Quiet Quitting: Is There a Better Way?

“[A]t every single generation people are thinking way more intentionally ... about, hold on, how am I showing up? What am I doing? What am I giving? What am I getting? How do I make sure that I'm not ... overgiving under receiving ... how do I put that in balance?

 On this episode we take on one of the biggest buzzwords of 2022: Quiet Quitting. 

 Join us to learn:

• The wide variety of behaviors that are being characterized as quiet quitting and what’s really at the root of quiet quitting.
• Some tactics you can use to move out of burnout and quiet-quitting.
• What quiet quitting and connection have in common. 

 You’ll also hear why we ultimately believe that quiet quitting is an invitation to us all to figure out how to do life – including work – better.

You can connect with Nita on LinkedIn. You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn, Instagram or at her website – www.untanglehappiness.com  

Transcript

Hi friends, this is Nita. It's been a while since Becky and I have recorded a one-on-one on this week's episode of Practice Wellbeing. Join us as we talk about the buzz phrase of 2022. Quiet, quitting. Becky and I talk about what this recent phenomenon means. What it doesn't mean, maybe what it should mean.

And of course, as we try to do in all of our conversations, get to the root of what's really going on at the heart of quiet, quitting. Just like at the heart of the Great Resignation is a workforce that is loudly claiming their desire to work and live differently, that maybe there is a better way to do both.

Thanks for listening in. Let's get to it.

Hey Becky. Hi, Nita. I'm kind of happy we get to have a one on one today. I know. It's exciting. I love it. I love it. It's just like kind of going behind the curtain and hearing the kinds of things we talk about every time we talk  in our free time for funsies. Exactly. Exactly. Well, so today, you know, for two years we have been hearing.

Buzzword that's just become a part of our everyday experience with the term the great resignation. And there is a new buzz phrase that has come out fairly recently called Quiet Quitting. And so I'm excited to talk to you about that today. It's essentially become this increasingly common.

Alternative or way of describing the alternative to resigning? Mm-hmm. , and being, I guess, less psychologically invested in work. Right. How would you define it? Well, I mean, so one of the challenges I think with quiet quitting as it has come to be a code word or a buzzword for a whole cluster of behaviors that range a spectrum, right?

You have the one end of the spectrum that is literally. Sort of checking out of your job and showing up and doing what people would say either is the bare minimum not to get fired or. Not even that, but like enough that you might get noticed and they might force you out, but you aren't, You aren't taking that stuff on your own, so you're kind of riding it out all the way.

Then you go to the other end of the spectrum, and I think quiet quitting is being used by some to describe behaviors that are really just about boundary setting and prioritization. They're about saying, I am no longer willing to give so much energy for the same amount of. I'm gonna put limits on how much time I'm gonna work.

I'm gonna be more present for my life outside of work. I'm not gonna work uncompensated endless amounts of overtime, right? Mm-hmm. . And I think the challenge with the buzzword is that some of those behaviors, at least from my perspective, maybe not so productive, and some of those behaviors are things that I wanna jump up and down and celebrate.

Yep. But they've all been lumped into this term that's you're doing something wrong or you're giving up on, or you're excusing yourself from. And so that's what I think is so interesting about the conversation. And just the other thing, like for me to flip it around, I have, you know, as I was thinking about the quiet quitting trend, In some ways we've been asked to quietly quit on ourselves and on our wellbeing.

Mm-hmm. , for years we've been asked to sort of like set those things aside, not make a big show of it, not consider them like, just put them aside and then really get, go all in on work. And so that's why that one end of the spectrum where we're reprioritizing and setting boundaries to me is so important because neither of those extremes, Are fully where we wanna live.

I hear that. And I also will add that I think that there's two other sort of angles to consider here. There's the, there's the one obvious angle of. Everybody having gone through the pandemic together, experiencing, you know, a collective, I guess, mass trauma together, that has caused us to have our own individual epiphanies around what's important to us and to start creating some of those boundaries.

There's also secondly but equally important to note the outcome. Of what has happened in the last couple of years due to, you know, the great resignation or people who are leaving Yep. That are putting, when, when you've got organizations that are strapped, right. With not enough people there to do the work that needs to be done.

