“The core reason why I am stressed at work is that actually I do not like my job.”
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself. It is a real self-inquiry — one person’s inner dialogue on this question, unaltered except for readability.
Self-Observation on why I am stressed at work
- A certain level of uneasiness kicks in even when I think about my job.
- I want to feel good at work but my stress, my anxiety kick in.
- This anxiety comes from the thought that I am not good enough.
- I feel shame and I want to comply.
- I find that my job is something that is not about enjoyment. Though I am looking for fulfillment in it.
- I just realize that my mindset is such that work for me is about complying and proving my worth. And about ‘begging’ to stay in it so that I feel some kind of safety.
Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper
- This is not normal. My job shall not be about proving my self-worth so that I can feel safe.
- I project my fear onto my job. This is how I gravitate towards jobs and this fear is behind how I work with people.
- This is not how everybody relates to their jobs. Some people truly love what they do.
- There is this revelation now: Actually, I do not even like my job. And this is totally understandable since the way I think about it is that ‘I need to prove myself because I am not good enough’.
- If I realized my self-worth, my view about how I want to work, and probably what I want to do would radically change.
- Stress would be gone, I would not think about why I am not capable, and how hard my work must be. I would just naturally go towards what I enjoy. Stress would not even come up.
- I may not even need to see my self-worth; it feels good now that I have an understanding of why I am stressed.
If you stopped needing to prove your worth at work — would you still be doing what you’re doing?
If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter’s journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.