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I recently received an email from a reader of my HR blog and with her permission I would like to share how she got big problems in her life. As a young lady executive who work her way up the corporate ladder, she always finds it so hard to resist working too much that even during rest days and worst during her vacation, she is tempted to open her emails and check updates from her people. She wants everything under her control and she wants to be always on top of the situation.
Worst, she missed dates with her boyfriend and she was delayed fetching her elderly mother in the airport who arrived 3 hours earlier because an unscheduled activity in the department occurred, for which she can somehow excused herself. She missed and later on stopped hitting the gym. She lacked the quality time she can give to her loved ones.
At some point she came to realize that something is not right. She seemed fatigued and stressed upon arriving home. During their dates with her boyfriends or with her circle of friends, she can’t avoid discussing work related matters. Even during sports activities she talks and talks endlessly about work. As she said, she became a work addict.
The situation above is not new in the corporate world. Infact it is a horrible reality that newbies executives face. They think and feel that they have to work and work and work. Not knowing that they had gone the boundaries. We can put the scenario above and examine it in the context of work passion. We can even take a closer look at it through the works of Robert J. Vallerand. In his Dualistic Model of Passion, there are two types of work passion, the harmonious passion and the obsessive passion. People who have the harmonious passion finds an intrinsic joy with their work and they control over it. Their work does not interfere with their personal life. And when work does interrupts, they know when to say “NO” or they know when to stop. They know when works becomes domineering their life or when further work engagement is risky in their life affairs.
On the other hand, those with obsessive passion tends to see their work as “representing a passion for them” as Scott Barry Kaufman puts it in his article “Why your Passion for Work Could Ruin Your Career”. People in this kind of work passion finds it hard to disengage in their work, they can’t control the urge to work and work and work. That is why even during night, or rest days or vacations, they think of work, work and work. People of this kind can be considered as workaholic. They are the people who, according to a New York Psychologist Marilyn Machlowitz, in her doctoral dissertation that workaholics are the ones who are doing what they love – which is their work and yet they can’t seem to get enough of it. “‘
The passion you put on your work impacts your life on matters of family relationships, and work as well. It can affect not just your relationships but as well as your health. You become stressed and worst, job burn-out. Having an obsessive passion for work has a higher chances of experiencing job burn-out as their work life is in conflict with their personal life. Research has provided us so many data correlating divorce and workaholics. It wrecks and brings havoc to families. Children rebel and becomes alienated, resentment from family members resulting to attention seeking.
So how do you deal with it? How do we balance work and personal life? It is so easy to say but so hard to do specially if you are in that situation. Dr. Machlowitz suggest that you know what tasks you love that you must learn to unload to others or maybe set aside or work on it later and you need to prioritize. Learn to say no to added demands in work. Concentrate and focus on thinking that family and your personal life still has a space in your time.
I had been into this situation before. I work from Monday to Friday and I had my graduate studies on Saturdays and Sundays. It brings me so much joy seeing how productive I am. No time and days of the week was wasted. And not to mention I still have a part time teaching career on top of my regular Monday to Friday works. It was exhausting but I find joy and satisfaction. I am always too proud to say and tell the world that I am great. But at some point I realized that I missed a lot of things. Family gatherings, trips and some drinking occasions with my close friends.
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I need to stop, so I think. It was hard. It was crippling at first. I feel guilty because for me I feel that I am not giving my best. The first few weeks was excruciating and unbearable. I cant help but sneak my emails in my laptop while I am in bed. So what I did, leave my laptop in the office. After dinner, I watched movies in my DVD until I dozed myself to sleep. In the office, I would place stick-on notes about my schedule for jogging and hitting the gym. I would place my target of weight gain and trimming waistline. I have to keep reminding myself that its not always work that I should be worried of, but my relationship as well as my family.
In due time, I was able to manage my career and my personal life. I manage to travel, to relax, watch movies and do my hobbies of painting, sketching and drawing anime. It feels rewarding knowing that life after all is what matters. It’s not the work alone that satisfies our hunger for self-fulfillment. It is being able to see the line that separates work and personal life. For me, success is being able to balance work and getting a life at the same time.