What ends up happening is, Oh, for, for a brief period of time, I've got air quotes going. For those listening for a brief period of time, we're gonna pile on some of that work to the people who remain. Well, the problem is that wasn't brief and it hasn't been brief, and it's been for an extended period of time, and so it's gone to this point.

It's you know, water rising to the top and then boiling over. Right? It's getting to this point that people are saying, Enough is enough. And I know what my job duties are and that that's all that I'm gonna do. And I'm not gonna go above and beyond. Yeah. You can't boil me over anymore. Like I Exactly.

It's not sustainable for me to be that way. And so I need to make a change, frankly, for my survival, right? Mm-hmm. , and I think. It's just interesting. I mean, there's another angle, and this is one that you and I have talked about before to the sort of even just the moniker quiet, quitting, to me, it's tied into this notion of I suffered or I worked this way coming up, so you should work this way.

Like of course you're gonna work this way, right? Mm-hmm. . It's got this very sort of like paternalistic edge to it. Mm-hmm. , that, that I think comes from that idea, right? I killed myself for my job. You obviously you'll kill yourself for your job. Mm-hmm.  and I just question mark whether we should, whether that's the right, not even the right.

Whether that's a, why do we think that? Why does anyone think. Well, I think where everybody's kind of now questioning that, right? Yeah. Or a lot of people are questioning that, or more people than ever before are questioning that and saying there may actually be a better way. Yep. That we can live and work and do both simultaneously and maybe just, maybe it will end up being that because of this rethink that we're going through, if we can reframe it as it's a positive.

To live better so that you can work better. Yep. You know, this could be, this could be a, there could be a good outcome that comes out of this. Yeah. I mean, and that's for me, like that's the set of behaviors and that's the angle where I wanna I don't wanna call it quiet quitting anymore. I wanna call it loudly.

Claiming . Love it. I mean, maybe that's like a little too pitchy, but like the idea is that we're actually just stepping forward and saying, This is who I am, this is what matters to me. This is how I want to live and what I'm willing to give. And what I need in return to give that and like really just owning that and, and being direct with each other in a, whether it's in a employer, employee, client, you know, purchaser, whatever, like whatever relationship.

Just being able to be clear and direct about it. I love that loudly claiming . I hope that sticks, . Well, what I'm afraid of, what I'm afraid of, and this is something that is just kind of like a, you know, a thorn on my side sometimes when I hear it, is I don't want it to be attached to a generation. That is Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Loudly claiming like this is, this is across generations. Absolutely. It's across generations. And because of, you know, where I sit and the work that I do, and frankly what I mean, my, my book is, I, it's called the Happiness Recipe, but it could easily be called Loudly Claiming, Right? Yes, that is the system that I'm offering is how do you figure out how to architect this life that's gonna work for you in all aspects.

And so I hear a lot from people who've read it, and it is at every single generation. People are thinking way more intentionally than I've ever encountered in the last, even just six months about, hold on, how am I showing up? What am I doing? What am I giving? What am I getting? How do I make sure that I'm not over getting, I mean, sorry, overgiving under receiving, Like how do I put that in balance?

So I'm actually glad you brought that up. I didn't know that you were gonna go in that direction, but I love it. So I'm. I'd love for you to talk just a little bit about when you go and you sit down with somebody and walk through this, like you just said, in the last six months, there are people coming at you, right?

Yep. What are some of the questions that you have people ask themselves to get to the root, or how do you frame it up? Maybe it's not a question, maybe it's just a statement that you have to get them thinking, but how do you get people to kind of frame. How to figure out what is important to them, because I actually think that is some of the root work.

Mm-hmm.  that has been missing and it's why people feel like they're in this place of purgatory right now because they need to go and figure out what actually is important. Yeah. How to then, do I align that with. What I'm willing to work extra hard for. Yep. Well, I mean, so like first we have to confront the very real two scenarios that, that we've already talked about.

