Do you overanalyze everything your boss(s) says at work? If you start receiving less work for a little while do you begin to feel certain that you’re about to be fired? If you get a pat on the back for a good job does your whole life suddenly seem brighter?

I’ve only been at my job for nine months and I find myself scrutinizing every positive or negative at work. I know it’s not healthy, but it took me a long time to get to where I am, and dammit– I want to do anything I can to stay there and keep progressing.

Finding your center at work is no different than finding your center in relationships or in life in general. Just follow the professional athletes cliche’d advice and “don’t get too high in the good times and don’t get too low in the bad times.” But what do you do if you find implementing that advise is easier said than done?

Finding Your Center At Work – Action Steps

  • Realize that you can only control yourself, if that. You can’t make the boss’s like you or decide not to lay you off—other than through your ability to do your best and take the proper steps to try and enhance your job security.
  • When you start overanalyzing, admit what you’re doing and try and take a step back.
  • Focus more on other aspects of your life.

If you’re anything like me, then I assume this will be an ongoing self-improvement project. The last thing I want to do is become a negative self-fulfilling prophesy. I’m sure by now you’ve realized this thought process can be damaging as well.

Best of luck in finding your center at work–please wish me the best of luck as well. Today my boss told me my writing needed to be less wordy, so it might be a sleepless night for me. I do feel better about tackling this issue having written this post. I wonder if there even are other people who feel this way. My guess is yes. To those of you fellow worriers out there (like me),

Best.

Chris

Chris

Chris Thomas, owner of the online freelance writing and web-copy company, FreelancePF. Chris’s interest in personal finance stems from leaving grad school with six figures in student loan debt.