Is Your Best Your Baseline?

Written by Katy Wicks - Happy Citta Founder

I don’t particularly like staying in one job for a long time.

For years, I worried I would be penalised for that. After one really positive interview I was told they were concerned about my potential for 'longevity' due to having worked on a high number of other projects. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, since all projects should be temporary by their very definition!

I later found that it was something that even people who I think know me quite well see as a negative quality, as a commitment issue I would probably grow out of one day "when I find the right job".

But I understand something about the way I work, and why staying can become uncomfortable that I haven't really taken the time to put into words for other people and now I think it's a good time to sit and describe that a little more carefully. Because I'm probably not the only person who feels this way and I'd like anyone else who experiences this to recognise that there is not ONE RIGHT WAY to be.

I work quickly.

I get absorbed, take on several things at once and put a lot of energy into getting something finished. Probably more energy than I realise at the time. I enjoy the momentum, and I get a lot of satisfaction from delivering something good in a short space of time.

I'm absolutely awful at maths and predicting the directions I need to take on the road when I'm getting from A to B, so I don't really like people watching my workings out, but the end result is often still quite impressive, even if I found the journey a tad stressful inwardly.

Then, once I've done my semi-impressive thing, I want a break.

That rhythm suits me: a burst of work, something useful delivered, followed by some space before the next thing. The person I’m working for is pleased. I’m pleased. There’s a little breathing room.

But the reward for good work is...

At first, delivering something quickly is a pleasant surprise. People appreciate it. They’re impressed. You get a thank you, perhaps a little recognition, and the satisfaction of having done a good job.

But over time, that speed can become the expected turnaround.

The spaces between pieces of work begin to look a lot less relaxed as people ask for more and more.

Eventually, the pace that took a considerable amount of energy starts to look like my baseline, my continuously available capacity.

I can understand how it happens because from the outside people only see the work arrive and don’t necessarily see what it took to produce it, or how much I need the gap afterwards.

But that gap matters to me. It’s part of what makes the next burst possible.

The art of Vipassana would teach that we should keep a shallow wave - no big highs, no excessive lows and in mood and life I agree. But I enjoy the flow of hyper-focussing on a task and I also enjoy the peace that affords me once a job is done.

Still, it feels strange to finish something efficiently and find that the main reward is having more added to the list.

I could slow down. I could stretch things out, or hold back completed work so nobody gets too accustomed to receiving it early. But I don’t get much satisfaction from that. I like working the way I work. I’d like to be able to enjoy it without committing myself to maintaining that intensity indefinitely.

Expectations make me nervous.

I’ve always had an uncomfortable relationship with expectations. They make me nervous. I don’t like being in anyone's way and I don't like feeling that someone is waiting for me to meet a standard, especially when that standard hasn’t been discussed.

And yet I like delivering. I like pleasing people. I like knowing that I’ve done something well, and yes, I like impressing them.

I can hear the contradiction.

I want people to be pleased with what I do, but I feel anxious when that becomes an expectation of what I’ll do next.

A lot of my trouble with expectation comes more from an assumption I'm making about what people expect from me. Part of the difficulty is that expectations can be vague.

What exactly have I agreed to by sharing my work with this person?

How will I know when I’ve done enough?

Which came first?

I’m genuinely unsure whether my discomfort with expectations grew out of this pattern or hyperfocus followed by relaxation, or whether the pattern grew out of the discomfort.

Have I worked quickly, watched the bar rise each time I met it, and gradually learned to feel anxious about what people expect?

Or have expectations always made me anxious, with quick delivery becoming a way to get them out of my head?

But, if finishing quickly creates another expectation, have I made a rod for my own back here?

That’s an interesting thought to pick apart, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's useful to overthink it. I could spend a long time trying to identify the first moment I felt this way. I may never be able to say with confidence which came first. In the meantime, I already know something about how it affects me now and that might just be useful enough.

Applying my own method

This is the sort of situation I had in mind when developing the Happy Citta Method: something you can begin to understand, but still need to work out how to approach in everyday life.

Its five stages are Understand, Clarify, Design, Change and Sustain. Thinking about my own experience through those stages gives me somewhere to take the reflection.

Understand would mean paying attention to what actually happens when I feel an expectation.

What has someone asked for? What have I added to that request in my own head? Am I worried about disappointing them, being criticised, losing control of my time, or having more work piled on afterwards?

I’d also want to notice the occasions when working quickly feels enjoyable. There’s a difference in my experience between getting absorbed in something I want to do and rushing to remove the feeling that someone is waiting for me.

I don’t need to assume that every burst of productivity comes from anxiety, but I do want to become more aware of when anxiety is involved.

Clarify considers what I want to change.

I want to keep the satisfaction of doing good work. I want to be useful, and I want enough freedom to work in a way that suits me. I also want recovery time that doesn’t immediately become an invitation to take on something else.

Shorter projects may suit me. I may enjoy having a defined piece of work, a clear ending and the opportunity to choose what follows.

I don’t have to treat that preference as a problem, I just need to clarify what about it is important to me.

Design brings the question into practical territory.

What might I do differently if I have identified something above that I might want to adjust? This could be a big existential question, or it could be a smaller experiment to help me understand the problem in one instance first.

I might ask what deadline is actually needed or talk about my existing commitments before agreeing to something additional, or even explain that delivering one piece of work early doesn’t necessarily mean I have ongoing capacity for more.

Alternatively I might consider using this stage to make the bigger decisions, and consider what job or career path allows me to work in this way and take the steps more towards that way of working as a new life choice.

Change would mean trying something and finding out what happens.

I might predict that setting a more realistic turnaround will disappoint someone. But until I have the conversation, I don’t know how they’ll respond.

They might be perfectly happy with it. They might have assumed I preferred the faster pace. They might resist, which would tell me something about the arrangement too.

If I'm taking a step towards a bigger change, it might be that I choose a new job or career path, or the change might be completely internal, embodying the new attitude that I don't need to berate myself for working the same way others choose to and standing by my values and principles when I'm questioned on 'why I seem to change jobs a lot'.

Then, lastly, Sustain asks what would help a better arrangement last.

Because I know how easily a little extra effort can become routine. I’d need to notice when the gaps started disappearing again, or when I found myself agreeing to things before considering whether I wanted to.

I’d also need to review whether the work still suited me. Staying longer wouldn’t automatically be the measure of success. A clearer decision to leave, or to choose a different kind of arrangement, could be useful progress too. This stage asks the main question "How will I re-engage this new approach if I start to fall back into old ways?"

Accepting myself

I’m still interested in where this discomfort comes from. There may be something helpful in understanding its history, but I don’t think I need a complete explanation before I can take my own experience seriously.

I know I like working quickly. I know that doing so takes energy. I know that expectations can make me anxious, and that I sometimes struggle to tell how much pressure is coming from other people and how much I’m anticipating myself.

That feels like enough to be aware of in myself.

I used to allow other people to shape my assumption that wanting shorter periods of work meant I hadn’t learned how to settle. Now I realise that I know a thing or two about the conditions I work best in.

I still want to deliver good work. I still want to enjoy doing it. And I’d like some say over what comes next.

I think that’s okay.