Are you in a state of boiling over or are you in a state of boundary definition? Because it's actually not productive to try to define, and I'm gonna call them final. And I mean that in the lucit sense. I mean, for this season, final boundaries when you are boiling over mm-hmm. , what you actually need to do when you're boiling over.

Let's call it what it is. It's burnout or burnout adjacent is to define boundaries that allow you to get back to a place where you're not boiling over. That's the first step. So some of the work I do is focused on that, is looking at sort of the factors that go into what might be leading to you feeling that boiling over thing and what levers can we pull or really can you pull to you know, where do you have control and influence in that space to get yourself back to a point of stasis or, you know mm-hmm.

more calmly bubbling. Right? Yep. Point of curiosity. Yes. Yep. Then from that bubbling place, that's when we try to tune into, okay, now you've got sort. Your basic, you know, you're not exhausted. You're, you're not, not sleeping, you're not, you know, you've resolved some of the, the symptoms of burnout from that place.

Now, let's start to look for, and there's a number of ways that I approach this, and it's really very individual, but the goal is like, what's the, what's the thread? What's the thread in your life that you've. Always been called to, and when I say thread, I wanna make very clear that I am talking about a multi fiber thread.

Right. Okay. It is not just like one thing, but it's like, what are the things that have constantly shown up in various proportions in your life? The themes. And which parts of the, which parts of that thread do you want to focus on in this season? Mm. So I'll ta I'll take my own career as an example.

There were some pieces around. Balancing success and personal life. There were some pieces around people just generally like people enabling success, working with people, helping people, serving people. There were some pieces around process and efficiency and how and and so when I look across, literally across, I mean, I can go back to probably high school and say what I have done.

Mm-hmm.  has in various measure called on all of those strand. And then I got to the point where I was like, Okay, now what next? And working with a coach, I was able to say, Well, these are the strands that I wanna really focus on in this season of my life, and this is the way that I wanna focus on them.

Right? Mm-hmm. , because the people piece, right? For, there was a long period where I would've defined myself as a mom first. That's a people thing, just so we're really clear. Mm-hmm. , I was a mom first because A, I loved my kids, but I also understood that raising, productive, good, healthy humans. Mm-hmm.  helps the world.

Yes. And so, But now I work with people in a totally different way. Not that I'm still not parenting, but I'm parenting differently and I'm . You know, they have different needs and it's still that element of coaching and mentorship and guiding. Yeah. Yeah. It's that. So it just. It's, it's helping people identify that, their strands and how to weave them together.

And there are a couple of ways that I do that. One of them is to actually encourage or ask a client to go out and talk to the people in their lives and ask them, What am I exceptionally good at? Mm-hmm. , and I asked them to frame it as I want your 90 second answer. I want top of mind. When you think of me, what do you think of?

Yes, I love that because the other piece of that like sort of thread strand bit is that some of it can be so central to who we are that we don't even realize. It's a thing you don't realize it's a thing, but how, how powerful it is actually when somebody, you hear somebody else articulate that and it's almost like it gives you permission to show more of that.

Yes. When people recognize it in you. Yes. And so I ask people, if I ask them to do that activity, I ask them to go to their, you know, to people know who know them in a professional context. I ask them to go to people who know them in a personal context. I ask them to go to their families. And it's been interesting.

That activity alone has been interesting because it helps identify the strengths, but it also, to your point, shifts relationships. Mm-hmm. , I've had people heal relationships. Yeah. With that activity. And it's super, I mean, that's just like a happy side effect of. This other work that we're doing. I love that it's actually something that can be done in, in, in groups, like in a, in a work environment.

Yes. We a, a group of us on my team, we we did do this similar sort of exercise where We went around the room, you were paired up with a person and went through to say, Okay, and we all know each other well enough. Yes. That, that it, that this could work. You couldn't do this with a stranger, but with your very close team and you're paired up with somebody and you had to give in one word.

Mm-hmm.  in one word, the very essence of that person. Yep. And then describe. Why that was the one word that you, that you chose. Yep. And there the, I just remember like the person who I was paired up with and the word that I gave for her was poise. Hmm. Because in every aspect of how she carries herself, how she speaks, how she, you know, just approaches every situation that I have ever seen her in, even difficult ones, she comes at it with such poise.

