When do we leave work?

Leaving work doesn’t just happen when it’s our last day and we send a letter with our gmail or hotmail address to be contacted in the future, or when we eat cake with colleagues for the last time.

Leaving work often happens much earlier. But or even years earlier.

How many people do you think have left their jobs long ago, mentally or emotionally, but are still at work physically (and intellectually, at best)? I’d venture to say that more than half of the time people have left their job even when it appears on the surface that they haven’t. Otherwise, why do we bother with issues of commitment, responsibility, ‘motivation’, etc.? This has also been explored in research, which confirms that a decline in employee commitment and motivation can lead to early emotional disengagement, even if physical presence in the workplace continues. Loss of initiative, team participation, efficiency, etc.

I know from experience that leaving a job usually happens 6-12 months before you physically leave and then you try to make it nicer for yourself and find motivation, symptoms like complaining about pay or something else. I’ve also seen a lot of people who have left their job but physically they are still working and there is no plan to actually leave. Different fears and a seeming lack of choice.

But in order to solve the problem, we need to look at it honestly first. How much different would our world be if we looked at things honestly and acknowledged the transience and impermanence of things, rather than trying to prove something that doesn’t really exist? While we’re on the subject of honesty, listen to the 130th episode of the podcast ‘Leadership without Management’, released today.

It seems to me that there is a very large proportion of the workforce in general who are physically doing the work but emotionally have no connection with their profession. Perhaps the profession is not a life calling for them.

I believe that there would be much less tension between people in any field, but that we would truly discover our own life’s calling, but before that, we would also dare to look at the truth, that maybe today’s profession is not my life’s calling, and dare to act.

What do you think – how many people are not living their life’s calling at work? 50%? 70%, 10%? What are the symptoms that show this?

A staff member leaving her office. Leaving work.