The cult of work: how to survive if you are a workaholic

Who would have thought that everything will end well. The nightmare crept unnoticed.

Everything started so well. You earned what he likes - a dream job. You create something rather than pants sit. You did not just want to get paid, and leave a trace in history.

At first, you just loved his job. It was difficult and proceeded in a rapid pace. All around were turretless and intelligent. In your free time you organized brainstorm. Taken work home. We came to work at the weekend. And do not feel tired, because what kind of work! It is a way of life.

You plowed more than 40 hours a week, but who's counting? It was great.

However, the week took shape in the coming months. And that's what it was all over: you're working 60 hours a week or more. And when the red-greet colleagues, share a running joke about the need to drink coffee in order to survive.

Work is still cool, but the old fuse gone. Days rush by, and you do not understand how it happened. You do not even remember what happened.

Life outside of work stopped. You might want to try and cook a real cheesecake at home, but you do not have time to run for the ingredients. Of course, it is necessary to go to the gym, but all the time that something happens and you miss a workout.

"A little later, - you promise yourself - I'll get to everything."

We can not say that you are unhappy. But something is wrong. It is difficult to say what it was. Just think what could be better.

You sucked routine

You are lost to society. You absorbed the cult of work.

Followers of this murderous cult believe that working more than 60 hours a week - is a necessary condition for success. More than that, it's an honor.

Intrigue of the cult is that it uses your best qualities: dedication, ambition, ability to bring the case before the end of, a responsibility.

The cult says that you need to perform better to remain in place longer, sleep only when we die from exhaustion. The cult says that you can not succeed in life if you do not come to work the first and last to leave.

Skillfully and brutally cult confuses us by our own achievements. And if you do not come out of this sect, we are doomed.

The cult of work kills - Save yourselves

Balance - this is the first tool that will save you from the clutches of the cult.

Start with health. Do not miss a visit to the gym because you're busy. Semi-finished products is not absorbed because there is no time to cook. Then think about the hobby. You all the time on the computer and work, work? I forgot everything, because busy?

And what about your own? Friends no longer call - they know that you have no time. Sometimes the only person with whom you are thrown a few words - the courier who brings a business lunch.

That's what I lived, until he lost his beard.

The canary in the mine, or: How I shaved his beard

At the end of 2012 I was engaged in the biggest project of my career (at the time) - a site for a large trading company with the sale of a "Black Friday." I was scared and worried. Such a project could translate my company to the next level, and I decided to do everything in my power to make it better.

Designers were great ideas, I stayed at work to make sure we have time to translate everything. We have proposed a breakthrough idea, based on the application of the latest technologies. Client liked.

Then intervened bureaucracy. Lawyers have made changes: the brand representation contrary to the law. Designers behind schedule too much.

By the time the design was approved, the entire project was left one-third of the scheduled time. And as it came to "Black Friday", the timing was impossible to move. Either we had time, or it was a complete failure.

I was exhausted. I was delirious. But, damn it, I could.

In order not to be defeated, I spent the last few days before a sellout at work. For four days sleeping in a total of six hours. I missed family dinner on Thanksgiving Day, to devote all the forces at work last spurt.

The client was ecstatic. The site has won several awards. I think that over the weekend they performed an annual sales rate.

And then I started to go bald beard.

For several months, his mustache thin, yet they do not fall out. Very quickly, I realized that in general will have to forget about the beard. I had to choose: either to go with skin smooth as a baby or with a beard that hangs scraps.

I too nervous, my body has forgotten how to grow a beard. And for what? To plow for 19 hours a day, embodying the crazy ideas of designers?

I was devastated. He denied the body. I was overwhelmed, unhappy, lonely. And with a mustache.

I blindly followed the precepts of the cult of work. We had to change something.

How do I know you're under the influence of the cult

Clear signs that you pulled into a sect are:

• You often work more than 40 hours a week.
• Often sleep less than six hours per day.
• You feel guilty for having to spend time not working (even if they devote hours to family and friends).

This does not happen overnight. The cult is gaining supporters gradually. When this happens, we do not recognize. But foolish to deceive themselves. Yes, it's a cult.

The cult-deceiver

the work of the cult's voice sounded in my head like a siren song, singing about healthy ambition: "To achieve something, you have to work." This is what we say entire adult life.

So we do what we think is right. But the cult of work is not invented for those who are on top.

Although the cult of germs make their way out of good intentions, it gives rise to habits, which do more harm than good.

A closer look at the symptoms of commitment to the cult of work. Once it becomes apparent that each of them is harmful in the long run.

Frequent treatment (more than 40 hours per week)

Often the processing seem mandatory - it is part of the corporate culture. We think that our colleagues / boss / pets will condemn us if we work less than the others. You can not move forward if you do not work anymore.

Overtime will help us all to achieve, is not it?

Not. Actually, quite, I did not.

Researchers have repeatedly proved that it is impossible to remain productive while working more than 40 hours a week (at least for a long time). Henry Ford introduced the 40-hour week in 1914, because it noticed - through research - that the workers remain at peak efficiency when working on schedule 8/5.

From the time of the research it took 100 years, but until now, many companies leave employees in the workplace longer than that is laid, especially in times of approaching deadlines.

