There are all kinds of reasons for feeling like you’re incompatible with a particular professional environment. You might find, for example, that the workplace is just poorly run and no one in their right mind would be happy with it. However, if you’re found that this difficulty has chased you through several jobs, it might not just be a workplace issue. We all have varied levels of ability and motivation to work, which is why a good employer tries to account for the very real human needs we can have. That being said, in some circumstances, you may wonder if this issue is influenced by your own personal characteristics compared to any impropriety on behalf of those hiring you. While we can’t provide a perfect and exhaustive list of frictions you may be experiencing, you may find some of the following advice could help:
Your Kind Of Work & Preferences
It’s fine to manage the categories between disliking work in the abstract and being aware that your working preferences don’t sit well within certain environments. For instance, perhaps you’ve always found open-plan offices difficult because of the constant noise and movement and you distract quite easily. It might be that task-switching feels disruptive and you prefer to work in long periods of focused time, but you’re often pulled away to jump on quick calls or deal with requests that don’t feel planned out well. It’s also possible you’ve adapted to these challenges for years, but that they’ve taken a toll you didn’t fully understand until much later. It’s totally fine to have working preferences, as they often show you deeper patterns in how you process information, handle stimulation, and manage a routine. If you think that’s all it is, then it’s worth refitting your style in line with that.
Your Working Style
Your working style might change over time and depending on things in your life. Perhaps you’re moving to a new area and absolutely can remote work, and despise the idea that commuting to an office often means two unpaid hours of your day are basically lost to travel. Or maybe you think that your working style is much more worthwhile when you’re outside, because the fresh air and constant movement means you never feel bored. For some people, stuffing themselves into office jobs is just not acceptable, and that’s fine.
That all being said, working styles aren’t always easy to articulate, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time compensating for your needs, or learning how to work around your natural instincts. If you’re frequently confused by how easily others adapt while you find it draining to switch gears or improvise, it’s possible that your style is less flexible for a reason. It’s good to challenge ourselves of course, but sometimes it’s good to accept what you need right now.
Your Life Requirements & Responsibilities
As we alluded to, there are also times when work friction isn’t due to the nature of your job, but rather the conditions you’re balancing around it. Some examples of that can include Caring responsibilities, physical or mental health challenges, executive function difficulties perhaps following medical conditions, and other daily demands which can easily make work feel more difficult than it appears on paper. You may be surprised how many people become used to functioning at a disadvantage without realizing it. It’s easy to begin normalizing the stress, or just assign it to being disorganized or lacking motivation, or perhaps thinking they’re just bad at managing time.
Your Meaning In Work
Fulfilment is a complicated subject because it’s not the same for everyone. There are people who work at fast food restaurants behind the line and on the checkout for years and are perfectly happy to do that, in fact certain outreach programs can help individuals with disabilities, for instance, work in jobs such as these and feel actualized and happy doing so. But it’s fine if you want something more acclimated to your own tastes, we all do really. As such, you might feel like the work you’re doing doesn’t connect with anything meaningful to you, but also feel stuck in terms of how to change it. That tension can result in a kind of slow disengagement where the work gets done, but without spark, interest, or a sense of clarity about why it matters. Maybe you can tolerate that if the work isn’t so demanding.
Now, it’s good not to be dramatic, so this example isn’t necessarily a crisis of purpose. It might just be a sign that your values aren’t being met, or that the cognitive load of keeping up with expectations is taking away the energy you would otherwise put into something more creative, structured, or intentional as you would prefer. It’s good to ask that question. Maybe you’d feel better working twice as hard in a lower role but for a local theatre company, because you love the environment so much. So don’t try to frame it in terms of effort, but what you’re happy putting the effort towards.
Any Neurodiverse Traits
It’s entirely possible that your struggle to acclimate to many different workplaces is because you have neurodiverse traits. There’s absolutely no shame in that, in fact those who have these characteristics or conditions can be more than productive and are every day, but they need to be accommodated in little ways. Recognizing neurodiverse traits in yourself isn’t always easy though, especially if you’ve spent years adapting to systems that never quite fit you. You might have grown used to masking, finding workarounds for executive dysfunction, or sometimes just accepting that interactions feel more draining than they seem to be for others.
It’s also true that traits like needing predictable structure, struggling to shift attention between tasks, or becoming overwhelmed by the office social rules that feel a little tough for you to parse can often get defined by personality or preference, and it may even be implied this is a flaw you have. Yet when certain issues like that might continually show up in ways that affect how you work, connect, and recover, they deserve closer focus to potentially mitigate or figure out once and for all.
These traits don’t need to be extreme to be valid, and it’s important to remember that. So it could be that you’ve always needed recovery time after meetings, or you get physically tense when routines are disrupted. You might have a strong internal system that helps you manage detail, but you shut down when everything comes at once without a clear order. Perhaps in this example (and it is only one example), looking into an adult autism assessment can give you a deeper understanding of how your mind works and where your specific sensitivities lie, or even just let you know that this isn’t the condition you may have. That can only help you understand more about yourself, and ultimately your professional needs either way.
Your Place In The Field
Maybe you’ve finally found a place within an industry or a field that you love, but the truth is that the exact positioning isn’t perfect for you. This might mean you begin to confuse feelings of frustration with the industry and your role in t. For example, perhaps you’ve started working in the production suite of a film studio, happy to be there, but realize the hard administrative work isn’t quite for you, when managing the technical inventory of equipment absolutely is. It’s good to ask if the field isn’t going to be better for you if you make your goal a pivot, and perhaps purpose and acclimation can come back that way. With this advice, we hope you feel more routes to acclimate to professional environments more capably.
