Career Counseling

Relaxed Is Not Lazy

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It’s no secret that we celebrate workaholism in the West, that value is placed on multitasking, that obvious busyness is positively reinforced by bosses and colleagues. And so we have a case of behavioral psychology gone awry in the world of work where being all wound up, almost frenetically active, is positively reinforcing in the short-term but negatively reinforcing in the long-term in the form of mental, emotional, and physical health problems as well as eventual burnout.

Relaxed is not lazy, or at least it doesn’t have to be. You can get a tremendous amount of work done without working yourself up to a frenzy to do it and actually in the long-term we would argue that you can be much more productive when you’re relaxed about the process precisely because you never hit a wall, you find that groove where there’s little resistance, where you can keep on indefinitely.

It’s really too bad that intense is associated with good and laid back with bad when it comes to work attitude in our culture because it should be the reverse. You can sill be highly driven without getting yourself get all worked up and stressed out. The work is waiting for you, it’s not going anywhere, the key is to find a way to engage with it where you feel nourished rather than drained by what you’re doing, and cultivating a relaxed attitude is a huge factor in making that happen.