But look at productivity. The irony is that after only two months of 60-hour productivity drops significantly when compared with the results that show the employees working for 40 hours.

You get it? Operating at 150%, in the long run you will lose more.

Sleep less than 6 hours per day

Somehow, miraculously lack of sleep has become honorable. We rejoice in their "feats", says slept only two hours a day, and pride shone in our red eyes.

"I never sleep, sleep - the younger brother of death." "So many projects, so little time."

The belief that the vigil on projects will move up the career ladder - it's a cruel, fatal error.

Intellectually, after 18 hours without sleep, you turn into the equivalent of a drunk driver. Problems pile up if you do not get enough sleep one time, the next day fatigue comes quickly. After several days without sleep, you look like a zombie.

We do not go to work drunk, so why go to the office after four hours of sleep, when to us more harm than good?

To make matters worse, lack of sleep leads to early death. The cult of the work you are literally killing.

Guilt for every hour of work conducted by without

When we fall into the trap of the work of the cult, guilt plagued us for every hour that we do not work.

I would go to the party, but I really can not. The project itself will not do.

It seems that a minute without work wasted.

But science says otherwise. Processing lead to increased levels of stress and burnout, Which is associated with a high risk for health. Conversely, free time leads to a burst of creativity and other pleasures of life.

If we take as a basis that is necessary to work 8 hours a night to sleep - also 8, then everything else we will have 8 more hours.

Free time gives us a chance recoverPut the border between itself and its projects, it gives an opportunity to remember why we like to work.

How to get rid of the cult of power

Maybe you've already got a cult of admirers of the work, but it's too late to run away from there.

It is a trap. Using their most good quality, we develop habits that should make us better. But they spoil us in fact: we are worse than work, not to enjoy life and do not feel happy.

Using the same qualities that exploits the cult of work, really regain a taste for life.

After the loss of the beard, I felt the whole weight of burnout. I had burned to ash. It was necessary either to give up work or to completely change his attitude toward her.

I had to give myself a number of promises that saved me from the cult of work:

• I will work as I can, but not anymore.
• First of all, we must recognize that to work effectively, you can not more than 6-8 hours a day.
• Most of the time the work will not make me more productive. The longer stretches time, the worse the result.

I chose the efficacy and applied several radical strategies to control time. As a result, I have reduced working hours from 70-90 hours per week in 2013 to 38 hours in 2014.

I expected that my professional success will decline, but I achieve balance in life and was willing to make such a sacrifice. Instead, it turned out that my productivity at work is growing. It reduces the time wasted, and I tore deadlines.

At first I was surprised by such results, now I realize that they are natural.

Sleep - priority number 1

enough sleep necessary in any case. But that's exactly what we sacrifice in the first place because of employment.

Lack of sleep interferes with clear thinking, that is extremely negative impact on the work.

After reducing the number of working hours, I stopped to use alarm clock. Since I did not recycle, I turn off the computer at six or seven in the evening, and at eleven I was in bed, where I read before going to bed. I wake up myself about seven or seven-thirty.

It changed my life.

The rise of the alarm clock before I rest, means that the day begins with stress. Natural awakening, when fully enough sleep, brings a good mood in the morning and gives energy to start the day.

need time not only to work

This is the most difficult challenge of the work of worship. I like what I do, I want to bring the case to the end. Easy to overlook as everything that does not touch the work is dropped.

But interruptions help to keep pace. During the pause, re-erupts interest in the case. Rebooting the brain opens up the free flow of ideas and helps you make right decisions. In the end, break reduces stress and improves creativity.

Make sure that you have time to rest, even if the inner voice resists.

I walk a lot. I do not take out your phone, when I meet with friends or have dinner. I allocate time for hobbies, whether it's writing or the hunt for the best burger in the world. Today, I am happy as never before in my life. I work with inspiration, rest with pleasure and spend time with loved ones.

Life is Beautiful.

Run from a cult, save lives

After the death of his beard, I was frightened. Suddenly, it's only the first signal and my health worsens? I imagined my future, if nothing changes. And I realized that I was on the way to being alone, ulcer, alopecia and heart attack or stroke due to stress.

Changing the way of life, I was able to change the situation. It took only a year a balanced life, to my beard growing back again. I thin 13 kg, because that was the walk and took the time at the gym. Won drowsiness and began to smile more.

When I ceased to be a minister of religion, everything was better. Nothing went wrong.

Ready to run?

If you brought in a worshipful cult job, you're not alone.

You may be faced with the pressure of public opinion, which calls for keeping pace. Can grow together with its image of a workaholic and feel useless, will roll if this path. But I guarantee you: despite all the settings that you put into a cult, it is worth to tie. It would be better for a career. For health. For relationships. For happiness.

You were under the influence of the cult of his own mind, ambition and determination. But your best qualities turned into the worst habits.

Are you smart enough to overcome everything. Restore freedom. Find happiness and success to which you wanted to in the beginning.

Turn off the computer. Go outside. Call a friend, they get bored.

What then?

If you're like me, you want to escape from a cult, but do not believe that this is possible. I was wrong: it was hard to just take the first step.

Do not waste your time. You can get rid of dependence is now.