Confessions of a Workaholic - I recoverd from that, and you can, too.

I always loved to make As, simply because it awarded me some positive parental attention while growing up. I helped my friends with their algebra and geometry, then I discovered that I loved calculus in my senior year in high school. I entered college planning to major in math, but I struggled with world history and made my one and only D in college in that class. That was my wake-up call, and at the advice of a summer employer – a master’s level medical records librarian – I switched my major to biology (or premed). She convinced me that I could do anything that I set my mind to. She allowed me to attend medical staff meetings with her and I observed her interact with the doctors who practiced in my small-town general hospital.

I enjoyed chemistry courses, especially biochemistry, and decided to double major in biology and chemistry. I was in a sorority but not very social. In college, I was inducted into the Mortar Board, a national women’s honorary. Most days, I had to leave my apartment and my two noisy roommates and trudge to the library to study with two premed boys. The old professor who taught Physical Chemistry in summer school “felt sorry for me” working so hard, and he gave me what he called a “gentleman’s B.” The following spring, after college graduation, I worked as a scrub technician in the hospital operating room, and by then I was smitten - with medicine.

In medical school I studied six nights a week, and my roommate, who smoked a lot of “weed,” chastised me for being “too diligent.” I made my first A in gross anatomy and continued to accomplish good grades throughout the remainder of medical school. My senior year, I was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honorary. Clearly, I loved distinctions! Did I have any social life? I dated and later lived with a guy whom I thought was nice, but he was not a serious student. Our relationship fizzled once we matched into residency programs in different cities. Of course, my residency was much more prestigious than his.

Do you see this pattern? Constant striving for perfection, good grades, accomplishments, and extra distinction? Sacrificing a social life for studying, an ability to postpone gratification, and, of course, determination. These were my predominant character traits throughout my twenties. By age thirty, I was still infected with perfectionism, although I was usually exhausted from the endless hospital night calls. Nevertheless, I managed to secure a plum fellowship. Those additional three years of training were rough, but I remained resolved to achieve and excel. I joined the Pediatrics faculty at Texas Children’s Hospital and had big plans to continue succeeding.

During this period, I remember desperately wanting to get married and have children. I am from the deep South and that is what women do, even well-educated women. Fortunately, I met my future husband while working in the hospital; he is also a physician. We married when I was thirty-three and I delivered our first child at the age of thirty-four. Two more children and eight years later, I remained committed to perfection - in my work - my research projects, my teaching, my clinical care - and my mothering. I was far from a perfect mother, and whenever I felt inadequate as a mother, I could go to work and feel valuable and talented. I often worked longer hours than necessary – something several of our nannies reminded me from time to time.

At age forty, when I encountered a confluence of midlife transitions, I was pressured to reassess my goals for my life and work. (My psychotherapist helped immensely.) Our process stimulated me to identify and evaluate my strengths and my weaknesses. I loved being a mother, and I desperately loved my children, yet I was able to admit that I often stayed at the hospital or office later than necessary. I admitted to taking on extra projects, or teaching assignments, and always going the extra mile to make everything I touched turn out perfect. In the NICU when a rare complication occurred in one of my babies, I felt responsible, even if I had done the procedure correctly. One of my male partners noticed this and admonished me saying, “Why do you blame yourself when something happens that is out of your control?”

As I reevaluated my priorities I came up with 1) mothering and loving my children 2) spending more time at home, 3) trying to attend every play, event, or match in which the kids participated 3) giving my husband more opportunities (and more credit) to help me with the household labor – you know the emotional load of keeping everything running smoothly, 4) spending quality time with my husband – mostly date nights, 5) undertaking regular exercise – three days a week, 6) providing great clinical care to my patients, and 6) maintaining my best friendships.

