‘Quiet quitting’ is a term referred to when an employee only commits to delivering the bare minimum at work and not going above and beyond. Most employees tend to be disengaged during this period and use it to look for their next employment.
Whether quiet quitting is good or bad will depend on one’s perspective and reasons for quitting. Recent studies have found quiet quitting being due to having a bad manager/employer, people yearning for a fulfilled and balanced life, and people not seeing the direct correlation between work and remuneration.
Here are a few considerations before you decide to quietly quit.
- Do you hate your job? − Instead of ‘I hate my job’, how about understanding how your brain works in relation to hard work and challenges? The reality is that we are not wired to love boring and challenging tasks and unfortunately most of our jobs consist of mainly boring and challenging tasks. For us to show up fully for these boring and challenging tasks it is worth understanding how dopamine works. Through this understanding we can train ourselves to gravitate more towards receiving dopamine from these boring and challenging tasks.
Do you have a terrible manager? − Instead of ‘I have a terrible manager’, how about giving yourself the opportunity to manage-up for a specified period and if it doesn’t work, request for a transfer to another department, office or even look for another job?- Your current job doesn’t fulfil you? − Here are the questions to consider before proceeding with this notion. Is your job meant to fulfil you, or you can find other activities that can fuel you up during weekend and evenings? Should you derive the same fulfilment from your job as you do from your hobby? Do you perhaps think your role models have followed their passion and love their jobs without considering that passion follows deliberate practice?
In conclusion, I would like to offer you an approach called ‘lifestyle-centric career planning’ which is recommended by Cal Newport, as well as thinking about work/life harmony in your respective fields. Lifestyle-centric career planning refers to clearly defining the type of lifestyle you would like to have and working backwards to work on a career that would afford you the opportunity to live that life. Some of the questions you might ask yourself when you are lifestyle-centric career planning might be: how much control would I like over my schedule? How much time do I want for family and social life? Lifestyle-centric career planning provides you with the opportunity to plan and make the necessary career changes in time and not live your life as a quiet quitter.
Have you been quietly quitting?
Do you have a history of quietly quitting on yourself?
We all talk about quietly quitting at the workplace and give little consideration to the fact that it all starts with quitting on ourselves first. Perhaps it’s worth looking at whether you started by quietly quitting on yourself before your job? It is in the little things: did you commit to gym and did not see it through, did you commit to saving more and did not see it through? Do you have a tendency of starting but not finishing projects?
What do you do when no one is watching?
