition date and chances are that transition date isn’t tomorrow. So how are you going to survive and, dare I say, thrive, until that transition date, when every day feels so draining and soul crushing? So, what if I told you, there is a powerful shift that can transform those agonizing days into a manageable and even empowering transition period.
I know that feeling all too well, the internal eye rolls every time your boss speaks, the slow erosion of passion for your company’s mission, the Sunday night dread, you’re burnt out and ready to build something for yourself. But for now, this job is your financial lifeline as you plan your entrepreneurial escape. The harsh reality is that abruptly quitting without a transition plan could jeopardize your future business’s success.
You need to treat this job like an ATM machine, putting in your time and effort to withdraw the funds that will bankroll your ambitions. But that doesn’t mean you have to be miserable every day until your exit date. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about caring less as a strategy to make work suck less. I’ll share actionable strategies to help you care less about the daily frustrations, it’ll help you prevent burnout and really reclaim your energy for what truly matters, which is your journey towards the life you want to create.
We’re going to explore boundary settings, selective caring and self-prioritization so that you can make work suck just a little less. Caring less isn’t quiet quitting or doing a bad job. The moms I work with are high achievers and caring so much about the job has been one of the key reasons they’ve been successful in their nine to five, but this is just one part of your life and identity. And since we tend to spend so much time working, we can often over-care about some of the elements of it.
For example, we care so much about hitting metrics and sales goals. We care so much about winning proposals. We care so much about our teams feeling supported. We care so much about projects getting completed by deadlines. We care so much about the business doing well, but it’s time for us to care a little less about all of those things so we can care a little more about what we need in this moment.
After all, the sad truth and what I’m sure so many listeners are experiencing right now, is that no matter how much you care about the company you work for, it’s a business. And that means that in an instant, your role or department could be removed in order to increase profits or the livelihood of the business. No matter how much you care, your company can only care so much about you, especially if it’s a publicly traded company. And I’ve seen plenty of moms burned before, some of who I plan to interview on this podcast because they used the unfortunate push of a layoff to really fuel their entrepreneurial goals.
But what’s important to hear is that at the end of the day, you need to care more about you than about your company. Everyone benefits when this happens, even your company, because when you’re taking care of yourself and feeling energized, you do better work for the remainder of the time you’re there, I promise. Okay, so I feel like you’re on board with caring less, at least my clients always are. I’ve officially given you permission but now how do you make that happen without burning bridges and how do you make it happen with your perfectionist tendencies and high standards?
Let’s talk about a couple of things to consider. First, I want you to assess what sucks and what doesn’t about your work. Not every aspect of your job is miserable. There were likely good reasons you took the role initially. I want you to take an honest inventory of the pros and cons. Which tasks or projects still engage you? Which relationships are worth preserving? Getting clarity on what sucks and what doesn’t suck, makes it easier to care less about the former while still bringing your best to the latter.
I know it’s easy to feel powerless when you’re at your wits end, but trust me, no one can control how much energy you invest or how much you care about any one element of work. We’re going to talk a little bit about boundaries and saying no in a little bit. But even in cases where there is absolutely no way you can say no to a meeting or a project, there’s still room to care a little less about the things that don’t engage you or don’t align with you. Because here’s the thing, I promise, you can still do a really good job while caring less.
So, what I want you to do is get a piece of paper and if you aren’t able to do this now, be sure to download the action guide from the show notes and refer back to this activity later once you’re able to really sit and reflect for this exercise. The action guide will lay out this exercise so that you don’t have to remember all of this, which is great, especially for the visual and hands-on learners out there like me.
First make two lists. One less is going to be titled ‘sucks’ and include all the projects, people, tasks, elements, you name it, that have really been getting to you about your job on a daily basis about your role, maybe it’s even the commute that sucks. Write it all down. The second list, of course, will then be the ‘doesn’t suck’ list. Now, this one may feel impossible but stick with me here. Find at least a few things about your job that doesn’t suck, even if it’s just the paycheck. Remember, this job is now your ATM machine, which doesn’t suck.
Even if you’re getting underpaid, you likely have money entering into your bank account on a regular basis. You probably have health insurance, and maybe you even get paid on days you aren’t working, a little thing called PTO. Challenge yourself to think about the relationships that are valuable and the people who really don’t suck at work. I promise you’ll miss having a team when you’re flying solo. So, take time to consider all those people and clients and projects that might not entirely suck. And for this list, ask yourself why those tasks or relationships still resonate and how can you spend more time in those areas.
For the sucks list we’ll talk about ways that you can start to detach, but I also want you to think about how you can spend less energy caring about those elements. Remember, at this point, you’re just passing through. So, caring a little less about some of the things that drain you is going to be okay in the long run. Now that you have those two lists, let’s talk about ways you can strategically detach yourself from the things that suck at work. The most actionable thing you can do is start to set boundaries and say no unapologetically.
