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MJ and I have come up with a new term: Strategic Underachieving. Let me explain, lest you think that she and I are just slackers.
MJ leads a double life. She is a prolific writer, but her day job is very far off from that. I won’t say where she works, just in case you work with her, but rest assured that it doesn’t require her witty snarkiness. On the contrary, it requires her to be a solid problem solver with acute skills in organization, professionalism, and confidentiality. And for those of you who don’t already know, I work as a writer/creative jack-of-all-trades at a technology company. Now, MJ and I both like our day jobs, but we will be the first to tell you that we are not our day jobs. They do not define who we are or who we aspire to be. And that is where our after-hours jobs come in.
After hours, MJ writes for various websites, produces, writes and directs theater productions, and runs a faith-based drama and media program. I write and run this website, and do a ton of freelance writing and copywriting. (And we hope our day job bosses aren’t reading this.) We define ourselves by these jobs. This is who we are – creative people. However, we are also strong personalities with a solid work ethic and leadership skills, and people usually spot this in us right away. That can be a good thing, because it means that at our day jobs we could have a lot of responsibilities thrown at us.
This is where Strategic Underachieving comes in. MJ and I could have massive amounts of responsibility at our jobs and move up the proverbial ladder. But we don’t want to. We want our after-hours jobs to one day be our real jobs, and so we focus our energy on those projects. During the day, we donate our brains and our work ethic to the point that we need to in order to do our jobs well, but we draw a line. We don’t want to give up so much of ourselves to the corporate world that we don’t have enough left for our real lives. We don’t want to work long hours and we don’t want our bosses calling us on weekends. So we strategically underachieve.
There is nothing wrong with strategic underachievery. As long as you have a goal for your after hours life (a real goal, not How Many Beers Can I Chug During Happy Hour) then strategic underachieving is, well, strategic. Just make sure it’s part of your overall plan, and not just an excuse.
Stay tuned for more on the new Strategic Underachievery movement.
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