Yeah, and it was actually, So fulfilling to me to deliver that word to her and see how meaningful it was to have her feel. I guess not Val, maybe validated isn't the word, but to be seen, Seen being seen as one of the most powerful human experiences you could have. I don't care what anyone else says.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Oh, I, I'm with you. Yeah. So I, I actually think that that's a phenomenal exercise that close working teams could and should Yep. Attempt mainly because of the connection also that it brings in the workplace environment. Yep. And how important, if you had to do one thing for, if I had to say you do one thing, To improve the culture of any place that you work that is wellbeing related or otherwise, or engagement wise, find ways to improve connection.

Yeah. Between, Oh, no question. No question. Well, in connection, so it's interesting to tie it back around I'm gonna not deliver a full explanation of this cuz I don't have it at my fingertips, but we talked about it, like we've all just been through this collective trauma mm-hmm. , and one of the ways that we can encourage post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic stress, like we talked about in the episode with Adam.

Mm-hmm.  is, I mean, connection is a fundamental part of that. So the more connected we can feel to our community, and again, that could be our community at work, it could be our community and our house. It could be our broad more, you know, community more broadly. But the more ways, the more touch points of connection we have, the more likely we are I, I believe this is research backed, but the more likely we are to experience post traumatic growth.

And that is also. That connection enables for that growth because you are more seen by the community for who you are, so you're, you get more, I guess, positive affirmations, right? To about, I'm sure that's it. Your values. Yeah. Those things. And I think also it's like the notion of. I might be in this difficult place.

We might have gone through this difficult thing, but I am not weathering the storm alone. And so I had given you, before we talked this analogy of a trampoline, right? And so before you bounce up, you have to bounce, you have to go down and, and I think about in some ways, post-traumatic stress is like the trampoline's not strong enough.

And you fall. You fall out the bottom. Yeah. Post traumatic growth. Is the trampoline strong enough and you bounce back up? Well, think about it like connected fibers make it easier to bounce. I mean, it's not It's physics. Yeah. Kinda makes sense. Right? And so, I mean, so yes, I'm sure an element of is it, of it is being seen, I think an element of it is being seen for something beyond the trauma.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And, and I think about that, not so much in the context of like global pandemic, but more sort of isolated either personal or local trauma. You know, like I'm not just a survivor of, I'm this whole person who this person knows to be, to have great poise or to have great kindness or to have great servant leadership or whatever the thing is that I've been, you know, seen for.

So to bring this back around to a topic, where do we focus? Of course , you will solve the world's problems and not, never again talk about quiet, quitting. No. But to bring this back around to. So quiet, quitting. What do you think this all means? What can we, what can we do? Or how do we, you know, educate ourselves?

Is it even important that we do educate ourselves around what this is? And is it something to deal with? Is it something to just acknowledge? Is it something to just be a, a, a way to put language around the way we're all feeling, even. You know, maybe it's not the right language, but yeah, I mean, I think, so here's what I think, things that rub me the wrong way, it rubs me the wrong way when I hear things, and I've seen it sort of in the social verse, right?

Like ideas, like quiet quitting might have been a thing and the great resignation might have been a thing, but the economy's going and those are gonna disappear. It that that kind of thinking to me is dangerous because it suggests that we don't have to continue to pay attention to what's actually happening underneath both of those two trends.

Mm-hmm. . And I think that what, I mean, I don't think quiet quitting is something to solve, but I think it's an invitation to actually just be more direct about what we're experiencing. You know, let's actually talk about. What we're struggling with, what support we need, what boundaries we need to set, why we need to set them.

Let's get the support to do that. Let's, as employers invite people to begin having those conversations openly so that it's not this secret thing that we're doing kind of on the side. Right? Yep. So that to me is where the meat of quiet quitting is and why we even. Why even let us  do an episode on it, Right?

