Being Workaholic, Good Or Bad?

Intrinsically, there is nothing erroneous about working. In fact, it’s quite appreciative if you love your work and find it stimulating, motivating, and gratifying. These reasons are enough to keep you busy with inexhaustible work for most of the hours of your day.

However, there comes a time in your hectic life when you realize there is something more than work that needs your attention. You realize resting is essential, and the pressure of work is beginning to become a major issue. It’s time to sit back and explore a different approach when work starts affecting your relationships, cheerfulness, and fitness.

I can’t really fling a readymade expedient on your table nor would you want me to. However, I am sure you can derive some help in your exploration from the below mentioned steps.

1. Why do you achieve your work targets?

   No, I ain’t saying you don’t have to. It’s perfectly normal to achieve it and quite natural to be proud about it. However, it shouldn’t be the only focus of your life. When was the last time you listed down a ‘to do list’ for your family? When was a last time you thought about doing something about your hobby, passion, or something you love?

   If working hard is your passion, that’s great. But, there has to be something more. Something that you love other than work. There would be a hobby, maybe you haven’t started it yet, but you love thinking about it. Or maybe you love being with a family member or a friend.

   I wouldn’t buy it if you say “I don’t love anything except work”. This happens only when you act being a workaholic, not a real one because a human, workaholic or not, has some desires, hidden passions, or simply likings.

   Take a pen and paper, and start jotting down 5 things that makes you happy. Remember, none of them should involve your office work and at least one of them gotta be a person. Do it. Don’t you need a balanced life?

   Start giving some time to these 5 things. You can start by sparing just few minutes to each of them out of your busy 24 hours.

2. Are you a workaholic?

   The answer to this question is yes when you literally dream about it every night in your sleep. And you think about it in while you are awake, all the hours.

   

   If you are one of these workaholics, consider these three points.

   First, set a deadline and follow it. For instance, decide not to work after 6 pm. Inform your office staff not to call after 6 and avoid working from home.

   Second, this deadline means no even checking emails about work. Turn off you mobile phone and even your personal computer. And please, don’t take those heaps of paper when you are out with your wife and kids.

   Third, do something. Don’t just sit home and think about work. Join and gym and work out every evening. If you are a lucky single, go for a date. Spend some time listening to your kid or take him to a café or zoo. Think about a hobby, generate passion and spend some time developing it. There is so much to do. It just needs your ‘Yes, I will do it’ to initiate.

3. Just relax

   Minimize your stock-market window and explore ways to relax and fight stress. Search for one and I am sure your search engine will pop thousands of them.

   Select any couple of them to start with. Make sure you involve one physical activity. You can opt to walk, jog, swim, or do anything. But do it. Spend some time doing it every day, at least 10-15 minutes.

4. Feel good about what you do

   Working twenty hours a day is not a way of living. Accept that anything in access is harmful. You need a balance, professional-personal balance. You are motivated to experience the contentment of achieving work targets. Now is the time to motivate yourself to experience the pleasure of relaxation, being fit, meditation, quality time spent with your family, a smile on your loved one’s face. These are real pleasures of your life.

You won’t enjoy relaxing when you first do it. It takes time to adjust, to alter your lifestyle, to de-stress. A transformation cannot happen in a day, nor will you feel happy about it. But you have to do it, from small steps to big ones, from negative to positive, from happiness to contentment, from workaholic to a human.