The 3 seemingly harmless words that could be ruining your career

Not caring is not a solution nor is it a bulletproof strategy.

It leads to complacency.

Followed by disengagement.

Followed by boredom.

… and eventually being altogether checked out.

Believe me, I’ve been there.

The truth is, doing work half assed is harder than doing it full out.

I learned this lesson long before my corporate career. On stage, in fact. As a performer and entertainer going through the motions leaves you feeling exhausted and depleted. It’s only when you’re going full-out, aligned in mind and body and present to the moment on stage, that the energy flows with ease and without effort.

When you are disengaged and complacent in your work it’s a struggle to get out of bed; to drag yourself through the mud, resisting the inevitability of going to work. When you get there, you put a smile on believing you can “fake it ‘til you make it”,

but there’s a constant tug in a different direction.

A pull to somewhere else, something else, and you’re faced with resistance every step of the way. And not the good kind.

Not the kind of resistance that you meet when you’re going up against a challenge or something new or something unfamiliar.

No, this resistance is one that you’ve created - a shield that you’ve put up as a form of perceived protection surrounding you as soon as you tell yourseld you “don’t care”.

This shield allows us to keep a distance from the work and disconnect from it because we believe it gives us safety; that it allows us to just show up and “put in the time” without consequences. That we’ll feel good at the end of the day because we “don’t care”; but this false sense of security is in fact exhausting because we’re never in the present moment.

It takes more energy to get yourself into the work, then it does to continue the work when you’re already there.

When we’re disengaged, we are caught in between, going back and forth from where we are and somewhere else - we just don’t know where because we aren’t clear on what we want or where we want to go. We continue to feel stretched but we’re sure that if we keep struggling through somehow it’ll figure itself out. If only I knew sooner than there’s a better way than simply suffering through.

Too easily we throw around “I don’t care” at the things that we actually care the most about.

It’s as if those three words absolve us from what truly makes us feel vulnerable or what we truly want but are afraid of saying out loud. It’s an easy way to give up, to check out, so if things don’t go the way we want them to, we can just lay on the sword of “I don’t care”.

Regardless of why you show up to work every day there’s a part of you who cares a whole lot.

After all, in this one and only lifetime, you’re giving 40+ hours to it each and every week.

We have 24 hours in a day and you’re spending one-third of it at work, so there had better be something in you that cares, and likely cares more deeply than you realize.

Everytime you use this careless statement, you’re throwing a piece of yourself away. And every day you chip away at a little bit of yourself. Overtime, it takes its toll and over too much time, we’ve created a dark space to fall into.

Think before you say you’ve stopped caring.

Or if you find the words tumbling out of your mouth, take pause and ask yourself why. What I know to be true is becoming aware to complacency now is easier than later; it can awaken us to something inside of ourself so that we can shift our mindset and focus before the damage is done. I challenge you check in now. To care now.

And if you can’t find a way to get engaged in your work:

Stop playing the next card: “It’s hard for me to ask for help”.

It’s old.

It’s tired.

It’s over.

Ask a mentor. Talk to a friend. Hire a coach. Step up and start to become aware of what you do care about and lean into that. Lead from there. Focus on what you care about most and let it drive you to get up to something, to do something meaningful and to have an impact on your life, the lives around you, and the world at large.

Kirsten Schmidtke is a professional coach, speaker, and lover of lake life. She works with leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs to help them up-level their careers, businesses, and lives. Are you ready to explore what’s possible for you? Contact Kirsten to start the conversation!