We’ve all been there. And I’m not talking about indulging in those potato chips in bed after you promised yourself this was the day you were going to try that new diet. I’m talking about the hard and tedious day you had that led you to become this junk monster.
Hey, I get it. I didn’t exactly become a junk monster, but it’s not like I was passionately living up to the commitments I set for myself this past year *cough, cough*.
It’s hard to constantly find new and exciting reasons to keep coming to work, especially when there may not be an instant payoff for the content you’re producing. I love writing for this blog, but I’d be lying if I said it was easy to keep doing this work without some kind of recognition. I think any job is kind of like that. As humans we need to feel appreciated and fulfilled in the work that we do. And while we’ve all felt drained and burnt out with our work, it’s hard to recognize that in a healthy and constructive way.
Recently, I was forced to come to terms with my missteps and negligence in my work and with my team. With their help, I was able to really be honest about the way I was feeling about the work I was doing–how I felt like my work was constantly falling short of what it should be, how I didn’t know how to fix the problems, how tired I was with the fact that nothing was succeeding with the changes I was implementing. Most importantly, I was able to communicate the way I was feeling with my team and myself. This idea of raw honestly is called Radical Candor.
Radical Candor is a modern phenomenon combining the ability to Challenge Directly and Care Personally about your work and the people you’re creating it with. From the minds of Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff, Radical Candor is meant to be a way for you to be honest about the improvements you want to make while caring about the process and the people making those improvements.
It goes beyond recognizing your failure. It forces you to acknowledge why you let yourself get to that point of failure. I think it’s useful for a team, but also for yourself–to be able to Challenge and Care about yourself is an important skill.
I haven’t looked much into the theory itself other than when I talked it through with my own team. But in just one session we were able to be so vulnerable with each other and really make plans for moving forward. It may seem simple, but it can be revolutionary as well.
What do you think about Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff’s approach to empowering a strong team and creating a healthy and productive work environment? Do you think this is an approach you could implement into your own life? I found this incredibly helpful in changing my outlook on persistence and burnout with regards to my work. Let me know if you end up trying Radical Candor, and how it worked for you! Or if you have other tips for battling burnout, share those in the comments section below!
Don’t forget to come back next week for another post!
samanthasabio 