Like many employees who often leave work exhausted after keeping constant long hours and continually giving when their efforts go unnoticed could be suffering in silence by harboring wishful thoughts their boss or employer would care for them as a loving parent would by recognizing their dedication.
It’s not uncommon to hear employees vent their stress around other colleagues, complaining about missing vacations and, most concerning, experiencing severe health-related problems at work. After five years of unrelenting pressure, a vice president who worked 14 hours a day recalled her weekends as spent recouping in bed hoping to catch up on sleep. The years of skipping lunch and surviving on antacids created a health issue that led to her career ending on a top note of a near breakdown.
She described her unrelenting dedication to her job as her identity and held a strong belief that her career came first. If she took care of her employer, they would, in turn, take care of her.
You don’t have to work 14 hours a day hoping your employer will take notice. People who tend to have high expectations of give-and-take relationships at work can easily fall into the trap of putting everyone’s needs before their own.
The truth is continuously working overtime without thinking about your own needs leads to burnout and can create the very thing you wanted to avoid – letting people down by making mistakes and creating unhappiness at your job.
To help break the cycle of career martyrdom, it helps to keep business in perspective and remember that organizations are designed to produce things, deliver services and make returns on their investments.
No one organization or boss will take care of you the way you will. This does not make your company or your boss bad; rather it is the reality of the marketplace. The problem with career martyrdom is that you suffer for a no-win solution by trying to be a people-pleaser and giving until you have no life outside of work.
Career martyrdom has more to do with your choices based on wanting to please, avoiding conflict or fear.
In any case, when you put more emphasis on whether others are noticing your efforts versus taking care of yourself in setting healthy boundaries your career will suffer.
Here are some ways you can break the cycle of career martyrdom;
• Take a break. If leaving for 5-10 minutes creates chaos, how did the company survive before you accepted the position? Small breaks help you regain clarity and reduce stress.
• Give yourself permission to take time off. Working through holidays, vacation and weekends leads to fatigue. Even if you enjoy your job, taking time off gives you time to regroup and increases creativity.
• Practice clarifying priorities. Keeping a sense of urgency is important with productivity; however, when every assignment starts competing with each other, you can end up being overwhelmed.
• Give up the notion that being selfish is bad. Pleasing your boss is important, but taking care of your well-being by establishing boundaries are habits successful leaders develop.
• Learn to delegate. Start delegating tasks to others and ask for help.
• Develop good time management habits. Working late on special projects is understandable; however, when you make a daily routine, it could send a message that you have difficulty managing your workload.
How did you break the cycle of people-pleasing and sacrificing your well-being for your employer?
