The Reluctant Workaholic

I am a workaholic, not by choice or because I enjoy working. In fact, I would much rather spend my day resting, watching TV, reading, writing, what have you, than working. How, then, am I a workaholic? Despite my reluctance to work, I can’t seem to stop working because I can’t seem to say “no”.

No matter how tired I am, how overbooked I am, how much I just don’t want to do something, I cannot get myself to say “no” when it comes to work. Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons behind this psychological defect:

1. Guilt

I feel tremendous guilt when I tell people that I cannot do something for them. I feel as though I am letting them down—letting everyone down—if I cannot do everything for everybody. So many people have come to depend on me for so many things throughout the years, whether it is editing/quality control (like in my current contract job) or beta reading (like in the freelancing that I am trying to distance myself from). I do not ever want to let people down, and if I cannot help them with everything that they need from me, then what good are my talents?

2. Lack of Self-Esteem

The last sentence of that previous paragraph actually leads me to the second reason for why I cannot say “no” to work, my lack of self-esteem. So much of my self-esteem is tied to what I can do for other people. If I cannot do everything that everyone throws at me—which, trust me, ends up being A LOT—then who am I? What use am I and the things that I can do? Aren’t I supposed to be this Wonder Woman who can do anything and everything?

People might say that it all goes back to when I was a child through my teenaged years (especially my teenaged years) when I was this wonder kid who had straight A’s (well, almost straight A’s—damn P.E.) and worked hard all the time to keep it that way. Some people might blame the stress on my parents, saying that they made me that way by not encouraging me to go out and play more, but it certainly was not their fault. I was a self-motivating child. Everything that I did in regards to academics was of my own accord. I loved to learn, and I guess eventually that turned into a love of accolades as well. That’s how my self-esteem tied itself to what I achieved—I believed that the more I could do, the better I was at…well, everything. No one could have known that that was what I was thinking, nor that it would lead to this unhealthy love/hate relationship with work.

So, the question now is, how do I break myself of these “reluctant workaholic” chains? How do I escape this pattern of accepting more work because I can’t not do it, then failing myself and others because it turns out that I truly can’t do it all because I am—after all—human?

Well, I have to start by forcing myself to say “no”, even to just small things. I have to break myself away from my old freelancing life because I truly cannot continue to do it while I conduct contract editing work for Elevate. I also have to force myself to take time off from Elevate when I start to feel burned out—much like I’m doing this week—so that I don’t start to slip up in my work and, in general, start to lose my mind. I also have to start writing again. It’s what’s always kept me balanced, and I need it to keep from falling over the edge. They’re minor adjustments, but they will make a world of difference in the long run to my work, my work ethic, my health, and my sanity.