How To Overcome Your 9-5 Victimhood Mindset
I am not going to promote the cliche laptop lifestyle and share a 30 day plan to quit your job.
In fact I’m going to do the exact opposite and suggest you change the paradigm of how you look at your 9-5. More than presenting you with a guide, I am challenging you to think differently.
Yes, I did quit my 9-5 corporate gig and started doing my own thing. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should do it. You can find joy, fulfilment and success wherever you are and in whatever you do to earn a living. I know many friends, former colleagues and clients who enjoy their 9-5 and live a very successful life.
During my 9-5 era, I was caught up in the victimhood Mindset too, dreaming of a laptop style and finding fault with the “system” and everything else in between. During the last few years of my employment, I got sick of my own negative perspective and I knew I had to change it before I left to start my own business.
Some serious level of brutal honesty, deep thinking and decision making was required on my part.
Most people (like myself back then) who are dissatisfied with their 9-5, demonstrate these 3 perspectives in their speech and behaviour:
Feel trapped working for someone else.
Think that they are making other people rich.
Follow a transactional approach in fulfilling tasks and duties.
These perspectives are very limiting and stagnating. If you do not work on them you will be carrying them with you to the next job or to your long awaited business!
I have seen people who keep job hopping and repeating the same old negative cycles with new employers, colleagues and clients.
And I also see the ones who start their own business or agency, still unhappy and some even returning to a 9-5. Because they,
Feel trapped with ungrateful employees using them
Think the overall system is robbing their hard earned money
Struggle to retain staff and get the work done
So, whether you wish to be your own boss or prefer to continue enjoying a 9-5 employment, I suggest that you work on your Mindset first. That’s what will help you to help yourself no matter where you are.
Here’s what helped me adopt a new paradigm.
If you feel trapped working for someone else, assume the role of a freelancer offering your services to a business or an organisation.
Make this also an invaluable opportunity to practise how you will be carrying yourself as a business owner.
But, I also want to empower professionals and eliminate the unnecessary dependency and reverence they have attributed to their superiors and their employment.
Psycho-analysts can see parallels in the dynamics between the subordinates and superiors to child-parent , student-teacher or worse still master-slave relationships. I remember seeing one of my team members being so intimidated by our CEO. During her performance review I had to give her a pep talk on how the CEO is just another human being with his own fears and insecurities. To treat him with respect but not with reverence.
We have been socially conditioned to depend on and revere our ‘job’ and superiors, so much that it has become the cause for extreme stress, low self-esteem and anxiety for many people. We think there’s not many opportunities and resources around and we are lucky to be employed.
Not true. We live in the best of times where we can find or create new opportunities.
Most employees refuse to voice their concerns and even present their creative ideas for the fear of losing their job. They would rather put up with bullying or play small than lose their pay cheque.
This is where most people feel trapped in their 9-5 not having the freedom to express, create and live.
Reclaim your power. Instead of thinking of yourself as a shackled employee, think of your energy exchange differently.
How?
Treat your employer as you would your client.
Your workload as the delivery of your services.
Work within boundaries to achieve a win-win situation.
If you think that you’re making other people rich, then take ownership of your own financial well-being.
If this is the sole reason why you would be thinking of starting your own business, then guess what, the roles will reverse and you will be employing others to make you rich! How will you reconcile that?
When I started my own business I learned what it is like to manage the overheads, the emergency expenses and not getting paid when on sick leave.
While consulting and coaching with organisations my job is to meet the needs of both employees and employers. My best suggestion to all is financial literacy.
Employers complain of the costs and employees of their pay. Employees will blame their employers and employers will blame the system.
Since in this article I am focusing on 9-5ers, I suggest that you take charge of your finances NOW.
Most of us do not come from backgrounds where we were educated on financial literacy. But that’s not an excuse.
Don’t follow a pay-your-bills-first-and-then-spend-the-rest type of a budget.
Don’t rely on your superannuation only.
Don’t wait for your employer to decide to give you a pay rise.
Instead, be proactive;
Learn how to budget, save, invest and also how to negotiate a raise.
Save up the money you would be spending on a few night-outs to get professional financial advice.
Set yourself yearly professional and financial goals.
If you have a transactional approach to fulfilling your tasks and duties to your employer, then work on your values.
What I mean by a transactional approach is where you refuse to do any extra tasks outside of your job description and refuse to work beyond the 9 to 5 schedule when a task or project genuinely calls for extra contribution. If you do extra, you demand compensation, keeping meticulous records.
You may also have a negative attitude towards those who do extra work and time without much hesitation.
This type of attitude is a sign of a stagnant mindset. Chances are that you are very transactional in your personal relationships as well.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not about letting your employer and even loved ones use you. If your job calls for you to do extra hours all the time then your workload is too much for you.
Your values are really core beliefs which shape your life. People who live by values have a clear self-image and a life vision.
I don’t think you can have negative or positive values. There are those who boast of save-the-world-type of values but are mean to others. That to me shows that they have merely adopted someone else’s values without much self-awareness and self-realisation.
So without going down a metaphysics rabbit hole, in short if someone lives by values it is unlikely they will live a very limiting, transactional way of life.
They won't frantically try to preserve their energy as they know that the more they give good quality service to their employer, loved ones and the society the more they will find joy, success and fulfilment in their lives.
If you do not know where to start with your personal values, here are some suggestions:
Take pride in delivering quality service at all times.
Consider each opportunity to deliver as an opportunity to evolve.
Find colleagues and mentors who live by values to expedite your growth.
I know it is hard to adopt radically different perspectives when society always complains about the bad guys and the systems out there to get you. I’m not saying there’s no such thing. But complaining about it is not the solution either.
If you want a different outcome, then you would need to think and do differently to your old self and the majority.
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