Choose the game you want to play.
There are a lot of different games people play in their careers:
— The promotion game. Figure out what it takes to get promoted, and do what it takes. I knew somebody at Google who had mastered this game and got promoted every two years like clockwork.
— The people pleasing game. Keep everybody around you happy, especially your manager, no matter what.
— The compensation game. Chase what will make you the most money, always opportunistically looking for the next opportunity.
— The status game. Look for ways to earn favor with high-status people, so that you can become associated with and become one of them.
— The capitalism game, where you are a resource that has to be exploited for maximum productivity. Any moment of downtime is “wasted”.
It’s easy to start pursuing one of these games to get the immediate rewards, and then forget that it’s not all of life – it’s just a game that you are choosing to play. If you become too invested in one game, you may not realize the negative consequences: the people pleaser becoming exhausted and frustrated, the compensation and promotion players sacrificing work and personal relationships in the pursuit of the next step, the status players dismissing and demeaning anybody they don’t consider to have status.
When you feel stuck and frustrated, take a step back and ask yourself what game you’re playing, and whether it is time to put down the game. Instead, you could do something more fulfilling but perhaps less measurable, like connecting with a friend or family member, or just relaxing, or doing something just for you rather than as a means to an end (James Carse describes this as moving from the finite game to the infinite game).
So what game are you playing? And what would you do differently if you stepped away from the game?
#productivity #burnout #youhaveachoice