How to Deal with Apathy | 120 Seconds to Better Leadership

*Video Transcription*

So, I want to talk today about apathy. Some of this might be funny, but some of it’s truly sad. I think both of those things are reality when it comes to apathy right now.

One of the things that we’re seeing is some of the long-term stress hurting people. The economy has been taking a hit, a lot of businesses are really struggling with COVID-related business decline or expenses, people have been working from home, schooling from home, the internet’s not working – I’m convinced there’s rolling blackouts in our neighborhood – and people are sick of Zoom meetings and being on mute when they shouldn’t be on mute.

It’s like, everything is so frustrating, and then you add on the social media and the politics that have just become so aggressive and polarizing – and I don’t care where you are on the political spectrum, someone on some part of that political spectrum is annoying you right now. 

So, when you put all these factors together, I think what I’m seeing is almost a state of learned helplessness. So many business owners, so many corporate types have had these goals set pre-COVID, and it’s terribly apparent that they’re not going to be able to meet those goals, whether that’s because of people working from home, or the economy not doing well, or their particular kind of business (maybe healthcare or finance) getting hit particularly hard. And despite our greatest efforts, there may not be anything we can do to get the results that we were originally expecting.

And that’s a really bad feeling, right? It feels like you’re losing. It feels like you’re failing. And yet there’s so many barriers to what you can actually do to come back from that.

And eventually, that just wears on people emotionally and psychologically.

“Okay, if I try and I try and I try and no matter what I do I can’t get the result,”

Eventually, people stop feeling motivated to try.

So, if you’re the sort of person – and this is the sort of person that I feel like this growing sense of apathy is affecting most – if you’re the kind of person who’s always been a really hard charger, really results-oriented, and now we’re living in this environment where it’s like running through water and no matter how hard you try you can’t quite get the same results that you’re used to getting – we can learn to just give up. It’s called learned helplessness.

A lot of people are feeling like…

“No matter what I do, it’s just not going to make any difference.”

The motivation to keep trying just goes away. 

And so, for people that have built their identity on being successful and a performer, and all of a sudden, they feel like they don’t care, it’s a weird feeling. I think I heard one client say, “It’s like spending your whole life as superman, and now your superpowers are gone, and you don’t even know what you’re worth anymore.”

So, it can really be upsetting when that feeling of apathy becomes our identity. Like, “What happened to me? When did I lose this thing?”

What I want people to know is that, even though people are not talking about this, it’s affecting a certain amount of our population.

If that’s you, just know you’re not alone. If that’s people on your team, pay extra special attention right now, and just notice that some of your superstars may not be feeling like such superstars right now, and do what you can to help them and support them.

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