We’re a month into the new year. Are you hoping this will finally be the year you work less and focus on other important parts of life?
It’s an important intention—after all, life is to be lived to the fullest. Yet without digging deeper and facing the truth about why we overwork, it’s an intention that often struggles to gain traction.
The more I work on this with my clients, the more I appreciate the complex landscape of overwork.
Many of my clients genuinely love what they do. Paradoxically, this makes the problem worse, intensifying the risks of burnout. I know this first-hand because I love my work too—it’s a source of satisfaction, creativity, and purpose.
But loving our work isn’t a vaccine against burnout.
In fact, it can exacerbate the problem. Seeking positive emotions in work can lead to an over-reliance on it as a source of fulfilment, leaving us depleted. The myth that “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” is harmful and one I’d love to see disappear.
So, in the spirit of making 2025 a year of burnout prevention, I’d like to invite you to take an honest look at what may be behind the long hours. Let’s peel back the layers together—you might be surprised by what you find.
From the experience of my coaching practice, challenges around overwork often fall into the eight categories below. These focus on the internal reasons that make it hard to change our relationship with work.
I want to make one thing clear: of course overwork starts with external pressures and isn’t just about what’s happening inside us. As a coach, I help my clients examine their inner landscape of beliefs and drivers while also reflecting on the systemic forces around them. Toxic workplace cultures, unreasonable expectations, and responsibilities outside of work can compound those pressures and play a significant role in keeping us stuck.
My role is to help clients navigate the tension between these two worlds.
In this article, I’d like to focus on those internal, psychological culprits, as many of them are likely to follow us into any job.
1. Confidence & Self-Talk
This is where we overwork to control the perception that others have of us. Comparing ourselves to others or chasing perfection can lead to long days when we believe that what we do is not good enough. Over-preparation becomes our security blanket and we become so used to it that improvising or going with the flow feels very risky.
Is your inner critic a frequent visitor? That negative voice in your head might be driving you to overwork and over-prepare. Perhaps self-criticism is driving you to spend hours rehearsing that presentation that you could probably deliver quite easily without over-preparation. Recognising these patterns can free up mental space for creativity and help you step back from trying to satisfy the insatiable demands of your inner critic.
2. Identity & Self-Worth
For some of us, work isn’t just something we do—it’s who we are. Psychologists call this “enmeshment,” where our self-worth becomes tightly bound to our job. We can’t stop thinking about work, our friendship groups consist of work colleagues, we spend weekends with industry peers and our self-image depends on our job status.
If this resonates with you, take a moment to consider what else makes you "you." What brings you joy outside of work? What hobbies, relationships, or passions light you up? Reconnecting with these aspects of your life can help you build a healthier and more balanced sense of identity.
3. Workday Culture
This factor might seem external at first glance, but it’s deeply internal because it’s about the unspoken rules and norms we adopt without questioning.
Are there habits or routines in your workplace that unnecessarily stretch your day? Long, back-to-back meetings might be eating into your focused work time, pushing tasks into the evening. Unspoken workplace norms—like always being available—can quietly extend your workday. These behaviours often feel like external pressures, but they’re perpetuated by internalising these norms and acting on them.
Challenging these assumptions, one habit at a time, can open the door to a more sustainable way of working.
For example, one workplace I worked with shortened their default meeting times from an hour to 15 minutes, dramatically reducing unnecessary meeting bloat. This small but powerful behavioural nudge helped the team reclaim significant amounts of focused time.
What could you change in your team’s workday culture to make your day less overwhelming? Perhaps not responding to emails outside of regular hours, experimenting with new patterns of flexibility, or ring-fencing no-meeting time.
While this can feel risky at first, especially if 'things have always been done this way,' questioning and reshaping these norms starts with recognising the role we play in maintaining them.
4. Interpersonal Dynamics
How are your work relationships affecting you? Difficult stakeholders, office drama, or challenging clients can be draining, making work hours feel heavier and eroding morale, productivity, and results. The 2022 “Conflict at Work” research from the Myers-Briggs Company found that people spend an average of 4.34 hours per week dealing with workplace conflict.
How much time are you spending managing workplace drama each week that could be taken off your workload?
The worst part is that it’s even more contagious than those seasonal sniffles, spreading through teams and even to people outside the immediate conflict. We often carry these work woes home, discussing them over dinner instead of connecting with loved ones, amplifying the drama even further.
Did you know that emotions spread not only within direct interactions but also to people one or two degrees removed from the source?
Addressing and diffusing conflicts is a powerful leadership skill.
