“Hard work” has never been considered a problem. If anything, we’re all told to work hard.
How do you know when you’ve crossed the line from hard work to overwork? Surprisingly, the answer doesn’t lie within ourselves. Here’s how to use your family as an early warning system of burnout.
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It was the 25th anniversary of the advertising agency I was a part of.
The CEO stood before the room, with around 200 employees listening to his every word. He gave a speech and said that he had to make sacrifices and that somewhere along the way, he also mentioned how he had to sacrifice part of his family life.
His daughter stood beside me, raised her eyebrows, and said slightly sarcastically, “Yes, that's right.”
Was she being sarcastic? Or was her feedback simply ignored?
As we go through life, we want to succeed. Yet, often, this so-called success comes at a high price. It's at times like this that we get feedback. This feedback is from a very reliable source: your family.
That feedback is an almost foolproof method to know if you're overworking and needing to pull back. And age doesn't matter because the input can often come from the tiniest member of your family.
I have a friend who lives in Eastern Europe, and we were on holiday with his family when his seven-year-old daughter said she wanted to tell us something.
She said: “Papa drives me to school every day, but I never get to speak to him. He's always on the phone talking to some client”. This is the feedback the parent never heard from that seven-year-old, or maybe he did —but didn't pay attention.
We don't always pay attention to this kind of input because we feel we are working hard.
We have been told that for us to be successful, we must put in the hours, so we do our best to reach our pre-determined goals. Those goals also earn us a reasonable income. This, in turn, enables us to put the kids in a good school, travel and live a more comfortable life.
If someone suggests that we're working too hard, we push back against feedback. However, the feedback keeps trying to get through our defences. However, sometimes, that feedback can come without warning.
Many years ago, when my niece Keira was just five, she played in the house with my other niece, Marsha.
They were both very young and high-spirited. I didn't need to participate in their crazy games and decided to lie on the sofa.
Keira suddenly stopped her game and came across to the sofa. She took a long look at me and said, “Seanny's always tired”. Then, without hesitation, she turned around and continued her game. However, her words struck me like a thunderbolt.
Was I always tired?
Even at the age of five or seven, a child can tell you that you are overworking. If you pay attention, you'll hear the feedback from others, too. Your partner, your parents—they all know when you're overdoing something.
The family becomes the most significant source of feedback.
However, it's not just work that gets your family's attention. It could also be a hobby that's taking up too much of your attention.
Recently, Renuka told me I had been spending too much time with French. She said I had been talking in French in my sleep and that one day, I said, “Oh, I don't know how to say that in French” while asleep.
I didn't take it as feedback since she just mentioned these incidents in passing. But then, one Wednesday, I started to get a slight headache, which seemed to grow daily. I wasn't sleeping very well and waking up tired.
When Renuka touched my head, she said it was hot.
Usually, my head only gets this hot when I conduct intense courses like the article writing course, where I have to put in a lot of time and energy. So it was a bit worrying that my head was heating up so much. Clearly, I had been spending an enormous amount of time learning French.
I wasn't just learning the language early in the morning and in the middle of the day. I was at it when I was driving, walking and then chatting with AI in French in the evenings.
When Renuka said I was probably overdoing my French, I did what many of us do. I gave an avalanche of logical reasons why I needed to put in much effort.
I discounted the advice and focused on the task at hand. After all, how was I to achieve any sort of success with a half-hearted attempt?
However, there's a difference between half-hearted and something that's over the top.
When trying to reach a goal, we are keen to make it work. At first, we tend to get encouragement from our friends and relatives. But it's the closest family that has a good handle on the pulse of your activity.
They seem to know when you're doing too little, just enough or too much. When it's too little, they will let you know. However, when the complaints' frequency increases, we automatically get defensive.
However, too much is always too much.
In the case of the ad-agency person, his daughter signalled that her father was absent for most of her childhood. In the case of my friend from Europe, once again, the daughter seemed to complain about her father constantly on the phone.
In my case, it was my niece, Keira, who clearly thought sleeping on the sofa was only for “tired people”. And finally, Renuka has had to slow me down time and time again, and it takes time for me to pay attention.
If your family members are giving you feedback, it's time to listen.
It's almost sure you're doing too much for too long, and it's time to change course. It's okay to be relentless. Sometimes, however, just “less” will do.
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