Young people who just say farewell to the campus and enter the workplace for the first time often prove their ability through continuous work, especially in the modern workplace where 996 culture prevails.
But overwork is not good for others or for yourself. What we want to tell you in today’s “guide to new employees in the workplace” is what key signs you need to find in time in order not to become a workaholic.
We have all experienced some very busy working days, with countless to-do items, an important deal to complete, or months of busy seasons. During this period of time, we may be more focused on work and work longer hours, but we know that this situation is temporary, and we can view work correctly.
However, about 10% of Americans are considered workaholics, and they are considered to have a “steady trend of compulsive overwork.”. Whether you’re temporarily busy or you think it’s “normal” to work all the time, there are some key signs that you’re pushing yourself too hard. These include:
You can’t take a vacation
You’ve been putting off your holidays, working on weekends, holidays, and even refusing to take short breaks occasionally – all of which are signs of your energy burning. Although only 23 percent of Americans will take full advantage of the assigned holidays, it is enough rest for good athletes to help them to do their best when they need it, and so do the rest of us.
Long holidays can help us to rest better, but shorter breaks, such as using weekend charging, squeezing out personal time at night or occasionally taking a day off, are also important to recover energy and offset the long-term work consumption.
You ignore personal relationships
When we focus on our work for a long time, we often sacrifice our personal relationship. In 2018, 76% of U.S. employees said that the pressure of work affected their interpersonal relationships, while workaholics were twice as likely to divorce as ordinary people, and too little contact with friends and family would be harmful to our health.
Research shows that strong social relationships are positively correlated with life expectancy, and lack of social relationships has the same negative impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. If you don’t spend time outside of work communicating with others, and become more and more isolated, so that social activities are reduced, and over time, people don’t invite you because they think you won’t attend, then you may be too focused on your work.
When you’re not working, you can’t just concentrate
Another sign of pushing yourself too hard is that when you leave the office to be with the people you care about, you can’t mentally put down your work and really accompany them.
In 2017, 66% of Americans reported working while on holiday. Jeff, a former client of mine and a senior partner of a law firm, never goes on holiday without a computer. In addition, even if he promised to spend time with his daughter on weekends, he admitted that he had been thinking about work and could not help checking his email every few minutes.
Although it’s normal to think about work on a regular basis, when we are immersed in the interference of work and can’t do anything, it becomes a problem and slowly erodes our most important relationship.
In his book Difficult to Understand, NIR Eyal points out that these distractions make the people we care about become the “remaining beneficiaries” of our attention, that is, they only get the remaining attention, which is usually not much.
You don’t have time to take care of yourself
It’s not that you don’t take a bath occasionally when you work at home in pajamas, but that you don’t get enough sleep for a long time, don’t eat on time, eat only coffee and energy bars, or give up exercise for a long time, and don’t pay attention to personal hygiene, all of which indicate that you are in an unhealthy behavior pattern.
Especially when we sacrifice sleep for work, we are actually against ourselves, because sleep deprivation impairs higher-level cognitive functions, including judgment, critical thinking, decision-making and organization.
Similarly, not exercising consistently will put us in a more unfavorable situation. Exercise has been shown to reduce stress, improve mood and energy levels, and enhance cognitive functions such as memory, attention, learning, mental endurance, and creativity.
When I worked in an investment bank, I worked about 80 to 100 hours a week during the busy season, so exercise, eating, and even taking a break in my room were crucial to my health, endurance, and productivity.
Your personal value is completely defined by your work
You can’t see yourself in a broader perspective, whether it’s about your value as a person or the importance of work relative to life. These can be signs that you’re pushing yourself too hard, and this lack of vision usually comes from deep-rooted beliefs that form a narrow world view.
Eliza, the engineering director of a technology company, works very hard to put pressure on herself and her team because she believes that “my personal value comes from the performance I create.”.
In order to broaden her horizons, she asked people she respected about her value and where they felt they were worth. She found that people valued her because she was a good friend, parent or thought partner, and they defined their own values more broadly than their work.
Sometimes, a major life event, such as the birth of a child, the death of a colleague or lover, can help people get rid of this narrow perspective. Another way to broaden your horizons without experiencing these events is to have hobbies outsi
Although we all need to work hard from time to time, the key to long-term personal and professional success is to be forward-looking and take care of ourselves and the people around us for the rest of our lives.
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