Being a workaholic can destroy your health and relationships!

Take it from a “recovering” workaholic the prize you have to pay for being stuck in your workaholic patterns is too high to continue on. A lot of us who have the workaholic gene in us don’t even realize what we are doing. We often confuse it with being responsible, just doing what we need to do in order to survive and simply having too big of a work load to be able to work less. I have made all of those excuses until recently when I sat at my laptop completely burned out and with tears running down my face. Click here to read my personal account of this!

The problem is that being a workaholic truly is like a sickness that takes hold of you and you just fall deeper under its spell without knowing it. When you get to the point that you work from sunrise to late into the night without ever taking time off for yourself or to spend it with your family, you have firmly crossed over into it becoming a sickness. Yes, many of us have to work 2 jobs these days just to make ends meet, but even then we still need to take some downtime. We do it because we have to, not because it becomes what we find our worth by.

For years I have worked anywhere from 12 to sometimes even 18 hours a day or with me working 36 hours straight before falling exhausted into sleep was nothing unusual. Once I got up I would return to my office (since I work out of my house that was not hard to do) within moments of being fully awake and started the process all over again. I am married and my husband maybe saw me a couple of hours a day at most and that was only when I would give him his coffee and lunch for work in the morning, have a cup of coffee with him when he returned from work and later on to give him is dinner. Hell most of the time I would eat my Dinner at my laptop while I was working.

My husband is someone who enjoys a lot of personal cave time, but even he started complaining after a while about me never taking time off which I responded to in a very nasty way: “Well do you want your bills paid or not?” Now my husband works for a big company about 32 hours a week so he doesn’t just sit around either. He would try to drag me out of the house and most of the time my mind was centered on all the work I needed to get done as soon as I got back home. With other words I was very poor and often disagreeable company during those times.

Talking about permanently being exhausted and even waking up in the middle of sleep because I started dreaming about what I had left undone work wise. I would literally get up out of bed to finish my work load. Me being a woman my household is my domain. That is something we agreed on when we first started getting together almost 12 Years ago and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but now even that suffered because I no longer had time to even clean my house to the standard I wanted it to be.

Every single waking moment of my every day – yes 7 days a week- was taken up with work.

Does that sound familiar at all? If it does you may just be a workaholic as well and are running into the same risks as I was. Did you know that workaholics are often at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes because of the high stress levels they put themselves through? Depression is nothing unusual in workaholics either since we really base our worth on what we can achieve financially and when it doesn’t come in we take it as a direct blow against us.

Relationship problems are a daily norm since our loved ones and spouses feel rightfully neglected and just not important enough for us to want to spend time with them. Of course this ends up in arguments which only chases us back to our work since we are trying to avoid them at all cost. The last thing we want is more stress so we go back to what we can control - our work.

Most workaholics in one way or another are control freaks. We have managed to have complete control of our work environment and feel “comfortable” in it. At least we think we have control over it, but in reality it is controlling us.

Aside from the major health issues mentioned above we often end up dealing with becoming overweight since our work schedules do not allow for exercise or healthy eating. We have a harder time shaking colds etc since we usually won’t even take time off to heal and recover but push through. For us it is not an option to work – we literally HAVE TO WORK in order to feel that everything is as it should be.

Take a close look at most workaholics, they have a lot of business associates and acquaintances, but  real friends they have none or if they are lucky maybe one. Everything they do is work related even socializing is only done if it has something to do with work and getting ahead. They don’t socialize – they network. Constantly!

Now if that is starting to sound familiar to you, you may end up asking yourself how to break that cycle. Maybe you have realized that this is not where you want to be in your life either. Breaking this cycle is extremely hard so and once you are used to the constant rat race it becomes like a drug you need to have.

For me it was the complete break down and burn out. For others it is a major life crises or health issues that finally slows them down. I am sure there is another 12 Step program for workaholics out there, but to be honest with you I wouldn’t suggest them, because all you do is transfer one obsession to another.

You can actually break this cycle for yourself and I am not going to lie to you it is pretty hard for the first couple of weeks since you are used to working constantly. You are going to feel restless and as if you are wasting your time. Something you probably hate doing.

