Making a major life change that coincides with a heartbreak, another major life change, can either be a great monument for you to focus your energy on or, it can strip away all sense of stability and leave you feeling so, so lost. We’ll discuss some pros and cons and how to deal with them.
Focus On The Positive Side
The biggest perk of starting a new job is all the doors that it opens to bring newness into your life. You will meet new people, learn new tasks, take on new projects, and start a whole new work routine. This can be amazing for your mending process! It is so great to have something new that you can focus a lot of your energy on. If you use the app or follow our podcasts, Love is Like a Plant or On the Mend, you may already be familiar with Mend monuments. Mend monuments are a project or process that help you to grow as you mend, such as a new job. Jobs take up so much of our energy, and it is an awesome feeling when you can look back on how much the energy has helped you grow in your job and how that growth has helped your personal life and mending process! It brings so many new things to set your mind on, new relationships, new objectives, new challenges, and newfound transformation.
Be Honest With Your Feelings
However, starting a new job after a breakup can be very detrimental if you do not find it fulfilling, do not feel challenged, or feel as though you have lost all sense of consistency or stability. The biggest downfall of starting a new job is the same as the biggest perk: all the newness that it brings. You may miss your old friends, your old city, your old job, your old problems, and your old work routine. It can feel extremely isolating during a breakup because while you are going through all the motions of this new job, not only can you not talk to your ex about it, but you have also lost the coworkers you have established a relationship with. If you have some healthy relationships with other people, this may not seem like such a big deal for you. But as you know, relationships have a way of ostracizing us from our friends and family, and these relationships can be hard to reestablish after a breakup, so many people will not feel comfortable calling their old friends and family to discuss your feelings and experiences about the new job. This can feel so lonely.
Establish New Connections
In order to combat that, you’re really going to have to put a lot of effort into establishing new connections. Your new coworkers are a great place to start, but that may not be a great option for everyone. If you have tried connecting with them and simply, just can’t, well it is time to get involved in the community. This article highlights a couple of ways that can be done, such as starting a new hobby or volunteering. If you already go to church that can be a great place to build community, or if you already love to hike, find some hiking trips to go on through a gym or online group. Building a support system can be so difficult when it feels like you are starting from scratch, with a new job and no more significant other to go to these things with you. It is so worth it to put yourself out there because it’s important to have people to talk to.Tip: If you are shy, try striking up a conversation in small ways as often as you can. This can be done with a brief compliment on the elevator or asking to pet someone’s dog on the street or asking an employee for recommendations. This will build up more and more confidence to strike up a conversation with people you actually want to be friends with!
If You Don't Feel Challenged
New jobs that do not challenge us will start to get old very quickly. When the routine only really takes a week to get used to, work will start to feel mundane again and as you get used to the work, your mind will start to wander, often to your breakup. In fact, if your job doesn’t require a lot of mental energy, you will likely focus most of your energy on thinking about your breakup while you perform your tasks and it can begin to feel like you can’t escape this breakup.
Try Productivity Games
To combat this, you can try to play productivity games with yourself. How much can you accomplish in one hour? Or you can focus on the details of your work, trying to learn as much as possible about it. Or, you can simply listen to podcasts or music to get your mind off of it. While it is good to allow yourself to feel the pain of a breakup, it can become extremely overwhelming if that’s all you do all day, every day, at work and at home, so make sure you set boundaries around how long you will let yourself wallow. Maybe you can refuse to let yourself wallow in the workplace, in which case, these distractions will be your best friend.
Remember You Have Options
If your new job isn’t working for you, there is only so much time you can spend hoping it will get better. It may take a while before you realize how much this new job regressed all of your progress in mending. We so desperately want new things to work, but sometimes they just don’t no matter how long we wait for them to. Many people find that new jobs are tremendous ways to mend, but sometimes, you have to try a couple before you find the one for you. But it’s out there, don’t worry! Just keep trying!