I left behind writing every research paper until perfection. I stopped volunteering for extra projects and presentations. I left the NICU or office by 4 pm on my exercise days. On the other days, I left by 5:30 pm. I forced myself to stop work, check out, or put down what I was doing (unless of course, it was a major emergency in the NICU). There were times, however, when my newfound methods did not feel pleasant to me. I always listened to this nagging voice telling me that I could do more, be more, and get more done, if only I would devote more time and energy. When these thoughts crept in, I thought about my children - pictured their beautiful faces in my mind - took many deep breaths, and left work anyway.  

Why share this personal story with you? Because I believe that there are many educated, working women who are mothers and who also struggle with workaholism. The prevalence may be as high as ten percent of us. It is much higher among physicians because we are acclimated to believe in the necessity of our talents and knowledge for providing care to others.

But surely there must be other professional women who tend to be perfectionistic, hyper-responsible strivers, and overachievers. I am describing my story for those women.sponsible strivers, and overachievers. I am describing my story for those women.

Rediscovering Balance: A Guide for Breaking Free from Workaholism

Ever wonder if you are a workaholic? There are clues to workaholism in your attitude about your job – your level of enthusiasm, your commitment, and your level of involvement.

We may be compulsive about our work, perfectionistic, or merely achievement oriented. Some of us insist on doing our job perfectly or not at all. Some of us are relentless and compulsively driven to work quickly and meet deadlines, while others of us savor our work, finding it difficult to stop working because we are preoccupied with details.

Several behavioral tendencies exist among most workaholics - spending discretionary time in work activities, thinking about work when not at work, and working beyond organizational or economic requirements.

The variables most typically associated with workaholism, according to research, include job involvement, work stress, and work-life imbalance. Some empirical literature has proposed that workaholics experience less job satisfaction as well as less life satisfaction.

A person with workaholism may engage in compulsive work to avoid other aspects of their life, like troubling emotional issues or a personal crisis. And the workaholic may continue their behavior unaware of the negative effects that their work addiction is causing. Many workaholics often experience feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and a constant sense of pressure to perform.

Workaholism is extremely detrimental to our individual well-being. Workaholism can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. Physically, it may cause fatigue, sleep disorders, and cardiovascular issues due to prolonged periods of high stress. We workaholics are at high risk for burnout, which can severely impact both mental and physical health. Overwork also weakens our immune system and increases our  susceptibility to illnesses.

Some workaholics develop a sedentary lifestyle and conditions such as obesity and diabetes due to neglect of personal health and exercise. Others develop heart disease, hypertension, or gastrointestinal problems. In addition, workaholics are more prone to secondary addictions, such as alcoholism and overeating.

So, how can you know whether you might be a workaholic?

Have you ever said these things to yourself?

·         “I can’t seem to disconnect from work.”

·         “I can’t stop thinking about work.”

·         “I keep putting my work ahead of loved ones.”

·         “I always put my work ahead of caring for myself.”

·         “I can’t sleep because I have an unfinished task.”

Do you have any of these symptoms of a work addiction?

·         putting in long hours in your workplace, even when not needed

·         losing sleep to engage in work projects or to finish tasks

·         being obsessed with work-related success

·         having intense fear of failure at work

·         being paranoid about work-related performance

·         the disintegration of personal relationships because of work

·         using work to avoid relationships

·         working to cope with feelings of guilt or depression

·         working to avoid dealing with a life crises like death, divorce, or financial trouble

If you are a workaholic, what can you do about it?

Coping strategies that help mitigate the psychological effects of workaholism include setting clear boundaries between work and personal life, scheduling regular breaks, and engaging in leisure activities that promote relaxation and enjoyment. Easier said than done, right?

There are some specific strategies that will be helpful to you. Malissa Clark, head of the Healthy Work Lab at UGA, has written about  strategies that are useful to treat workaholism. These are summarized below:

1)      Redefine “urgent” - Workaholics tend to view everything job-related as high priority. We create a perpetual mini crisis when we assign everything as urgent. Some things are important, yes, but not urgent. Others may be urgent and important (a sick child at school).

