When your only measure of success is validation from others, you can find yourself climbing a career ladder that you never wanted to be on in the first place. What if, instead of defining success through job titles and third-party accolades, we redefined our own views of what it means to truly be successful? Here’s the spoiler: You have the power to create your own stamp of approval.
Simone Stolzoff’s book, The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work, captures the inner dialogue that many of us grapple with, offering a fresh perspective on our relationship with work. Over the years, the American perspective on work has shifted, and for many, climbing the corporate ladder no longer aligns with an inner sense of true success. Our jobs can feel like we’re running on a hamster wheel, constantly hustling and disconnected from what truly constitutes “enough.”
Stolzoff is a workplace expert who has worked with top leaders ranging from the U.S. Surgeon General to Google’s chief talent officer. He identifies a key issue: Many of us have become “workists”—individuals who see work not just as a means of economic production but as the very core of our identity and life’s purpose. This belief that work should deliver personal fulfillment and meaning often leads to overwork and burnout. He notes that in the post-pandemic landscape, people tend to either demonize or glorify work and are now rethinking their relationship with it.
“The fundamental question of the book is, ‘How do you balance the fact that we work more than we do just about anything else—and how we spend those hours matters—with the fact that we are all more than what we do for work?’”
The transactional nature of work
Today, many Americans have lost sight of the transactional nature of work. Careers have become all-encompassing, attempting to meet every need, often to an unhealthy extent. If work consumes all of our time, leaving no room for family, friends, hobbies or self-care, it can result in burnout and dissatisfaction.
“I think part of the reason why our relationship to work is so fraught here in the U.S. is because the consequences of losing work are so dire,” Stolzoff says. “When, for example, your health care is tied to your employment, or if you’re an immigrant, your ability to stay in this country is often tied to your employment. And I think the prospect of not having work is really scary.”
Stolzoff believes the pandemic served as a “wake-up call” for those who had intertwined their identities with their careers. “If you’re solely investing in one facet of yourself and then your job is no longer there, often by no fault of your own—maybe because of a layoff, maybe a furlough, maybe retirement—then the question is, what’s left… if you are what you do?” he asks.
Recalibrating for success
So how exactly do we shift from a world where we obtain job titles like trophies to a world where success is solely an inside job? The key seems to be in diversifying our own identities, building up the rest of our lives to rebalance the way we view our jobs.
Stolzoff encourages people to take a step back and examine success and ambition in a broader sense. “Some people can be ambitious about organizing in their local community or being a very present friend, or doing things that are outside of just the professional realm,” he says. “That sort of definition of ambition or success is no less noble than someone whose definition of success is getting to the C-suite or achieving a certain salary.”
The solution is within reach: “It might sound simplistic, but if you want to derive meaning for things other than work, you have to do things other than work,” Stolzoff says.
Work hard, then step away
He emphasizes that it’s not an “anti-work manifesto” about doing a mediocre job or being less present at work. “I am not advocating for not working hard or not deriving fulfillment or a source of meaning from the work that we do,” he says. Rather, instead of being constantly half-on, like checking emails during off-hours and always being accessible to colleagues, focus on doing your best at work and then allow yourself to step away.
While he acknowledges that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for redefining your view of success, there are practical ways to step off the hamster wheel and find a more sustainable approach to work. Once the other areas of your life are built up, it’s easier to reclaim your life.
“Hopefully… the argument that I make is neither to lionize and villainize work, but try and think about ways in which our jobs and our careers can support our vision of a life well lived, as opposed to the other way around,” he says.
Top tips for separating your work and life identities
- Carve out time for activities. Create moments in your life where you’re intentionally not working. “One of the benefits of going on a run or going to a yoga class or hanging out with a friend is they all have sort of structural protections for preventing you from working while you’re doing them,” he says.
- Choose what to do during these pockets. This might be taking a walk with a friend, going out to a movie or arranging a dedicated time for a hobby. “I really encourage people to find containers in their life, maybe find communities of people that could care less about what you do for work, or maybe don’t even know what you do for work, just to remind yourself that you are more than just a worker,” Stolzoff says.
- Determine your own definition of what “good enough” is. “I think part of the reason why I like the framework, or the term, is because you still have autonomy and agency to determine what your version of a good enough job is,” he says. “That isn’t sort of a case for settling or a case for lowering your standards. It’s a case for thinking intentionally about what is work’s role in your life and how work supports the person that you want to be in the world—and then make sure that you are also living that value or living those things that you want to embody through your actions and your behaviors.”
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