I really believe in my company’s product and respect my colleagues and bosses. But I’m overwhelmed by the ever-increasing demands of work and my young family. Part of me wants to find a new job, but maybe that’s shortsighted. Your advice?
Stay! You’ve got a good thing going. How often does someone say he really likes the “big three” of work: company, product, and people?
But we hear you about burnout. That’s a problem in any high-powered job and a dynamic certainly exacerbated by conflicting demands. A person just can’t give 100% to everything and everybody at the same time.
So you’ll need to make a trade-off. Maybe it will be working someplace less draining. Maybe it will be spending less time with your family. But don’t decide until you’ve tried every strategy to make your balancing act more livable. In your condition, the last thing you needis the additional stress of knowing you left a good thing behind. Give work a chance.
This question and answer originally appeared in Business Week magazine on October 23, 2006.
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