The problem in banking is not the long hours.
You knew what you signed up for.
It’s neither the challenges nor the fast-paced environment.
You may often enjoy the adrenaline rush.
The deeper issues of your stress and pain are:
- The lack of respect—being treated disrespectfully by your boss or other people in the firm.
- The lack of trust. You see others being treated badly which sends danger signals to your unconscious, “This could happen to me tomorrow”. You can’t bring your full self to work. You have to protect yourself. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. If everyone around operates in a Nash equilibrium mode, you know very well that in order to survive you have to play Nash, too.
- Lack of context. You don’t know why you do what you do. Why is your role important? Why is this task you’ve been assigned important? How does the business work? How does your work contribute to the vision of the business and the world? Your unconscious sees lack of context as a clear threat.
- Lack of deep relationships. No one knows what you think, feel or want. Your manager doesn’t know you although you spend more hours with him or her than with anyone else in your life. This is scary.
- Lack of growth/learning. You feel stuck. No one asks you what skills you would like to develop or put into practice. No one sits down to work out the intersection between your vision and the organisation’s vision.
You are a warrior. I appreciate you.
And we both know you can’t control any of the above.
So, what can you do?
Build resilience. “Widen the window” as I say—the window of tolerance to stress.
Become a master of emotions.
Get better at managing, recovering and learning from stress and other challenges.
Stress? Destructive habits? Addictions?
There is a better way. Join my Unshakeable Bankers Club for free.
Loving you, Angelos