Lucia Knight
A Joy At Work Experiment: Find Your Kryptonite
Kryptonite - your mood and energy vampires.
Try this ten-minute Joy At Work experiment.
Let’s identify the specific people, processes, situations and environments that sap your energy, block your creativity, hinder you operating at your best and make you wonder, “Is this it”?
Downloadable worksheet available.
Can you identify the people, the processes, the situations, and the environments that sap your energy, block your creativity, and make you wonder, Is this it? I call these mood vampires your kryptonite.
By getting clear on your personal kryptonite, you get clear on what needs to change, so you get closer to operating at your best more often, which is a huge contributor to joy at work.
The Joy At Work Experiment
Take a few minutes and write down just two things in your work life that drive you around the bend, that suck your soul dry, or evaporate your energy like there's no tomorrow. (If you need some examples, listen to the whole episode!)
Look at what you've written down, then crack open your diary. Is there a way you can banish these soul-sucking tasks from your week entirely?
Or, if full-on deletion feels impossible, could you try experimenting to shave off the time you spend knee-deep in your kryptonite? How about just ten minutes less? What kind of a difference might that make to the amount of joy you have at work?
[00:00] Introduction to Joy at Work Experiment
[00:31] Identifying Your Kryptonite
[01:24] Examples of Workplace Kryptonite
[02:32] Strategies to Combat Kryptonite
[03:30] Joy at Work Experiment Challenge
[03:36] Additional Resources for Life Satisfaction
Next Steps:
Download a free Get Clear on your Kryptonite worksheet (available from within the Never too old, Never too late Midlife Unstuck community) which guide you through the process step by step.
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.
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(A Joy At Work Experiment): Identify Your Kryptonite
A Joy at Work Experiment: Identifying Your Kryptonite
Lucia Knight: Here's a joy at work experiment. I want you to get crystal clear on two things that drain the colour from your work day, that suck your life force from your work.
You know what I mean.
That colleague who infuriates you to the core, or that task that leaves you knee walking home totally exhausted. Or that meeting that leaves you wondering if pulling your eyelashes out one by one might actually be a great deal more fun.
I call these mood vampires your kryptonite. The people, the processes, the situations, and the environments that sap your energy, that block your creativity, and that make you wonder, Is this it? On a daily repeating loop.
For me, as a very social introvert, Who used to manage teams, open plan working, was my kryptonite. The constant distractions every single minute of the day meant that I couldn't get any deep work done during the day.
My solution? Show up early, stay late, and practically move in with my sleeping bag, just to get some real work done.
But kryptonite, it comes in all flavours. Some of my clients have very different arch enemies that suck the joy from their work lives.
Examples of Workplace Kryptonite
Lucia Knight: Here's some examples.
Extroverts, cursed with 100 percent alone projects, where each day drags them closer to boredom induced extinction.
Or high achievers, thrown into flexible deadline cultures, where they inevitably start procrastinating and end up questioning their personal value.
And do not get me started on creative problem solvers. When they're matched with micromanagers, that's akin to throwing a damp blanket over joy at work for them.
And if you're one of those people who thrive on constant learning, but there aren't enough new problems for you to get your teeth into, you'll start to wither and decay.
And what about those natural born change agents? Place them in an environment where they have no authority or not enough resources to implement change, and you'll watch them slowly fade away.
Suffocating almost as quickly as those who love to win, who work within a culture filled with non competitive colleagues.
Strategies to Combat Kryptonite
Lucia Knight: By getting clear on your personal kryptonite, you get clear on what needs to change, so that you get closer to operating at your best more often, which is a huge contributor to joy at work.
So what I want you to do is take a few minutes now, and write down just two things in your work life that drive you around the bend, that suck your soul dry, or evaporate your energy like there's no tomorrow.
Look at what you've written down, then crack open your diary. Is there a way you can banish these soul sucking tasks from your week entirely?
Or, if full on deletion feels impossible, could you try experimenting to shave off the time you spend knee deep in your kryptonite? How about just ten minutes less? What difference might that make? Go on, try this Joy at Work experiment this week.
Additional Resources for Joy at Work
Lucia Knight: If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it D Railed. It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.