Because otherwise you can tell I'm not a huge fan of the term. But I think that the concept and what's happening behind it is really important. Yeah. I know that there's, there's something else that we were, we were kind of talking about because all these buzz phrases kind of keep coming up more recently, I think, than than I ever remember in the past.

But I was reading an article, I think in the Wall Street Journal. The other day around gray divorces, . Yeah. And it's like divorce in this country. Ha. Has gone down overall but for this like demographic of people where it is on like a significant rise and that is people between the ages of 50 and 70.

So they're calling it the great because you're hair great divorce. Yeah. But it really is the same thing that we're talking about here. It's wait a minute, what's important? This isn't working, and we don't need to stay in this. If we can't come together and find a way to make it work, we can also separate and yes, make our individual lives work better.

So, yeah. Yes. I mean, I think it's all, it's all the same. It's all part and parcel of the same phenomenon. I mean, the great resignation in quiet, quitting. You have the same root. Yes. And great divorce, great divorce root cause. The same root cause. I mean, so that's what I guess, I guess where I landed. What I mean, you said it and I'll say it again, like that's what's interesting to me is let's talk about what's actually going on underneath these things.

Exactly. Versus just lumping them together in a buzzword and hoping they'll, I mean there is some, some fraction of people or fraction of people who are like, hoping they'll self correct, but what does it mean to self correct. Well, I mean, you're talking about you're right. This is not about the great resignation or the great divorce or the quiet quitting it.

You're right. It is like what is under, what is underlying this? We have to better understand that because you're either going to have a situation of people leaving. Mm-hmm.  or people staying and not being happy. Right. So what we need to figure out is how do we, What I think we need to figure out is how do we.

Collect information or insights or data or whatever the case may be on what people do need. Mm-hmm.  to feel engaged. Yep. And I would just say that until we can collect that data or those insights on a more, I don't wanna say global, but like on a bigger scale each and every one of us has the ability to collect those data and insights for the people around us and for ourselves.

Yeah. Like we have the ability to stand up and say, This is what I need to feel engaged. I've done the work, I figured it out, I've gotten. Down from boiling over into, you know, more functional and this is what I need, what do you need? You know, and we have the ability to work with the people around us to help them get to that point.

And so I think it is about like just bringing that conversation to the forefront and allowing the answers to be what the answers are. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So I'm trying to think of. I had a thought about . I was thinking maybe you were ready to quiet quit on this episode. So , we're gonna have to edit that piece. That's, I like, had a thought and then it just

Yeah, I know. My brain, my brain's been quiet quitting on me. I know you're right. It maybe it doesn't need a solution in of itself other than just to kind of address the. Well, yeah, I mean, and also we could ditch the, it doesn't need a solution. We could also ditch the phrase, like we could ditch the, the shortcut of relying on buzzwords to to summarize a whole complex set of root causes, right?

Yes. Because what's going on for the person who is like literally at that edge where they are truly trying to get fired, but don't want to take the step to resign or to truly trying to get invited to leave even. Versus what's going on with the person on the other edge who is either boiling, you know, like at max capacity or reevaluating.

Like you can't summarize all of that with a buzz phrase. No, let alone a buzz phrase that is a little bit value loaded. Right. Well, and you can't like triage it  like I, it just, it feels like this is such a kind of typical. I hate to say it in this way, but like a typical American thing to do is to try like just give it a name.

Yeah. But that, and to just Yeah, no, I know, know, let's like throw something to solve, like a quick solution instead of addressing why it started to begin with. Yeah. It's the whole idea of like in, you know, in healthcare and medicine we're just gonna fix it this way instead of addressing the root costs.

Yep. Yeah, let's put a bandaid on it. Let's quick surgery instead of fixing somebody's nutrition or something like that. Right. Or whatever the, Whatever the underlying, Yeah. Whatever the underlying is. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, this has been a fun, fun conversation. Ways winding a little bit, but hopefully I think, I mean, look, I think we touched on some really important thoughts and some really useful tactics, you know, that people out there can employ to begin to get to the root cause of the buzz phrases, so Exactly.

No, I agree. I always love talking to you back. Yeah, this was fun. Thank you. Thank you.