When work becomes an addiction
Fulfillment, development and livelihood on the one hand. Overstrain, burnout and workaholism on the other: Work not only has numerous forms and facets, but also manifold characteristics and consequences. But what happens when what actually secures one's existence becomes an addiction?
Work is something good, working a lot is also a positive thing in our society and for the most part. This is not necessarily accompanied by excessive demands or even a possible burnout. Those who work often and a lot can certainly do so with pleasure and experience fulfillment as a result. Even if the danger of workaholism lurks among those who do an above-average amount, this term tends to have a positive connotation. Only the increase of this leads to the actual work addiction and the border to a disease comes closer. What characterizes work addicts? They are people who show typical addictive behavior, i.e. they need more and more of one thing to get through the day. Thus, they are trapped in the continuous loop associated with it: Their entire self-esteem is based on their work, so they are no longer able to separate themselves from it, work compulsively and live a pronounced perfectionism.
Where does workaholism lurk?
People in modern society work much more than the generations before them in previous centuries. With the Enlightenment came a modern promise that extended through the industrial to the digital revolution to globalization: people will be freed from work. To this day, it has remained an assurance. In fact, in the meantime, rough, manual or repetitive work has been outsourced to machines or to the IT world. What remains astonishing, however, is that people - no sooner have they got rid of physically hard work - take back their lack of freedom with workaholism.
Work addiction is a form of dependence. One can no longer be without work and develops a high desire for the activity and the corresponding recognition through it. Performance addiction is a part of this, one wants to prove something to oneself. Workaholism is described as an excessive need for work. In this state, important, other areas of life lose importance. Thus, social contacts gradually break down and the compulsion to define oneself through work continues to increase. The spiral sets in motion and, as with any addiction, the dose must be constantly increased for satisfaction. Eventually, this can lead to illness. Those who permanently work more than 50 hours per week are already very close to workholism.
Addiction to prestige, performance and work
The causes of work addiction are often to be found in exaggerated commitment. Executives and self-employed people are often affected, who work so hard and experience a high level of satisfaction from successes and results, encouragement and further orders or projects. If this remains a temporary phase and an appropriate balance is found, this can be seen as a positive thing. However, it becomes risky when this high level of commitment is closely linked to the personal value system and the manifestation of self-esteem.
Those who link their own value to work performance are more quickly affected by workaholism. Out of the compulsion to want to do everything perfectly in order to appear valuable to oneself and others, the ability to separate the essential from the unessential is lost. In order to get everything done at all, there are extra shifts at night and extra work at the weekend. Therapists explain that someone tends to such a form of addiction based on upbringing, heredity, personal life history and social circumstances; influences from society also play a role. But what are the symptoms that help you recognize work addiction?
- You think more and more, even outside working hours, about your work.
- You think about where you can procure even more time for your work and sacrifice free time, hobbies and social contacts for it.
- They develop a high degree of perfectionism and lose the ability to set priorities.
- You feel that you are basically working too much.
- You do some neat planning and find that you always spend more time working than you intended.
- Due to time constraints, you put off higher-level tasks, which puts even more pressure on you.
- They forget appointments and can't explain it.
- You feel angry about your circumstances and experience feelings of guilt or the first signs of depression.
- You develop physical withdrawal symptoms when you can't devote yourself to work (wi-fi free zones, illness, vacation with family, etc.).
- They have difficulty making decisions and increase the workload to accommodate everything and everyone.
- You doggedly pursue goals or plans that you want to push through at any cost.
Tips
If you want to recognize whether you are at risk, the first step is to be honest with yourself. Do the first symptoms show up regularly? There is a difference between working almost around the clock for four weeks on a project and displaying the corresponding behaviors over a period of several months or years. Start with a binding work plan for yourself:
- Involve friends and family, and allow them to be explicit about when you are working too much.
- Be very rigid with leisure appointments, so embrace football night with your friends and your child's birthday party as dutifully as you do your business appointments.
- Turn off mobile devices in the evening and create islands of time when you're not working.
- Learn to trust others - this creates the opportunity to delegate.
- Learn not to make your self-esteem exclusively dependent on work.
About the Author:
Stefan Häseli is a communication trainer, keynote speaker, moderator and author of several books. He runs a training company in Switzerland. For years, the communications expert has accompanied numerous companies and boards of multinational corporations.
