Interning at Tesla (it’s difficult to write that without sensing a vehement assumption I’m bragging but I promise I’m not) unearthed a curious discrepancy between how I understood the dangers of stress and my actual ability to keep stress manageable during the internship. I have always seen myself as a highly ambitious, driven and stress resistant person, passionate and single minded in achieving my goals, but this past 5 months has forced me, thankfully, to entirely reassess my attitude towards career progression, health and setting goals.
I thought I’d share some of the mistakes I’ve made, why I think I made them and how you can avoid doing the same (I rewrote this acouple of times to make it less of a therapy session and more an analysis of why career hyper-fixation isn’t working for me anymore).
I think I’m quite good at giving people advice; I also think many people regularly give excellent, emotionally intelligent, empathetic, compassionate and considered nuggets of well-crafted thinking to friends, family and anyone scrolling algorithmically labelled ‘self help’ content on Instagram reels. However, you’ll find looking into mine or any other’s own actions, endless and continual contradiction, behaviour often entirely at odds with the stirring words conjured over a coffee and cake days prior. This was me when it came to anything to do with tips on relaxing, meditating and minimising stress.
I’d become skilled at regurgitating sound bites from internet gurus on the importance of eating well, prioritising sleep and taking time to relax but when I really needed that knowledge to kick in when I was working full time in a high paced environment for a leading company, I quickly realised I was turning into a sleep deprived, status hungry maniac on a poor diet who had completely ditched the gym for staying late in the office. My ego and ambition had thrown all of the correct behaviour out of the window to impress at a notable company and secure a permanent position. I was on a survival mission, a highly stressful, unnecessary intense and counterproductive one.
And sure enough, three months into my internship my manager pulled me aside and made clear they’d like to extent my internship for the full year with a view to becoming a permanent member of a fantastic team. Most surprising to me however, was that the prospect instantly filled me with dread, exhaustion and, you guessed it, ever increasing stress. I’d propelled myself into the position I really wanted but had completely forgotten to take a healthy, happy and functioning self along with me for the ride.
I just about managed to survive the rest of the internship, entirely burnt out and, despite enjoying the work, dreading every morning. Don’t do what I did, please, as you’ll feel completely empty when you get to where you think you want to be. Take it super slow (way slower than you think) and you’ll continue to grow, build great habits and then, when the time is right, land a great job and have the energy, lifestyle and enthusiasm to make it a great success.
If you feel like you want to throw everything at something, however, make sure that drive is built intrinsically from a true passion, a mission so deep in your soul you’d give everything for it. Getting quickly on the career ladder for a swanky corporation with good salaries isn’t a true passion. It’s not worth it, trust me.