"Harry says quitting your job can be good for your mental health"
Beyond the obviously tone-deaf statement from the world's most privileged ginger, there's
an urgent warning of how dangerous can this be for so many people.
Welcome back, my body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the Body
Language Guy, and it would be great if you join us by just liking this video, subscribing
and hitting that bell! let's get down to it!
Now, let's be clear about something.
There are toxic workplaces that can be hell on earth for your mental, physical and even
spiritual health.
In those cases, you have to face the decision between staying at a job that is definitely
destroying you, or facing having no job for who knows how long, in economies that, no
matter which country you live in, have been seriously hit in the past couple years.
That's very real and natural fear.
Fear of not being able to provide for yourself and your family.
There's not a formal "fear chart" to compare this very pressing concern to the... fear
of flashes and camera clicks, but something tells me that if you have dark sunglasses
and earplugs, you'll be fine in these circumstances.
So, the main problem here is that, even if I'm sure that most people is not going to
take Harry seriously, they are going to give it a thought.
Because it's the most natural thing in the world to wonder if what you are doing for
a living is actually hurting your odds of actually LIVING life.
And the problem is that, I first mentioned really extreme scenarios of toxic workplaces,
where the people are absolutely conscious and aware of the risks of staying there.
Just like working at Frogmore Cottage and having to stand the Duchess'... requests about
why doesn't she have a turquoise yoga mat.
For example, when you suffer open and direct bullying, discrimination and any other form
of power dynamics that tries to undermine both your sense of self worth and even your
humanity.
But even if there is no shortage of these kind of super-toxic workplaces, they are not
the most common.
Because the most common are the ones that include passive-aggressive narcissists that
are really, really hard to unmask.
But before I get into that topic and how you identify those kind of personalities and workplaces,
there's one much needed distinction that we have to make.
A distinction that will make all the difference in the world, no matter if you're working
at your dream job, or on the contrary, it's a real threat to your mental health.
And that is job performance versus self worth.
Now, there's something that happens all the time for most human beings.
The profession or career that we choose, and the amount of energy that we invest to become
that what we chose, ends up conditioning the way we look and define ourselves.
In fact, it's not uncommon that when you ask a person about themselves, one of the most
important topics that will spark naturally is what they do for a living.
And that's fine.
The problem is that in a hyper specialized society, most probably you're going to express
it in terms of the career you chose.
For example, I am a lawyer, or I am an engineer, or I am a failed Hollywood actress, that sort
of definitions.
But if we take the example of "I am an engineer", you'll notice that people are talking about
the career like the career is themselves.
Like their career is part of their personality.
Part of themselves as humans.
And that's not their fault, that's how the economy of language works.
"Oh, I dedicate myself to engineering projects for a living" nope, you just say "I am an
engineer".
But what is exactly the problem with this? well, as long as the person finds a satisfactory
way to apply their experience on what they are good at, in this case an engineer...
As long as an engineer can work in an engineering position that brings them satisfaction, there
will be no issues.
And this is the point that we have to really distinguish between job performance, or being
efficient in your industry, and your own self worth as a person.
You have to constantly and intentionally separate them.
You are not your job.
You are not your career.
You are not your profession.
You're not even your own professional experience.
And this is extremely important for your mental health just for the reason that, if some day
you make a mistake, or you're a lawyer and lose a case, or you're a doctor and lose a
patient, or you're a salesman and lose a very big sale, you're going to feel bad because
you're not only going to see it as a professional failure but also as a PERSONAL failure.
If you ARE a lawyer and you lost a case, then your sense of self worth as a person is going
to drop.
Your professional failure is going to infect how you perceive your own personal value.
And what's even more dangerous about this is how much are you identified with your profession.
If you lock yourself inside the concept of your career, and your career begins to slowly
be phased out, just by changes of our times, you might have the notion that it includes
your self worth as a person.
That your self worth as a person is slowly eroding together with your value in the professional
market.
That's why the very act of quitting a job could be perceived as "Hey, I'm being weak"
or "If I were strong enough, I could handle this", or "If I quit, I failed", or maybe
the recurring thought that "I am a failure".
Four words that, most probably, Meghan's Public Relations agents think about, at least once
a week.
But that is the main problem.
The person would be talking about the decision of quitting their as something that undermines
their self worth.
And this is very important to understand.
Your self worth comes from the constant exercise of your own values and principles.
Not from your professional output.
Your professional output measures your market value, something external, and doesn't have
anything to do with your self worth, something internal.
Keep that in mind because now we're going to solve the narcissist thing.
I made a stop talking about how your self worth can be lost in your job, in what you
do for a living, because that's the first thing any passive aggressive narcissist will
do to try to control you.
And these are the one of the most dangerous narcissists just for the reason that they
are really hard to spot.
They will NOT openly bully you, but instead try to control you with strategies like guilt
tripping.
Out of the top of my mind, I can come up with a sentence like "It's a shame that you didn't
get the report on time, you used to be so much better than this... it would really hurt
me if I had to let you go".
Again, toxic workplaces could be as toxic as papercuts.
One or two are not going to kill you, but ten a day for a couple years, really is going
to wear away your self confidence.
That's why it's so important to separate your self worth, that has nothing to do with external
factors, separate it from your professional performance.
Because the only way to recognize that your workplace is slowly killing you, is being
able to spot these toxic personalities.
And you will not be able to spot them if you let them negate your worth as a human being.
And some people can be really, really good at that.
What's more, separating your self worth from your profession and your career, is going
to make it much easier for you in case that you have to make a career pivot, or an industry
change.
No, it's not as easy as "quitting your job for your mental health", because if you don't
recognize what is hurting you in the first place, most probably you're going to repeat
the same pattern again.
And this is always a people problem.
If you can't spot your current narcissists, you won't be able to spot them in your next
job either.
I've got a playlist in my channel about narcissists that can help you learn about these toxic
personalities.
And Harry, you say that quitting a job can be good for your mental health.
But you know what? sometimes, GETTING A JOB, does wonders for your sanity.
Make of that what you will.
If you want to refine your observation skills, all you have to do is download my 100+ body
language tips, right in the description of this video.
My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and it will always be a pleasure, my body language buddies!
Much Love, and Bliss.