6 Lessons I’ve Learned as a Recovering Workaholic
My AP English teacher was a frightening woman. Imagine sitting in one of those high school desks, a tall female frame blotting out the sun, casting you in her shadow. You look up, and her glare alone is cutting you down like a character out of a Stephen King novel. She hands you back your paper, and you see that it’s mutilated with splotchy red ink, gaping wounds after a bloody battle between her and your beautiful ideas.
Again and again, that woman mercilessly axed through my work, leaving me to believe that I was never going to get out of that class alive.
On the night before its deadline, I was rereading my midterm assignment–a very thorough review of The Scarlet Letter–when an icky feeling settled in my gut, followed by the unfortunate (and very writerly) compulsion to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.
Something told me that it just wasn’t gonna cut it, so I stayed up all night, rewrote the entire thing, and, on the following day, handed in the paper, utterly exhausted and completely unsure of my fate.
Sixteen years later, I still have that paper. It was the only A I ever got in her class.
Does stress equal success?
I remember believing that the reason I did so well on that paper was because I wrote it under pressure. I had other habits to prove that method worked, like studying for tests last minute and starting projects late in the game. I would always do well under stress, and that taught me that if I had the pressure of time holding me accountable, coupled with my parents’ and teachers’ expectations, that’s when I did my best work. I needed that tension to find focus and discipline.
Living in that mindset for so many years, I grew up very quickly. My mind began to associate stress with success, which taught me that if I wanted to have a successful life, I had to put joy, curiosity, and play on the back burner.
What happens when you put success on the other side of stress? You condition yourself to believe that in order to be successful, you must work before you can play. You must work before you can be happy. You must work before you can go out and live the life you’re currently dreaming about.
Living on the other side of work makes it impossible to enjoy the journey.
No matter what the work is, you’re chasing the dopamine that comes after the finish line: the reward, the achievement, the recognition, the validation, the testimonial, the money.
Working becomes your reason for existence. Everything else feels like it’s in the way, a waste of your time. You get irritated when you’re interrupted by life, or by your friends and family. You get annoyed when someone criticizes your work, because it’s so deeply tied to your purpose.
You become a workaholic.
How to improve your relationship with work
I’m not demonizing work, but I am challenging what work means. As a recovering workaholic, I’ve spent the last year learning how to cultivate a healthy relationship with my business. The work that I do as an entrepreneur is so closely tied to my higher purpose that sometimes the lines get blurred, and I’m learning how to manage myself to prevent falling back into old habits that lead to burnout:
Gather awareness around your habits. Learn the signs that are telling you you’re overworking. Fatigue, frustration, irritability. Pay attention to when you’re neglecting your needs like drinking enough water, getting up to move around, remembering to eat, or taking time for stillness.
Set boundaries with yourself. If you’re prone to burning through all of your energy to get something done, use the Pomodoro method to help yourself to take breaks. This can feel really frustrating at first, especially if you’re feeling impatient to get to the other side of a project, so be gentle with yourself and trust in this process–you’re doing it for your health and happiness!
Watch for beliefs that come up. The achievements, titles, money–they don’t define your happiness, your identity, or your success. YOU define those things. Hard work does not define your self-worth, either. You were born worthy for whatever it is you want, but you gotta start to believe it’s possible for you.
Are you resisting play and rest? If you’re working and feel like you’d rather be doing something fun, do the fun thing. Do it now. Be brave and face the discomfort. That’s the first step toward developing trust with your needs, interests, and desires, which are there to guide you. This has been the biggest challenge for me, but when you get into sacred stillness or playful energy, you make space for new ideas (Don’t forget to write them down when they arrive!)
Get into the energy of play. The word “work,” can leave a sour taste in your mouth if you’re burned out or working out of obligation. Your first priority is to take care of YOUR vibrational state. Get yourself to a happy place by doing something that brings you joy or leaves you feeling energized and inspired. I do this throughout the day anytime I feel my energy dipping, and I intentionally bring that energy into anything I’m working on.
Start saying “no” to jobs you don’t want. There’s a difference between working through challenges for something you believe in, versus pushing yourself through work that you “have to” or “should be” doing. When you say “no” to projects that don’t excite you, you make room for projects that will.
Running won’t get you there any faster
I’m sure you’ve read countless stories saying, “I worked 12 hours a day for a year(s) to build my dream business/life/career!”
Messaging like this can reaffirm that you need to work constantly to achieve your goals, and that if you aren’t working constantly, then they’re never going to happen for you. I mean, if you’re not willing to put in that much work every single day, do you even want your goals that badly?
Thoughts like this only add to the guilt you feel when you’re taking things slow, making time for play, or resting to refuel yourself.
You remember the tortoise and the hare, right?
We all wanna be the hare rushing toward our dreams, but we all know that it was the tortoise who really enjoyed the journey, who saw the trees, smelled the flowers, and took each step with intention, clarity, focus–and won the race.
There are times when we get to tap into the hare’s energy, diving deep into our work with blazing passion; and there are times when we need to settle into the tortoise’s energy, where we get to see the work we’ve done, appreciate the view, and reevaluate our next steps, especially when new obstacles or directions appear on our path.
What I’d love for you to take with you is that achieving your goals requires work, play, and rest. My coach reminds me of this all the time. Rest and play make space for ideas to come in, and you can carry that energy forward into your work. This gives new meaning to the adage, “Work smarter. Not harder.” Working smarter means incorporating everything you need to work efficiently, and you can’t do that when you’re burning the candle at both ends.
When you give yourself permission to play, to rest, you take the pressure off. You practice trust. You expand yourself, opening your mind to solutions and creativity. Or, sometimes, it’s just what you need to get the fuck out of your own head, so that you can find enough peace to regain control of your thoughts when they start to spiral out of your control.
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