Read on Twitter
I am working on my internship curriculum for this summer and I am thinking about what I needed to know as an emerging professional that I never learned or learned too late.
1/
1/
And a conversation I had with a friend and former colleague of mine came to mind immediately. They had discussed their concern about my work-life balance and initially, I had shrugged it off. I love what I do.
2/
2/
But, as I thought about it, I returned to 21 y/o me sitting at my undergraduate graduation disappointed in myself for not enjoying college or high school as much as I could have. So when I entered graduate school that fall, I wanted to actually live.
3/
3/
And live I did. But at no point did I reduce the work I did. I was still doing the MOST. I left my house at 5 am and came home at 11 pm to do it all again. I worked three jobs. Took classes. Hung with friends. Burnt myself completely out.
4/
4/
A normal person would have said to themselves, "Girl, you gotta slow down." I never did and increasingly added more work, more responsibilities, more things to my plate because I thought it was what I needed to do to succeed in the field.
5/
5/
I suffered several mental breaks. My partner put his foot down and practically begged me to go to therapy to work through the unspoken issues. I kept brunching. Kept working. Kept looking for more opportunities to succeed. But also went to therapy. Another thing to do.
6/
6/
This work is still not done. I am not going to end this thread saying I am all fixed and a better person for it. But, I did snap out of my reverie and immediately penciled in a session around work-life balance for my interns. It is something that needs to be said to EMPs.
7/
7/
Because so many of them are where I was not too long ago - working multiple jobs, volunteering to get in the door, trying to network, learning as much as they can and they are suffering because of it. It may not be as drastic as my burn out was or it might even be worse.
8/
8/
