How To Handle Your Job When It Feels Like You're Selling Your Soul To Make Ends Meet
Life in a profit-driven society can result in many compromises. As those compromises pile up, you may start wondering if you’ve sold your soul. The foundation of such a feeling can center on your job. We have to pay bills so, too often, we end up doing whatever is available to earn enough money to do so.
Well, you’re not alone. A 2021 study found that two-thirds of Americans do not feel engaged or fulfilled in their workplace. We promise ourselves we’ll find a more fulfilling career but it’s scary to take risks. So, time passes and you find yourself dreading each workday. How do we navigate this situation?
How To Tell If You're Selling Your Soul To Make Ends Meet
Your Job is Your Life
It could be that your job is exhausting or perhaps the hours are long — or both. Whatever the cause, you wake up one day shocked to discover that you have no life beyond work and work-related preparation.
Burnout
You take no satisfaction in your tasks, efforts, and accomplishments
Self-medicating (alcohol, food, drink, online porn, etc.)
Unexplained physical issues
Irritability
Loss of interest in completing tasks or trying anything new
Displaying cynicism and disillusionment
Lack of Purpose
When you’ve sold your soul, you lose touch with the dreams that were placed inside you. The bulk of your mental and physical energy goes toward fulfilling someone else’s goals. You’re doing something solely to make ends meet and drift further and further from having a personal mission.
Selling Your Soul is Not to Be Taken Lightly
You trade your days, night, energy, and focus for enough money to get by. Your morals and beliefs are comprised. You didn’t set out to do this but the weight of the world is influential. Society conditions you to certain beliefs and you can lose sight of your own internal moral compass.
Financial realities can prevent you from doing something drastic but you are not trapped. You can find ways to tolerate your job while you take steps to create change. Recapturing your soul is the most important mission you can undertake. It brings you home to a place where you felt like a creator, dreamer, and believer.
Start With Self-Care
The emotional and physical strain can be overwhelming. No matter what, commit to daily self-care. Some vital starting points:
Maintain regular sleep patterns
Make healthy eating choices
Engage in exercise every day
Practice stress management and relaxation techniques
These fundamentals will help you rebuild resilience and fortify you as you reimagine your life.
On the Job Changes
Don’t be a martyr. If you have breaks, sick days, vacation time, etc. — use it. Even if they offer you extra money, you have the right to say no.
Set boundaries. There is no law that says you have to respond to emails, calls, or texts outside of standard work hours.
Connect with others and benefit from your collective power.
Spiritual Changes
Speak success over yourself. Stop yourself when you’re about to say, for the hundredth time: “Things are never going to get better.”
Reconnect with your faith. Who will better understand the desire to protect one's soul? Find your community and ask for help.
Reconnect to your dreams. Ask a school child about their goals and they will list pure adventures. That child still lives inside you.
Help is Here For You
When feeling stuck in a soul-sucking job, recovery can feel like a pipe dream. That’s where I come in. I’m here to help guide you out of the mire. If any of the above hit home, let’s connect and talk soon so you can learn more about the benefits of anxiety therapy.
