Career Shame & Burnout

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Let’s talk about career shame…is that something you ever think about?

Maybe it’s just me, but career shame is something that I definitely think about when it comes to burnout because when we’re shaming ourselves into our career path or into certain decisions we make in our careers, it often leads us to make choices for the wrong reasons. And those choices? They can lead to emotional burnout…

This is how it was for me…

You see, growing up I had received a lot of messaging when it came to careers. I would hear comments made about a major and questions asked like “what are you going to do with that degree?” History major? All you can do is be a teacher. Math major? At least people would know you’re smart. Teacher? They don’t make a lot of money. Liberal arts degree? It just wasn’t respected.

The messages I was being sent were that some degrees and therefore some career paths were more respected than others. I have also been fed messaging my entire life about what was considered to be a “good career". It had to make a lot of money. It had to be respected. It had to be something people would ooh and aahh over (okay—that was the external validation seeker in me that came up with that). It had to be secure. It had to pay well. It had to be…so many things! And all of those things overshadowed what I wanted…

It’s hard to even say that it overshadowed what I wanted, though, because the truth is that I don’t think I had any concept of what I wanted. Like I said, I was externally validated to such an extent that I really had no concept of what I really wanted.

My career story.

I was one of those students that “knew what she wanted.” When people asked me what I wanted to major in, I had a clear and direct answer: I wanted to be a microbiology major. I knew that. And, it wasn’t like I was completely copping out…

Ever since I took 9th-grade biology, I loved science. We dissected things. We watched these amazing movies about researchers and infectious diseases. I mean, I thought Outbreak was just about the coolest movie I had ever seen! So, I started reading about what microbiologists did and it sounded amazing and fascinating and impactful…it sounded like all of these things that I’d been told I should want in a career.

My mom would say something to me in graduate school that I realize now was happening back then. She said to me, “You’re like your dad. You’ll stick with something come hell or high water just because you said you would.” At the time, she was saying it about me getting my Ph.D., but now, thinking back, I realize it was true then, too. I had said that I wanted to go into microbiology—not really knowing what that meant or what that looked like—and I felt like I had to stick with it no matter what.

So, when I went to college, I majored in microbiology. I got my first lab job. I did research. I did everything that I was supposed to do. I graduated. I went to get my Ph.D. My vision of my career didn’t falter from the moment I said those words in 9th grade until I was 25 years old. Over a decade of my life was stuck on this vision and was stuck on this.

People always reacted so incredulously and optimistically to my declaration that I would be a microbiology major and a researcher. It never occurred to me that it wouldn’t be my story and my path. It didn’t occur to me until I was 7 years into my path staring down years more of my Ph.D. program. Suddenly, I realized that, yes, microbiology was respected. Yes, being Dr. Ellyn would sound amazing and engender respect from the get-go. All of those things were true…

But, there were parts of being a microbiologist that I didn’t like. Not just that “didn’t like” them…that sounds too soft! I hated them. And then it dawned on me: though my interest in microbiology at the start had been for legitimate reasons, the reasons why I stuck with it had been all wrong. In fact, it had come from a place of being stuck and not thinking there was anything else I could.

I felt stuck. That’s why I kept staying and staying and staying. I was making decisions for other people and not for what made me happy. I was making decisions because I was scared and stuck and not because I wanted what I was pursuing.

I was stuck until I got to the point where the fear of starting over was less than the fear of my feeling how I was feeling for the rest of my life.

I dropped out of my Ph.D. because I knew I couldn’t live that life anymore. Any longer. And that everyone else’s validation would no longer suffice. I was too down. Too low. To emotionally exhausted and all the reasons why I should stay just didn’t make up for any of that any longer.

So, let’s look at some of the powerful questions we can ask ourselves to navigate shame and shoulds in our careers…

• Why are you making the career decisions you’re making?

  • Are you making them for yourself?

  • Or are you making them for someone else?

• What are the shoulds you’re telling yourself when it comes to your career?

  • How much you should work?

  • How much you should be making?

  • Where you should be at in your career?

  • That you should have more stability in your career?

  • That you should be doing something more respectful?

• Where are you shaming yourself for changing your mind?

  • Is there shame around the sunk costs?

  • Is there shame around the sunk time?

  • Is there shame around the relationships and bridges you might burn?

• What shame are you bringing into your career decisions?

These are so many of the questions I was asking myself. So many of the misconceptions I was putting onto myself.

I realized that I was making decisions in my career for all the wrong reasons. I was staying in my Ph.D. because of some misplaced sense of integrity: I had said I wanted to this, so I felt like I had to stay. I felt like I “should” want to be Dr. Ellyn, but I didn’t. It wasn’t worth it anymore. I felt like I should be established in my career in my late 20s and leaving would throw all that I’d done to establish myself away.

I remember at one point saying that there were 3 reasons why I was still in my Ph.D. program: it was my income, Dr. Ellyn sounds really good, and my family was proud of me. None of those were good reasons to stay as low as I was feeling.

Before I left grad school, I was telling myself that in my late 20s you should be years into your first job, slowly climbing the corporate ladder, or in an established graduate program becoming a Dr. of something. I was telling myself that if I wasn’t making much, it was okay as long as I would getting my degree. I thought that the more you worked that meant the more you loved your job. In my mind, career stability was of the utmost importance and the only thing more important than that was to be respected.

Those were the beliefs that were driving my career decisions.

Now, I’m in a different place. I know that starting over is scary AF, but that sometimes it’s the best thing you can do for your fulfillment and your sanity. I no longer think career pivots are a bad thing, but a necessity to meet yourself where you’re at. I appreciate the necessity of stability and a stable income, but I also now appreciate side hustles, not only for filling your cup but also for filling your bank account. Now, I have no desire to be a workaholic, even for work that I really really love. I also know what it’s like to make decisions for myself that people I love don’t get. I’ve realized that it’s almost a good thing if they don’t because that means we’re making decisions for ourselves.

Career Shame & Burnout…

What it all comes down to is this: career shame is nasty. And when we feel shame about something, it’s more likely to emotionally burn us out. Career shame and listening too much to it takes us out of alignment with our values and the things that make us us. That’s never the goal. We all want to be ourselves and to feel like we can be ourselves and that goes for our careers to.

In a nutshell, there are a lot of things around us telling us what our careers “should” look like: our parents, our friends, society, etc. But if we can shut down the shame for a hot second and really get to the nitty gritty of what we want, that’s what it’s all about!

Do you have anything to add?
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