I can’t believe this went viral!

Earlier this week I had a reel on my instagram page (@goaldigger_coaching if you're interested) go viral. It's been creeping up to the 200K mark at a fairly steady pace, which isn't bad considering I have around 1.3K followers. You can watch it here.

In a bid to 'recreate' this viral content - which is what we're told by the gurus to do, right? I did a little bit of thinking as to why this 10 second video of a little girl tip toeing around her house in heels and a full outfit seemed to hit the mark for so many people.

And it came down to the fact that it's relatable. Like really relatable to a lot of people. Not the dressing up part and running around the house bit - but the words that I included in the video. Which were:

"Actual footage of me running around at work doing the 150 things I have on my to-do list because I felt bad saying no."

Now although the tongue in cheek 150 things list was a joke, as I looked at the research, it's not that far from the truth...

According to a recent survey, 43% of employees are taking on significant extra responsibility in the workplace, averaging five tasks on top of their day-to-day duties.

The top additional tasks given to employees included supporting and guiding newer colleagues (47 per cent), taking the lead on projects related to their job description (40 per cent) and being asked to provide cover for long-term absentees (30 per cent).

At the same time, the survey found that seven in 10 (69 per cent) workers had not seen a pay rise since taking on new tasks and half (50 per cent) had felt pressured to take them on to remain employed.

I find this a really hard one to be honest - and it seems that lots of people are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because the expectation is there from many employers for their employees to pick up these additional projects to work on, despite an already full workload.

And then usually because an employee has never felt comfortable setting boundaries at work or confident in managing up and explaining that 'sure, I can pick up this extra work, but it's means I wont get the other stuff completed' - they just keep saying yes.

And then the employer thinks 'well, I know it's a lot, but they seem to be coping okay and it wont be forever'.

But then it ends up being forever.

And budgets get cut. And when employees leave their role is divided up for everyone else to pick up rather than recruiting for another three people so everyone doesn't have to have 150 things on their todo list.

AND BREATHE.

So what is the solution for this? As employees do we need to get better at saying no? Should we have to? Or should the employers not add so much to our plates in the first place.

Would love to hear your thoughts...