“Despite excellent performance and good money the worker always seems tired and is rarely happy.”
If this describes you, you may be sacrificing too much in the chase for material success.
A recent blurb by John Brandon in INC Magazine about the concept of over-sacrifice made me stop and think about high achievers and workaholics. Neither seems to take no shortcuts. Stars consistently deliver and are often motivated by self-imposed pressure to achieve those results. Workaholics just bury themselves in their job. Their job is their life. The two seem one and the same.
To some who work the job is never done. No matter how many hours they put in, what could, should, or needs to get completed is always out of reach.They chase and chase and chase but never catch.
Whether someone is new to the job or running a company, everyone pays a price to achieve success. The question then is, “How high a price?”
Sometimes it is too high.
Review the list below – none of which is admirable — and see if any ring familiar. If so, it may be time to rethink your priorities and change behaviors. We cannot grow if we do not change and each of these is a signal that change may be beneficial.
1. You sacrifice family time for work.
I have lived this one. Excuses like needing to “feed the family” might seem acceptable early on, but too much time away from home is a poor choice. I mistook the “More Sisters” — More, More, and More — as a noble pursuit. Boy was I wrong.
If you spend more time at work than home, examine the time choices you make. Don’t worry about hours in the office. Instead count the low-return “task hours” burnt answering emails, yakking on the phone, your daily commute, the hours outside the office you think about work, and the amount of time left for everything else.
Time choices are your change determinant. Make better choices.
2. Your work and leisure time intersect, so vacations are never truly “vacations.”
Where is the line drawn between actual work and true relaxation? If it blurs, take up a hobby or pursue an interest where they cannot.
Whether it’s golf, tennis, running, sailing, hiking, volunteering, watching movies at the theater or plays on stage, force yourself into activities that through their participation shield you from “multitasking.”
There is a difference between “busy” and “productive.” Minimize busy.
And for heaven’s sake — when you go on vacation . . . go on vacation! Unplug. Go reclaim your life!
3. You worry a lot . . . about a lot.
A bright signal flare of too much sacrifice is when emotional reactions increase in severity and frequency. This is especially true in private. Clues include tears, overt frustration, stress, doubt in self, mission, or purpose, and the dark swamp of hypothetical “what if?”
Too much worry isn’t just bad for you, it can be debilitatingly toxic.
If you worry too much and know it but don’t know what to do, ask your local library to get a copy of my book “Managing the Worry Circle” (How to Improve Your Life by Worrying Less). This is an easy to read life skills book that teaches how your head works and how to protect yourself against too much unnecessary worry.
4. You cannot (or will not) take time off.
Inability to take time off from work is a sign of poor boundaries and a lack of self-discipline. Extremism is expensive. When it occurs someone pays its dreadful price. The world does not end when you take time off. It gets along quite nicely.
5. You live constantly with stress and anxiety.
Science has proved that high stress shortens lives, so the maniacal pursuit of every nickel and dime is not worth the emotional tax it extracts. Obsession and relentless stress fixate the brain on a very bad thing: extremism.
Extremism at work is a control device that usually backfires. If it’s 9 p.m. and you are thinking about tomorrow’s sales meeting, you are burning and wasting emotional energy.
If the price for raking in cash is a shorter life and you’d prefer to live longer to spend it, separate your wants from needs and cut back on the wants. Live within your reconfigured means. You’ll live better, happier, and longer on less.
6. You are atypically grouchy, sarcastic, or short-tempered.
If there is a gap between the Work You and the Real You, chances are the Real You is nicer. If you snarl too often, stress and emotional fatigue are probably causing you to behave below your kindest self.
7. Your gadgets are always on.
Digital addiction is skyrocketing to the point we see it everywhere. Earlier this week a tourist in Australia was staring at her phone and walked right off the end of a long pier into very deep water. She was saved, but not without drama.
Ridding yourself of gizmo hostage situations is a key part of sacrifice management. When your phone or tablet is unavailable, you must engage with life, and others, further distracting you from work.