Adopting the Eisenhower matrix to assess your work priorities is extremely helpful. Try to categorize every task as urgent and/or important, or not urgent and/or not important. Use the quadrants to identify those things that are important and urgent and give them highest priority.

Delegate or delete everything that is not urgent and not important. They are a waste of your time!

 2)      Reinvent your to-do list - We can become almost addicted to anticipating and getting satisfaction from checking things off our daily list. Research shows that accomplishing a goal gives us a burst of dopamine. It feels good to scratch that item off. To conquer workaholism, we must learn to transform our to-do list into a document in which the completion of each task isn’t the point. We should not focus on crossing things off, but instead, learn to use our to-do list as a method for mapping and prioritizing our work.

 3)      Learn to say “no” and to delegate – We workaholics tend to be poor delegators. Our drive to always have work to do means we would rather do it ourselves than give it to someone else. Instead, ask yourself who can help you, when they can help you, and how they can help you. And, most important of all, learn that the word “No.” is a complete sentence! Your saying no does not require a reason.

 4)      Fix your workaholic clock – Workaholics tend to underestimate how long it will take us to do something, so we overcommit to doing too many things in too short a time. In my home, my husband called this “Susan time.” Try to reset your workaholic clock by first acknowledging that your clock is off and then gauging how far off it is.

 You do this by estimating the time it will take you to finish some task, then measuring the actual time it takes. Those two times will be off, and you can use that ratio to adjust all your time estimates. Only then will you begin to more accurately predict how much time it will really take to get something done. 

 5)      Control your ruminations - Workaholics do have something that’s a positive – our passion for what we are doing. However, we have an inability to throttle our passion, or to turn it off, and that leads to overwork. Passion can become an obsession to the point that we actively seek out ways to fuel it. Instead of your typical thoughts, develop a mantra to repeat to yourself, something like “This work can wait. I need downtime to be at home or to recover.”

 6)      Embrace rest and recovery – Yes, sleep is necessary, and rest – even when we are awake - is also necessary to think and reflect. There are several ways that will help you to adopt rest and recovery to combat your workaholic tendencies.  These methods are taken from the recovery literature describing how to deal with chronic stress, reduce the strain on our bodies, and improve our well-being:

a)       Attempt some physical activity (self-care is not selfish)

b)      Practice meditation and other relaxation exercises, such as breathing techniques

c)       Undertake the mastery of something that is not your work (a musical instrument, a new language, a creative project, etc)

d)      Practice psychological detachment by forcing yourself to do something that shifts your attention away from your work and towards something else (just like my imagining my children’s faces).

Knowing that you are a workaholic will allow you to begin to modify your lifestyle and your work habits. I am no psychologist, but I promise that you if you do, you will feel better as a result.  

References

Workaholism: An overview and current status of the research. Cecilie Schou Andreassen. J Behav Addict. 2013 Dec 6;3(1):1–11. doi: 10.1556/JBA.2.2013.017

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4117275/#:~:text=Workaholism%20as%20a%20construct%20stems,modern%20understanding%20of%20the%20construct.

Confessions from 1,000 Workaholics. Kelsey Hansen, Harvard Business Review. Sept. 2024. https://hbr.org/2024/09/confessions-from-1000-workaholics

A Workaholic’s Guide to Reclaiming Your Life- Six strategies for finding better balance. Malissa Clark. Harvard Business Review Sept. 2024.

https://hbr.org/2024/09/a-workaholics-guide-to-reclaiming-your-life?utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=domcontent_leadership&utm_term=NonBrand&tpcc=domcontent_leadership&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD9b3uS_VfSwbvmqXgnt7sXvwjhjs&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_NC9BhCkARIsABSnSTbX6bvoMJTlFIw0z0P5uyHj8G1vwu3Fhs9mcR62xdvJyTAj3NZKPQ4aAscfEALw_wcB