You clocked out but nobody told your nervous system. The last team member has left the chat. The last patient has been seen. The final decision made. The team has gone home. By every external measure the workday is over.

And then you walk through your front door into the night job that is harder than your day job. Only in this environment, people aren’t patient, friendly, accommodating or fair. For someone needs dinner, help with homework, or to talk. They’ve been saving the conversation all day for just this moment. You find yourself only half listening, only to be “caught” when you are taken off guard by a question.

This version of you that isn’t managing, directing, deciding or listened to. This version is beat…exhausted. You’ve been managing, directing and deciding since 5:30 am and the demands aren’t lessening, they’re increasing.

This is your third job. And we don’t like to talk about it. We don’t like to talk about the overwhelm and resentment your personal life creates. You feel guilty even entertaining that thought. Even reading these words brings constriction to your throat and tension to your shoulder.

You are supposed to be living inside this home and have it all together. It doesn’t matter whether you are a physician, an entrepreneur or high performing employee. You chose this demanding work and the demanding life that comes with it. But you didn’t know that choice would include drowning in the gap between who you are at work and who you are supposed to be at home.  

Here’s what I’ve noticed after 25 years of working with high-functioning people:

The third job isn’t just about exhaustion. It’s about identities colliding. The version of you that leads, holds, decides and performs, and the version that is supposed to soften, connect, receive and rest….they are in conflict. And that internal conflict is maddeningly persistent in the things you say to yourself. “What is your problem? Who do you think you are? Why did you speak so sharply? Why can’t you do better?”

Most people have never been taught how to make the transition from their day job and the afterhours job of getting done what you didn’t during the day – to family life and the demands of the personal. So they don’t. They just carry the first shift into the second and third wondering why their relationships feel like another set of demands rather than a place of comfort, support, connection and peace.

You don’t have a time management problem.

You have a transition problem. And nobody provided the instruction manual.

What does your transition from work to home actually look like? I have some ideas and I’d love to share them with you.