Since one of the main reasons you give yourself and others is “I just don’t have time to take time off” , you can do what I did and am still doing when I notice myself fall in the same patterns. Make a list of things that actually really bring you financially ahead and things which are just “worthless” efforts. Since earning money is another one of your major drives as a workaholic, this works really well. You have to be honest with yourself and most workaholics are extremely good at finding the smallest details in their work. So sit down and make that list and you will soon find at least a few hours a week which are spent in work activities that have not brought you any financial return at all.

Take those and write them on a different piece of paper, you will need those in a bit. Cross them out on your original list. Now look at the ones that are left and see where you can streamline and interconnect those activities. Take another piece of paper and write them down in “compatible blocks” until you have each one grouped up. Get rid of the first paper. Now you should already start to see a business plan emerge. Take each group and assign them to one day for 5 days. You work on that group on the day you have assigned to it. If you are extremely detail oriented you can even write a daily plan out with the most important or priority things you need to do for each group for the day you have scheduled it for. Now you may give yourself 8 or 9 hours each day to achieve that and if you have streamlined it that won’t even be a problem. At the end of the 8 or 9 hours whatever is left over will be put as priority for the next weeks scheduled group day. 

Remember the worthless list? Good take all those items and get rid of them. I mean literally strike them out of your day! If they don’t bring you income in or so little that it really makes no difference get rid of it. When I did that I literally freed up almost 38 hours per week. Those hours are now the hours you can take for your 2 Days a week off.  Since you are still as productive and earn as much money as you did doing it the long way, you can now take that time off without feeling guilty or feeling as if you are failing. DO NOT try to add new work related things!

Since by my nature I am incapable not to be active doing something, I have filled those hours for now with activities that I enjoy and not have had a chance to do. For me that was watching TV with my husband in the evening after dinner, drawing, practicing my Guitar and Keyboard, or going to a concert when there is one I want to see. Cooking a great meal something I always loved to do. Knitting and crocheting. With other words activities I can do around my husband or in the same room with him. This way my mind still stays occupied and it is not as hard for me to switch, I am available for my honey and my body gets to relax since those activities are not stress inducing but relaxing instead.

Once you stop working for the day, leave your work environment. For me that means turning my yahoo messenger off and leaving my home office, or putting on a music CD and playing some silly game on winster.com to win some points for an amazon e-certificate. I shut all my phone lines down at 4 pm, start cooking at 5 pm and after 6 pm it is my husbands and my time now.

You will be surprised how much better your relationship is going to get after a couple of weeks once you start actually being available. Now it won’t go flawless for everyone since they are used to having to be without you. Just as you are going to have to have time to adjust to a less hectic work schedule so will  your spouse. Don’t be hurt if they at first just continue doing what they have always done without you. They had to get used to you being not around and most of the time they may not even trust this to last. Give both of you time to get used to the changes and please be honest with your spouse or loved ones about what you are trying to do. You can even ask them for help in sticking to your new schedule.

I told my husband that I would stick to this new schedule unless I would run into a major money issue and couldn’t pay my bills. In which case I would start doing a power week – meaning working my usual old schedule to bring it back up, but after that he would have to yank me back into the new schedule again, because I may not notice it.

Now remember to make sure your business associates are aware of your new schedule too. They have probably gotten used to you being around all the time. It is perfectly ok for you to say they need to wait a little bit and please respect your off hours unless of course you are a surgeon and on call. That won’t work so well than.

I was very surprised how many of those I had business dealings with actually responded with: “Good it is about time you take some time to yourself. I was getting worried about you!” Now they give me ahead notice when they need something done and a longer deadline to get in done in. My clients know to come to me during my business hours and most of them too have adjusted very well to this. Yes of course you are going to lose a few, those who think that everyone has to revolve around them, but in the long run they are probably really not worth your health are they?

Let me finish with saying – slowing down a little is really worth it. You will feel better after a while and even realize that your life really should be a life instead of nothing but work. Reclaim it and reclaim your love relationships as well. You will be a lot happier in the long run.

If you need help with kicking the habit or just need to vent your frustrations and worries feel free to use my phonelines to connect with me. You will see when I am available. If I am not showing as available drop me a line there to schedule an appointment with me.

Blessings

Shalamar