5. Financial Anxiety
For entrepreneurs especially, financial uncertainty can be a daunting yet integral part of the journey and a powerful driver of overwork. But even those in salaried roles aren’t immune to financial stress, particularly with the rising cost of living. Society often tells us that success and security come only from constant striving, making it difficult to imagine stepping back. Recognising these narratives—and challenging them—can help you create a healthier relationship with work.
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be concerned about finances—of course, that’s not the case. However, it’s worth recognising where our fear about our own and our family’s financial future might be driving us to overwork as a form of protection. The idea here is to explore the root cause, to confront that fear directly, rather than unquestioningly accept that overwork is the only way to safeguard against it. Could there be alternative ways to manage those risks?
6. Digital Habits
Your phone’s screen time report probably tells you everything you need to know about this one. Constant notifications, late-night emails, and endless scrolling don’t just waste time—they also keep your brain in work mode long after the day should have ended. Many digital habits stem from workplace pressures, such as the expectation to respond instantly, fear of missing out, or a desire for control.
How could you set firmer boundaries with your devices? Even small changes, like muting non-essential notifications, can make a big difference.
Dr Anna Lembke’s groundbreaking work on dopamine offers invaluable insights for anyone looking to redefine their relationship with their phone and digital habits.
7. Stress Management
Stress and overwhelm can feel all-consuming, draining your energy and leaving you running on empty. Prolonged stress can push your nervous system into fight, flight, or freeze mode, weakening your immune system and making you more vulnerable to illness.
Are certain tasks or situations—whether or not they fall under other categories—triggering this response for you? When we’re in fight or flight mode, even a simple task can feel insurmountable. This is why examining our daily stress levels is essential to rethinking our relationship with (over)work.
Resilience isn’t about simply enduring stress—it’s about understanding our activation triggers, shifting our inner narrative, and developing the capacity to recover from setbacks. It’s about responding to challenges with greater strength and focus.
8. Boundaries & Limits
The ability to set and maintain healthy boundaries is crucial for preventing overwork. Setting boundaries isn’t just about saying “no” more often—it’s about overcoming the discomfort that comes with it, often rooted in deeper beliefs about self-worth being tied to helpfulness or availability.
Boundaries can be easier to set in some cultures and more challenging in others, particularly for those of us who identify as people pleasers. What I often hear from clients, however, is that starting small—practising in less heated areas—and gradually applying these skills to more significant situations can be a surprisingly effective approach. The results often exceed their expectations.
In my blog post "3 Steps Towards Better Boundaries," I discuss practical ways to assess and communicate boundaries that honour your needs while still contributing meaningfully to your team.
Bringing It All Together
Step 1: Take stock of your current situation.
How about a mini audit? For each area we’ve discussed, rate your satisfaction from 1 to 10, where 1 means there is significant room for improvement, and 10 means you’re thriving in this area. Higher scores indicate better outcomes across all categories.
On a scale from 1-10...
Confidence & Self-Talk: How confident and free from negative self-talk do you feel?
Identity & Self-Worth: How balanced is your sense of self-worth and how detached is it from your job?
Workday Culture: How manageable and supportive do you find your workday culture?
Interpersonal Dynamics: How healthy and stress-free are your work relationships?
Financial Anxiety: How secure do you feel financially and how free are you from money-related stress?
Digital Habits: How well are you managing your digital boundaries and screen time?
Stress management: How effectively are you managing stress and building resilience?
Boundaries & Limits: How clear and well-maintained are your personal boundaries?
If you'd like to do this in a graphic form, you can use this printable pdf.
By adding your scores you can end up with something like this:
Step 2: Reflect deeper.
For each rating below 7, ask yourself:
What specific situations or patterns contribute to this lower score?
How does this affect your quality of life?
What small change could move this score up by just one point?
Look for patterns and connections:
Notice where areas intersect. For instance, does your stress decrease when interpersonal dynamics improve? These connections often reveal where change can have the greatest impact.
Step 3: Choose your focus area.
Pick one area where you have the most agency to make a change. Start small—small wins build momentum. This could be anything - from having that conversation that helps to repair a relationship that has gone sour to limiting use of email at night.
In summary
Breaking free from overwork starts with understanding its roots and creating sustainable habits that empower you, not exhaust you. It’s not about working fewer hours for the sake of it—it’s about aligning your time and energy with what truly matters. By addressing the patterns and behaviours that drive overwork, you can regain clarity, confidence, and balance in your life.
Get in touch if you'd like to discuss working together.
As your coach, I’ll help you uncover what’s fuelling your overwork and support you in developing strategies that are both practical and transformative. Whether you want to create a more balanced work life or guide your team toward healthier habits, email me at coaching@martaabramska.com.
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