You want to have less on your plate to care about? Stop taking on work responsibilities you don’t want or have capacity for. Yes, this is easier said than done, but you have to find ways to get it done. When I start working with clients, we always start with figuring out a way for them to continue showing up to work each day and not feel so depleted at the end of the day. And what I tend to find is that there are so many opportunities for boundaries to be set.
One of my clients, an executive level leader at her company, couldn’t even go to the bathroom during the day because she had so many meetings. When we did an audit of which meetings were absolutely essential, it was clear that so many of them she was going to because she cared so much about her team and being visible and showing them that she cared. When she said no to many of those meetings, she was way less resentful on a day-to-day basis and actually had time in her day to do her job and go to the bathroom, of course.
Saying no and setting boundaries may require overriding people pleasing tendencies, but caring for yourself has to be the priority now. It’s no good for you, your family, or any of your personal relationships if you’re a shell of yourself at the end of the day. Saying yes to anything, it means you’re saying no to something else. How you’ve probably been operating is that you’re saying yes to work commitments and saying no to different ways that you can preserve and protect your energy for the things that matter. So, this is permission to stop doing that.
So, in your day-to-day and when you practice the power of saying no and use it liberally when another commitment would stretch you too thin. Honestly, this doesn’t just have to be for work commitments. This is also for all the things you’re signing up for to show your kids, and maybe your kids’ friends’ parents that you’re a good parent. It’s the volunteering at school, the making cookies for the party, hosting all the playdates. Now, if you want to do those things, that’s perfectly fine but if you feel resentment doing those things, practice saying no.
I also want you to start setting communication boundaries and stick to them. This can be something like no emails or work after seven, or maybe it’s that you don’t look at Slacks when you’re in meetings. Maybe you take Slack and email off your phone entirely. I remember working with a manager a few years ago who said they’d never take their work email off of their phone and it was one of the happiest coaching moments when that manager went to Hawaii without their work email on their phone. It was such a big win.
But I want you to really list out and claim these boundaries for yourself. Make sure your team is aware of them and maybe even your work bestie or your partner. These are boundaries you’re making to yourself, and it’s important that you actually honor them.
Something else I want you to start doing is to leave at your scheduled time even if others are still working. This is especially important for leaders who have a team because you’re modeling healthy boundaries. Working past five and burning the candle at both ends might have seemed to benefit the company in the moment because they got a ton out of you, but it led you wanting to escape and get the hell out of there. It’s in the company’s best interest to have employees who have boundaries because it helps to prevent burnout. So, while you’re still there, start modeling these healthy boundaries and leave the place a little less draining than when you found it.
So we talked about figuring out what’s worth your energy at work and some boundaries that you can set to protect your energy. Now I want to talk about the power of good enough. For all the things that you can’t say no to, it’s important that part of what you care less about is perfectionism. Part of caring less means releasing the need for perfection and accepting good enough. Getting every detail perfect provides diminishing returns compared to the stress it causes. Your extraordinary effort is better directed towards your actual goals and priorities now, the transition plan and the business you’ll have at the end of it.
It’s so important to first acknowledge areas that maybe you tend to maintain a high standard of perfection, identify areas where you can let go of perfection in favor of good enough without major consequences. Now, if you work in the construction industry, I realize that perfection is important. The measurements have to be exactly correct, or else you’re creating a lot of extra work for yourself. But even in these industries we can find ways that we can let go at least a little bit of perfectionism without consequences.
So be honest with yourself here, one of the limitations of a podcast, instead of us being in a two way conversation, is that I can’t point out some of the blind spots or help you figure this out unless you email me of course. So, I’m leaning on you to recognize for yourself where you can let go of things being perfect in your work. When you catch yourself obsessing over small details, pause and ask, “Does this really matter?” Remember, done is always better than perfect.
So, loosen up a bit, take your standards down a notch. This is going to be an important skill for entrepreneurship as well because perfectionism is the death of getting things done. Nothing’s going to be perfect the first time you do anything, especially with your business. So, get used to turning in B minus work so that you can keep moving forward rather than investing all of your energy on one thing until it’s perfect because who decides what perfect is anyway?
This entire episode has been about caring less. And I realize that sounds a little direct and bold. I talk about caring less with my clients because it gets their attention, but what I’m really talking about is reallocating your care. You’ve spent years pouring immense care and passion into this company. It’s time to slowly start redirecting that care towards yourself, maybe your family and definitely your entrepreneurial dreams. I want you to think of it as caring just 20% less about work and 20% more about your life’s new priorities.
And I’ll say it again, caring 20% less about work doesn’t mean that you start doing a terrible job. I’ve actually experienced the opposite with clients. When they start caring less, they start to do a better job than when they were completely resentful and frustrated. So, let’s talk about what reallocating care really looks like. First of all, it looks like delegating more responsibilities to others as you mentally disengage. It’s good transition practice. Soon enough you won’t be there, and all of your responsibilities will be delegated anyway, so start now.
