Good morning Dinks. Today we are going to discuss our jobs. Now at 32 years old I definitely feel differently about my job than I did when I was 22 years old and I would like to know if you feel the same way.
Career vs. Relationship: Where is your focus?
Our jobs are our bread and butter – they help us bring home the income that we need to enjoy our lifestyle, save for retirement and experience all of the things in life that we want to. I used to be very career focused when I was younger. After I graduated from university my job was my primary focus and my relationship took a back seat. Now that I am more established in my career I know that my younger mindset was definitely wrong – at least for me and my relationship. We will always have our job (maybe not our dream job, but there will always be a job) but we may not always have our loved one.
I am thankful that my boyfriend Nick loved me enough to stick with me when I was working 70 hours a week and working on weekends during my career driven years. Some people say that we chose to focus on our careers instead of focusing on having kids and making a family, but this just isn’t true. Our choice not to have kids doesn’t have anything to do with our commitment to our careers; it has to do with our focus as a couple who likes to live without responsibility.
Too much career = less family and friends
The more time we focus on our careers the less time we have for our friends and family and this is too bad. When I was working too much I had very little time for my friends and I lost three friends because of my lack of commitment. All of my free time was spent catching up on my sleep and honestly it was a very unhealthy lifestyle.
Now that I am older I like to keep my career completely separate from my personal life. One of the biggest mistakes that I in my career when I was younger was making friends at work. Having friends at work leads to nothing but drama. If our boss thinks that we are more focused on our friends than we are on our work we can be looked over for a promotion and it can definitely hurt our career.
The career focused bitch in your office
People who are focused on their career are usually extremely competitive people. In the world of retail banking the person who is the most career focused in our office is usually also known as the office bitch. When you work in sales the employees usually earn a commission, when money is involved the gloves come off and the knives come out – if you aren’t careful you will be stabbed in the back in the cut throat world of climbing the career ladder.
Do you think that we can be focused on our career and our relationship at the same time?
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Kristina Tahnyak
Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.
better to get on with co-workers than be cut-throat in my opinion
I know a lot of people who are cut throat and get ahead because of it, but I also know a lot more people who aren’t, yet are successful. I think you need to be great at your job in order to get ahead, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be cut throat. There is a balance that needs to be found.
I think that being cut throat means that you are probably a tin man with no heart and I don’t want to be like that. However in the odd chance that you are cut throat and do actually have human feelings you will eventually feel bad about all of the bad things that you did to your co-workers and who wants to live with that guilt?
Thanks for reading.
I work at home with my husband and have found that means we need to focus on our relationship away from the work stuff even more. My hubby, friends, and family all have to be given love and time, so I just try to fit all of my work stuff around that. Sometimes I just can’t and have to miss something, but overall, I think I’ve found a solid work-life balance for me. Good luck!
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