What Should I Do If I'm a Workaholic?
How do I know if I work too much? Here are a few signs you might be pushing too hard along with three decisions you can make.
Some days, I think to myself how nice it would be to have a 9-5 job where I could clock in and clock out. No taking work home, no thinking about projects on the weekend, and no emails from clients after 6 PM. But that’s not the life I’ve chosen.
Instead, because I’m my own boss and work from home, I feel the tug to constantly create, constantly do, and constantly take on more projects. And look, I know this balance between working hard and working too much is a tricky subject. Candidly, I’ve worked with too many authors who came to me after working with lazy creators. They hired a ghostwriter who told them they’d have a book completed in six months, and now it’s been two years.
Sometimes, I bump into Christians who talk a lot about "self-care" and are simply too lazy to put in the effort to grow their business. And if you struggle with laziness, I’m not sure what to tell you other than to read the Book of Proverbs and consider the long-term costs. But chances are, if you’ve signed up for this devotional, you take your spiritual growth seriously and struggle more with workaholism than you do with laziness.
One of the reasons you know you struggle is because your spouse and kids are starting to speak up. They tell you you’re never home and never do anything fun. As you listen to these words, you feel this convergence of guilt and anger. Guilt because you know you could do better, but anger because you feel like others don’t realize the sacrifices you’re making so they can have a better life.
If this is where you’re at today, here are three challenges for you today:
Challenge #1: Recognize the Good
I know how hard it is to start a business from scratch. And if this is where you're at right now, and you are sacrificing long hours to provide a better life for your family, that's amazing. You are amazing.
Chances are you don't need to stop what you're doing altogeher. Instead, you just need to pivot. There’s likely a reason you’ve been pushing yourself this hard, and I’m going to guess it didn’t come from vanity or greed.
Maybe it came from watching a parent show up to a job they didn’t love. Maybe it came from your own experience of lack, or the internal vow you made as a teenager that you’d never let your family go through what you did. Or maybe it’s just that deeply embedded part of you that feels alive when you're building, making something out of nothing, solving problems and leaving things better than you found them.
Some of this is very good, so before making a dramatic change, thank God for the mentors, family members, or even difficult seasons that shaped your work ethic. Pause long enough to acknowledge that the ability to work hard is a gift. Not everyone has the capacity, health, or opportunity to do what you do.