Science calls this behavioral trade “sensory dynamism.” When you stare at your phone or tablet, you experience only a few planes of reality. But when you look outside and become aware of what is all around, you see millions.
The brain needs holidays from gadgets. Build a tech vacation of some disciplined duration into every single day.
8. You have too few friends.
If your only relationships are at work you may have a problem, because workaholics tend to trade social lives for income.
While few friends may be okay for the short term, work should never prevent developing friendships outside the office.
If you are unsure if you are working too much, ask a true friend. He or she will tell you. Business colleagues are different. They’ll encourage you to work working, more and harder. Coattails are wide in business.
9. You postpone taking action to change.
If we stay on a behavioral treadmill, change stays out of reach.
Any time we break a reflexive loop of habitual behavior, change is at first uncomfortable. That initial change is hardest. Successive reinforcements make it easier. Do not hope for change because change rarely happens the way it must when we need it. Instead of waiting and hoping, make the change happen.
10. The activity balance between what you have to do and love to do is always tipped the wrong way.
America is a nation of mercenary workers — frighteningly so, in my opinion. Too few work at jobs they can do rather than something they love to do. Too many also think their job is their identity when of course it is not.
Retirement at 65 is not the day you finally get to stop doing what you have to do in exchange for what you love to do.
Today is.
Build the life you want to live . . . and live it. Tip the teeter-totter of job enjoyment in your favor, the sooner the better.
11. You don’t get great sleep.
An active mind burns a tremendous amount of energy. The brain needs good sleep in order to cleanse and recharge. Because this is an important restorative process, never cut yourself short of quality sleep!
Avoid drinking and drugs to “help.” A peaceful mind aligned in head and heart, along with a conservative and disciplined evening lifestyle, is the best enabler to assure consistently good sleep.
Eight good hours is the goal.
12. Road rage comes easy.
When aggressive decisions become emotionally reactive more frequently than they used to, your life is in a red zone. Red zone living is dangerous since emotional reactions in a gun-happy society can kill you. Red zone living means you are internalizing serious stressors that must be changed — the sooner the better.
13. You ignore or are impolite to unskilled workers.
Being nice is free. Everyone, rich or poor, wants to feel valued. If you ignore or snap at people who toil in menial or blue-collar jobs, the problem is usually not with them – it’s you. Be good to people, especially those less fortunate. Boost them up — don’t knock them down.
14. You’ve lost touch with the meaning of a dollar – and what it is truly worth.
Money means nothing unless you don’t have any. When you don’t have it, you think getting it will solve all your problems. Then when you get it, you realize money really doesn’t solve much of anything at all. Until you’re happy with who you are, you’ll never be happy with what you have.
Happiness comes from the inside out, not from posing for a selfie in front of your surrounding acquisitions.
To prove this, go one full week without plastic in your wallet. Carry only a small amount of cash to cover just the day’s bare minimum. Force yourself to make choices. Wants versus needs. A gallon of gas or a Starbucks coffee? Ground beef at the grocery or a can of soup and a salad?
A week of this will reintroduce you to the value of a dollar. This is good. Keep the memory close. Billions of people in developing countries work sixteen hours a day to exist on less than two dollars. Knowing the true value of a dollar will keep you in touch with the great life you have been gifted.
15. You look out for others more than yourself.
Giving and helping is great but if the very best you is lost because you are constantly helping others — but not taking care of yourself — you might need to dial that back.
A happy, well-balanced person living the life he or she wants to live has to keep him or herself carefully calibrated before helping others. He or she cannot say yes to everyone. Too much giving creates a life of self-neglect, which eventually takes a cumulative toll.
Happiness comes from within, when head and heart are aligned. Only then can your support of others continually offer them the very best You there is.
Work is important, as is the diligent, good faith pursuit of good work — but results should never come at too high a price. We must monitor our behaviors for warning signs of too much sacrifice; and do the same for others.
Maintaining a safe and comfortable balance in life sometimes requires self-policing exercises. We must recognize when we are sacrificing too much in the pursuit of something that, in the grand scheme of things, is not as important as the price we are paying to chase it.
Keep your life in balance. Doing so lets you find the very best you.