What have been my realizations after spending the entire week doing almost zero work. All I permitted myself to do was routing of labels for my approval which came Monday and Wednesday last week.
A major realization for me is that I’m exactly how I was when I had to take a month off of work sometime in 2014 or 2015. Back then I was single, and had the luxury of being able to stay in California for a month to sort myself out. Come back, to a totally different position, non-technical. I came home the Philippines feeling refreshed and renewed from exploring and traveling by myself.
However coming from that.. it seems that the triggers I had then to end up in a mental breakdown is still the same as the triggers I have now, some 7 years later. It was also stemming from the same thing... which is absorbing too much negativity from people who open themselves up to me about work. Lugging around my own luggage, it just became too much to bear. For them, the people who open themselves up to me, they can move on after speaking to me and live life normally. However, for my highly sensitive, empathetic personality type, I then absorb it, making it my own unknowingly because there’s this tiny sense of responsibility being one of the people who started the company.
Learning and trying to set some changes in my work life - especially with the whole work from home set up.. I need to establish some boundaries. Set cut offs, schedules, maybe delegate here and there. But what I really need to work on is to not be totally 200% available emotionally. Because it takes too much from me.
A major realization also is that work is set up in a way that us, as founders will just be hand cuffed to the job. Since so many things, big and small are for our approval. This will not enable us to have much freedom unless we learn to empower and trust people to do some of these approvals for us.
