Should You Step Away From Your Work?

Stepping away from your work might just be the key to increasing your productivity.And having multiple identities will help you perform better in each one.Because you learn things as an athlete or a parent or a poet that will make you a better employee or leader or friend.So the more you invest yourself in multiple identities, the less likely it is that you’ll lose any one of them.Of course, if you do lose one, you’ll be okay because you’ve got the others.It’s useful to question the basic assumptions you have about yourself.Seeing yourself fully, broadly, and clearly is crucial.And if you still believe that doing nothing but work is necessary to support your lifestyle, then it’s worth looking at ways to moderate your lifestyle so you don’t kill yourself trying to maintain it.Walk away from the email and have dinner with your family.Leave work at a decent hour and play tennis with a friend.Choose rituals that have meaning to you and do them religiously.A good friend of mine lost her job about a year ago, and I called at the time to see if I could do anything.I knew money was tight.I was pleasantly surprised, though.She told me she had decided to postpone her job search for a few months.She was pregnant and wanted to focus on that for a while.Once she felt ready, she would look for work.She was too busy creating an identity as a mother to get caught up in her identity as a worker.Eventually I received an email from her telling me she was back at work.I love the job, she told me.Don’t negate, integrate.As soon as she walked on stage, the audience began to snicker and roll their eyes.She was painfully ordinary, and everyone was prepared, looking forward even, to see her fail.By now, if you don’t know the story, you can guess it, right?She more than wowed them.The audience immediately jumped to a standing ovation and stayed there until the end of the song.We prejudged her by her looks and were fooled.Who among us does not move through life with the hidden sense, maybe even quiet desperation, that we are destined for more?That underneath our ordinary exterior lies an extraordinary soul?That given the right opportunity, the right stage, the right audience, we would shine as the stars we truly are?Maybe if you buy that [fill in the blank], people will see you for the sophisticated, cool, gorgeous, talented, lovable person you know you really are.But in our less desperate moments, we know we can’t purchase that transformation.Although Susan Boyle became an overnight sensation, hers was not an overnight transformation.She’s been practicing singing since she was twelve.It’s easy to admire Susan.But it’s far more interesting to be transformed by her.There is grace, a friend once wrote to me, in being molded by your own gifts.To allow yourself to be molded by your own gifts takes courage.You have to be willing to stand there, exposed and authentic, while the audience rolls their eyes at you and sneers, expecting failure.And then, of course, you have to fail, laugh or cry, and keep going until, one day, they stop laughing and start clapping.But you can’t do it alone.And she had her mother.She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent.I am doing it as a tribute to my mum, and I think she would be very proud.If we’re lucky, we have parents who encourage us.Nothing really replaces a mother or father who believes in you.But even if you don’t have parents who believe in you, it’s important to have someone.Someone you trust enough that when they offer criticism, you know it’s to draw you out more fully, not shut you down even partially.And a good supporting friend even sees through the talent, right through to you.With her mother gone, Boyle still has O’Neil.As he said to The Telegraph, he was <