Get people on your team trained up in the things that you’re responsible for, everyone wins with this. You get to care less about certain things. Someone on your team gets more responsibility, which they’ve probably been craving, and your company is set up for success when you leave. Even if you’re mad at your company, remember that we don’t want to burn any bridges. You want to leave seamlessly and with grace. So, delegating some things now is a great way to make the transition more seamless when that day comes.
Reallocating care also looks like having more non-work conversations with loved ones. Invest emotional energy there instead of obsessing over work conflicts. We’ll talk about this more in later episodes, but stop complaining about work. When you care a little less about work, it becomes less important to talk about and complain about it all the time. Even those that love you don’t want to hear you complaining all the time, it’s likely the same stuff they’ve heard before, and they’re probably thinking, why doesn’t she just leave if it’s so bad? And maybe they’ve said that to you, maybe they’re just thinking it.
The more we talk about work outside of work, the more energy it consumes unnecessarily. Don’t give it that power. If someone asks you how work’s going, use it as an opportunity to talk about the new business venture you’re working on and what your plans are for the future. That will energize you rather than deplete your energy. Which brings me to the next thing you can do to reallocate care, which is to spend time exploring your business ideas and getting excited about your future.
I talked about this a little in episode three, and it’s worth talking about again in this context. Before I left corporate I started working with clients after work during the work week. On the surface this seemed like a death wish for my energy. Normally when I got home around five or six from work, I’d want to just crash and didn’t even have the capacity to talk to my partner, mostly because I was so drained and resentful. But I figured that this would be a good test to really know if coaching would be something that aligned with me for the next chapter of my career.
So, most nights I’d wrap up work around five or six and immediately jump into at least one coaching session at 6:00pm, sometimes back-to-back coaching sessions at six and seven. Now, in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the healthiest thing but that’s before I had all the tools and a language to really take care of myself. But what I want you to hear is that every single day that I had a coaching session after work, I felt more energized than days I wrapped up work without one.
Spending time in my business after work was a boost of energy rather than depletion. This is wild to me and why it’s so important for you to explore this for yourself as well, whatever that looks like. When I signed off at 6:00pm without clients, I was miserable and couldn’t even have a decent conversation with my partner because I was so bratty after work. And yet, when I worked until seven or eight, but was seeing clients for those last two hours, I was a whole new person.
I wish my husband were here to drive this point home because it was a game changer for our relationship even before I transitioned out of corporate. When I started to reallocate my energy towards my business and future endeavors, I was much more pleasant to be around. And he lived with me for nearly half of the time I was in corporate. So, he knew all the ups and downs, policy changes, drama, draining clients, unrealistic metrics, all the things. But all of a sudden we had something else to talk about when it came to my work. We started talking about what my business could look like and who I’d want to serve and the inspiring things I was now part of.
Right now, you probably feel like you’re burning, a flame that’s slowly depleting, but reallocating energy to your future endeavors is like pouring gasoline on the dwindling flame. I promise it will light you up. Thinking about and planning your entrepreneurial lead is incredibly exciting but as you map out your transition plan with my help, of course, this nine to five job remains your financial lifeline for now. Which means you need strategies to prevent those daily frustrations from draining you completely.
So, in this episode we talked about ways to do that, including assessing what aspects of your job still provide value versus the ones that suck the life out of you. We talked about setting boundaries and saying no more often. We talked about the importance of embracing good enough in your work. And of course, reallocating your care towards yourself and maybe your family and future goals. And remember, all of this is in the action guide. So, if it was a lot to digest, I encourage you to download that resource from the show notes and really marinate on some of these action items.
It’s the difference between you burning everything down before you’re actually ready and truly creating an exit plan and runway that sets you up for success for what’s next. I’ve heard too many stories of moms burning it down without a plan because they’re just so fed up and then they feel completely blindsided when they try to figure out what’s next. If that’s you, it’s never too late to be intentional about the plan, so keep listening to this podcast, it will definitely help.
And if you’re still with your job, we’re going to make work suck less, so you don’t have to burn it all down. You can keep your ATM pumping and lay the foundation for your business. It’s all about caring a little less and reallocating that care to you and what you need right now. By slowly peeling back how much you care about office politics, over-performance, and other draining aspects, you actually reclaim energy for what truly matters now, which is laying the foundation for your next chapter with a healthy mindset and financial runway.
This podcast is your guide to making that life changing entrepreneurial leap, one step at a time. I’ll continue arming you with practical strategies and mindset tools so you can build unstoppable momentum towards what’s next, because you shouldn’t have to tolerate soul sucking misery for one day longer than necessary.
Next week, we’re going to be talking about how to create time and energy for your business. Now that you know how to take back some of the energy you’ve been committing to work all those years, I’ll show you some easy ways to start building in time for your business. I know, it seems like you have no time at all to add anything else, but I promise you do, tune in next week and I’ll show you. Until then, start caring more about you because that’s how you start to build a life and business you love.
You’ve got this, mama. Your family is so fortunate to have such a passionate, driven woman showing them what’s possible. I’ll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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