Leaps & Bounds: Pathways to Success

You work so hard and feel as if there are never enough days in a week or hours in a day to get everything you need to get done at the office. Is it because there really is too much work? Or are you a workaholic?

While it may be true that more and more businesses are adding more hours to employees’ workdays to survive this fiercely competitive global environment, some people may be using this rationale as a reason to justify their obsession with work.

According to Dr. Gayle Porter of Rutgers University School of Business workaholics are addicts. “They overwork to compensate for self-esteem, self-concept and identity issues. This plays out as sacrifice of intimacy, a high need to control, inflexibility and perfectionism.”

So how can you tell if you’re overworked, or a workaholic? Answer some of these questions and see how many yes responses you come up with.

Do you work more than 50 hours a week?

Do you dream about work?

Do you feel that in order to succeed you must work late ALL the time?

Do your working habits hurt those you love? (i.e. Is your spouse always unhappy about your work schedule? Do you spend less than 8 hours a week with your children?)

Do you schedule and undertake more than you can get done in a 40-hour work week?

If you worked less, you wouldn’t know what to do with your spare time.

Is missing family and social events because of work unavoidable?

Is developing a hobby an impossible task?

Do you check messages, log on to the Internet to check e-mail, while on vacation?

Do you become impatient with others who have different priorities?

The greater the number of yes answers, the closer you are to fitting the profile of a workaholic. If you’ve answered yes to more than half of the questions, it’s time to take stock before you lose your health, family and everything you hold near and dear to your heart.

First, of all take a really good look at your job, what you do and the importance of your accomplishments. Are you appreciated for all those long hours you’ve put in? Does it really – I mean really – make a difference in your paycheck? Let’s face it. In today’s economic environment, employees are often nothing more than expendable pawns. No amount of overtime and sacrifice will make a difference when a company has to make cutbacks.

Secondly, determine if you’re having fun at your job, long hours notwithstanding. If you’re not having fun and are popping antacids to avoid a stress-related ulcer, then you need to rethink all that hard work you’re putting in. Fun must be a high priority in your life and your job should be no exception.

Learn to say “no”. Although many upwardly mobile professionals advocate the “you snooze, you lose” mantra, the world isn’t going to stop if you said “no” once in a while. Consider alternatives to working overtime or on weekends. I know of one banking executive who was summoned to travel to another city at a moment’s notice to attend a very important meeting. He was newly married and knew this was not the way to start his married life. So he refused. Instead, he picked up the phone and called a teleconference, which he wrapped up in an hour. When his employers questioned his physical absence, he simply told them that he’d just saved the company $7,000 in travel expenses and still provided valuable input at the meeting.

Consider real and imagined deadlines. Is that project really due tomorrow morning? If it will take you two weeks to complete a project comfortably, then say so. Don’t try to impress your employers by setting unrealistic deadlines and then killing yourself over it. They are more likely to respect you when you know exactly your time frame and how to set your priorities.

If all else fails, then consider doing this: write your own Eulogy. Think about how you would like to be remembered. Imagine your friends, family, and coworkers at the podium talking about the kind of person you were. Imagine them saying, “He worked all his life. He gave 100 percent to his company. He died too young.”