Keeping Our Dreams Alive in the Workplace
Written by Nurul Nabilah, YouthTech Trainee
Recently, we received an email from a reader, John Lim, who brought our attention to his career-coaching blog and his latest post titled ‘Why We Lose Our Dreams at Work’.
In the post, he emphasised the importance of continuing to dream, even if the workplace you find yourself in threatens to kill your dream. Being new to the workplace myself, I was keen to explore more about what he had written and so, this review article came about.
What tips can we pick up on when navigating the tensions between our dreams and workplace realities from John’s article? Read on to find out my thoughts!
John’s post brought up many relatable incidents and my worst fears of workplace negativity - being belittled by superiors, the onslaught of menial tasks, having one’s ideas shot down without much thought, and the feeling of shame for being publicly called out even when one was merely trying to make a suggestion for improvement.
The last part in particular, brought me back to the time when I worked as a Customer Service Associate in a retail store a few years back, which consisted of dealing with unreasonable higher-ups and customers that made me want to tear my hair out. While the circumstances may not be the same, I could identify with the sense of helplessness from working in a place that really brings one down.
In reading the post, the following question popped up: How do you keep dreaming when faced with a reality that is far from what you expected?
For John, he was quick to catch on to the fact that his workplace was different from what he had envisioned for himself. He even devised a three-factored assessment activity for knowing when to leave and when to stay, in which one rates the boss, culture, and work. For John, it helped him come to the conclusion that it was time to leave the job.
Overall, reading about his experiences gave an insight into the huge contrast between dreams and reality, one that we might encounter when we graduate from the world of school, where we are encouraged to think that anything is possible, to the world of work, where there are new and different constraints that we face. However, there are also two tips that we can glean from John’s article, if we do not wish to lose our dreams, and our sense of self, when battling a situation like that.
The first tip is to learn to manage our expectations.
In his post, John described in vivid terms, the rude shock of graduating from school, into the realities of the working world. Whereas in school, sharing your ideas, asking questions, and giving feedback were appreciated and lauded, he soon realised that these actions were not always welcomed at the workplace. He felt the contrast between the school environment, where there was a clear meritocracy in which “you’re graded against a clear marking rubric”, and the workplace, where the criteria for what was appreciated and what was not, seemed much more ‘nebulous’. He learnt, the hard way, that the workplace operates on a different set of rules than school did.
Though school does prepare us for what’s next in some ways, I wish it came with a warning sign, that it does not necessarily reflect what we can expect to encounter in the working world! People and power feature much more strongly in the workplace, and it is a bit like being thrown to compete in an open-water swimming competition, having practised laps in an indoor pool. However, if I come to expect the waves that come with open-water swimming, I would be more prepared to deal with them when they come. The world of work does have its own rules and playbook, and learning to navigate those takes an education of its own!
The second tip would be to create our own identity outside of work.
If we stake all our hopes and dreams on our work identity, the disappointment can be too much to take when we encounter a workplace that is less than receptive. Outside of work however, there are many other identities that we can take on. Outside of work, we are somebody’s child, somebody’s parent, somebody’s friend. We are free to do activities that we love. It could be cycling, shopping, or even going out to try new food and restaurants! For me personally, I complete puzzles and solve logic games to help take my mind off things that bother me, and it reminds me that I have an identity and a self, outside of my work and my problems.
In John’s case, he soon figured out that if he was unable to fulfill his ‘dreams’ at work, then he would build his own projects. “Building projects such as my blog, and then later online training courses helped me to find myself again. These were projects that no one was paying me for. I did them because I liked them, and they gave me hope again.”
Pursuing our quests and projects outside of work is one way to keep our dreams alive. And who knows, maybe one day, they could take on a life of their own. In this video, Elizabeth Gilbert shares the distinction between one’s job, career, hobbies and vocation. For her, her vocation was writing, and it was something that she did, regardless of whether she got paid for it or not. In the meantime, she took on jobs such as waitressing in order to pay the bills. It was not until later on in her life that her vocation became her job and career as well.
In conclusion, keeping dreams alive is tough! At some point, John wrote that he could not help but ask: What’s the point of dreaming? Yet in the end, he does not give up on them, seeing them as gifts that remind us that “better is possible”.
Dreams have the power to remind us of all the ways that the world could or should be. Standing in the gap between current reality and our desired future, is a tough place to be. And yet, it is also a place of possibility and creative potential.
By managing our own expectations of what the working world brings, and creating an identity outside of work, we create more space for our dreams to maneuver. In so doing, even as we connect to what matters to us, we bring an awareness to the context, where we find new possibilities for our dreams to take flight.
#BeBoldAtWork is a Design Your Workplace series that seeks to covers practical tips, stories and tools that would serve employees and employers to better design how you choose to think, feel and show up in workplaces so as to improve the performances of not only your organisations but also the lives of the people you work with.
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