When working too hard goes on for too long

Enough is enough

I am no stranger to hard work. I ran my own business throughout my twenties and thirties, embarked on an MSc in my forties. I did this at the same time as running my own business and being the sole parent for three teenage children. However, this shifted into overdrive during the pandemic. My dad was diagnosed with melanoma for the second time just at the time the pandemic hit and he never got the treatment he needed to survive. He passed away in April 2020.

I know not everyone stopped working, but at a time when it felt like everyone I knew was learning Tai Chi, making sourdough bread or sunning themselves in the garden, I threw myself into launching a new project interviewing guests for video collections on how to get back on track after a redundancy. This intense focus meant that I didn’t have to sit around and grieve my dad. Work was my distraction and comfort.

I maintained this level of effort throughout my retraining as a psychotherapist and then channelled it into building my practice. It paid dividends of course, and I now have a successful on and offline practice, but it also cost a lot. I became entrenched in the habit of overworking.

The last year has been a conscious effort to step away from this. Along the way I have encountered existential anxiety around finances (if I see fewer clients I will bring in less money); boredom (what on earth can be as exciting as my work which is incredibly fulfilling) and questions about my identity. Who am I if I am not a hard worker?

Overworking can be the result of so many things:

It can start in our childhood, with parents who conditioned us to feel anxiety if we didn’t live up to their high expectations. Many of us find validation and approval through our grades, our career choices, our stamina.

Some of us fall into (or choose) professions where overwork is a badge of honour and we wear that badge with pride. There are many who, however much they have, feel as though they are never enough, will never have enough, and overwork is a way to convince themselves they are on the way to fixing that.

Again, there are the ex-addicts, but not really ex, because they have replaced the drugs, the sex, the drink, the gambling, with work, an altogether much more palatable addiction. Or simply, overwork can be a distraction from something you’re not ready to face: a failing relationship, anger, grief.

I wonder if you recognise yourself here?

In my years in the business space I have come across many over-workers, and even spotted one or two here too. The clues are high output, constant creation, multiple projects running at once. They’re impressive.

The problem with overwork is that it isn’t sustainable. That grief or anger has to be faced at some point. You will get tired, run out of words, patience or energy, hit a brick wall, or just yearn for a less frantic life.

I want to reassure you that there is a way out of overwork. You can step back and survive. The first step is awareness. That’s it. Just like I did when I realised I couldn’t keep it up, nor did I want to. Just sit with it for now. Rushing to solve it and create a whole new way of being just feeds off the same energy. Stay with that realisation. Notice when overworking happens, and tune into what else is going for you, both in that moment and big picture. There are plenty more practical steps to come, but for the moment you can allow yourself to even step out of the pattern of working at solving something.

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Thanks for reading,

Paula

One of the views on my regular walks, a habit that has replaced overwork for me.