Quiet Quitting…the Trend is Likely Here to Stay
Living and working in NYC for over a decade I had been surrounded by this culture of “the busier you are the more important you must be”. Everyone you would talk to (including myself) would rattle off everything you had to do for work, home, and everything in between and you were always in a rush with a cup of coffee ready to move on to the next thing on the list.
When the pandemic hit that mind shift changed not only for myself but for so many others. All of a sudden people were looking at their lives from a birds-eye view and saying “why am I killing myself for this job”. There were so many more important things in our lives that didn’t involve work and yet work was primarily the focus. The burnout was real but now people were seeing firsthand what they had been missing. That special quality time with friends, and family, and even taking care of their mental health.
For people with learning disabilities and/or ADHD I think this especially rang true because many of us have this perfectionist mentality. We try so hard to overcompensate for our shortcomings and it leaves us feeling exhausted by the “simplest tasks”. Many of my clients have described putting in even more hours on projects, or volunteering to do more jobs because they wanted to be taken seriously and prove they were worthy of promotion etc.. But in the end, they would always take on more than what they could handle (or truly anyone without disabilities could handle) all at the price of themselves. And let me tell you I was guilty of the same thing.
With the world waking up around us, people stopped putting in the extra hours they weren’t paid extra for and stopped volunteering to do additional work because it just didn’t seem worth it anymore. If your job required XYZ that’s all you were going to do. No more, no less. Otherwise known as quiet quitting and I think this trend is here to stay.
If companies and organizations want to get the best out of their employees they should provide the best environment to succeed in. That includes listing their realistic expectations on the job descriptions, providing resources for inclusive workplaces that truly support their employee’s needs across the board, flexible work hours and workspaces, providing fair compensation, promoting mental health practices, and the list goes on.
If you agree that busy is no longer the status symbol to reach for, what are you looking for? I can tell you for me it was finding a balance. I wanted to find work that I loved, gave me satisfaction knowing I could help people but also felt that it wasn’t going to deprive me of my energy to spend with my family and friends making memories. I fill my time with both and I am not counting down the hours to catch up with either because both are within reach.
Let us know what journey you would like to make in your career and let’s see how we can help you get there.
