Raise your hand if you’ve ever been victimized by caring too much about your job. 🙋♀️
Related: 6 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Got My First Job
Ever since I was in high school, I have wanted to be a writer, and no, I’m not talking about being a news writer or reporter (though no shade to those professions), but more focused on movies, TV shows, pop culture, and lifestyle in general. So, I feel extremely blessed that for my first job after college, I get to do exactly that and get to write about the things I love.
You would think it’s a dream come true, and in many ways, it is. But what people don’t tell you is just how hard it is to get out of that hole you bury yourself in when you fall into the trap of trying to make your job your whole personality.
“IT’S JUST A JOB”
When I got this job, I strived to prove to my co-workers that I belonged here. That entailed, among other things, focusing a lot of my attention on my work and output. More than just making sure everything I did was of quality, I also worked to do more than the expectations the job. Impostor syndrome is real, and to combat that, I tried to go above and beyond what was asked of me. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be good at your job. But the problem was that I didn’t know when to separate the work from my personal life.
The more time I spent at work, the more it consumed what free time I had. Even before and after my work hours, I was still thinking about my job. Telegram messages were like a trigger I had to answer every time, even on weekends. And speaking of weekends, those became my planning sessions on what I wanted to do the following week. What’s worse was that if I didn’t plan, I felt like I wasn’t doing the job right. Granted, I work in the media industry, so I need to constantly be tuned in to what’s happening. But this mindset wasn’t what I needed.
I wove so much of my identity to what I did that if it wasn’t well-received, I would take it as a slight against me and my abilities. My job became my life, a core part of who I am, so I ended up putting too much of myself into what I did. In my desire to appease my teammates and bosses, I ended up losing the fire and joy I felt when I first entered the industry.
Imagine thinking about your job before you sleep and when you wake up. That was me for a good while, and I didn’t realize that it was eating me mentally, physically, and emotionally on the inside. To attach yourself to your job is to think that any perceived faults are a failure on your end. It really wasn’t that serious, but I didn’t get the memo.
GOODBYE WORK-LIFE BALANCE
As you can imagine, this mindset messed up my work-life balance. Even though my shift was over, my work brain didn’t stop. You know it’s bad when you dream of labor. Being in my dream job and that I don’t see myself anywhere else masked the fact that I was becoming a workaholic and an unhealthy one at that. And I know I’m not alone in dealing with this struggle of finding work-life balance.
In a study by the human resource platform Remote, the Philippines ranked near dead last at 59th out of 60 countries in its Global Life-Work Balance Index 2024. From early mornings to late nights, many of us put so much of ourselves into our work that we end up sacrificing our own well-being for it. Things got so bad that I almost quit because I was so unhappy. But since you’re reading this, you know it didn’t push through as I eventually found that light at the end of the tunnel with the help of a much-needed reality check from my teammate.
WORK < LIFE
People like to say that “it’s just a job”. But it’s easier said than done. What I learned is that more than just saying it, it should be a mindset put into practice. That starts with setting boundaries between your work and personal life, something I failed to do early in my career. As soon as your first weeks on the job, make it clear and set limits on when it’s time to work, and when it’s time to focus on yourself. Instead of seeing every mistake or missed target as a reason to press the panic button, take the L, learn the lesson, and move on.
Do your best at the job, but leave it at the office when it’s time to go. A happy and healthy life outside the workplace begins only if you don’t let your life be the workplace. It’s understandable if you want to make a good first impression and be efficient in your regular work hours. Your career, after all, is something to be taken seriously, especially if you’re in a field you see yourself long-term. But that should never come at the expense of your well-being, because the end result is that not only are you unhappy, but it will also negatively affect your work.
In the grand scheme of things, it is just a job, especially if this is your first job. It’s just chapter one, bestie. There’s no need to warp your whole life to fit the hustle and bustle. With so many things happening in this world, worrying about reaching quotas should not be something I panic about in the middle of the night. We work to live, not live to work, and that’s something I continue to practice that helps me rediscover the joy in the job. Admittedly, it’s still a work in progress, but I’ve enjoyed the work so much more when I realized that there’s more to life than a paycheck.
Continue Reading: In Defense Of The Work From Home Setup, Since It Apparently “Makes You Dumber Everyday”
