If you’re an overachiever, you hold yourself to (often unrealistically) high standards and push yourself to be perfect. This can cause you tons of stress, and it could even lead to burnout. Are you at risk? Here are 15 signs your insistence on striving for success is getting dangerous and you might need to slow down a bit.
1. You work night and day.
Your job is taking over your life — what’s a 9-to-5? You might work late into the night or start super early in the day to “get ahead” even though you’re often working on things that aren’t time-sensitive and could easily wait until tomorrow or even next Monday. Your work-life balance is all but nonexistent at this point, and it’s only a matter of time until you crash and burn.
2. You’re working so hard that you’re skipping lunch.
Your lunch break is built into your workday for a reason — you need to stop staring at your computer and give your body the nutrients it needs to be healthy, as well as give your eyes a break from incessant reports and computer screens. If you’re a bit too much of an overachiever, you could be starving yourself or not giving yourself any breaks. This will have pretty dire consequences down the line.
3. You’re struggling to sleep.
If you’re working way too hard all the time, you’re likely spending a lot of time in front of screens and sitting at your desk late into the night, which is bad enough for your sleep health. However, maybe you’re also struggling with insomnia because you can’t turn off your work-related thoughts.
4. You’re taking on other people’s work.
You might be overachieving at work to get praise from your employer or to avoid failure, but this strong need could cause you to take on other people’s responsibilities. You’re winding up with way too much on your plate, and it’s impossible to get through it all. Plus, you’re playing the fool — your colleague is getting paid for doing nothing while you’re getting the same amount for doing double your workload.
5. You’ve stopped doing activities you enjoy.
If you’re pushing yourself too hard, you could be missing time for things you used to love, like watching football with friends, reading non-fiction books, or going for relaxing walks in nature. This can cause you to feel depressed because you’re not living a full life. It’s important to make time for your hobbies and interests as well as work.
6. You only talk about work.
When you do spend time with other people, do you find that you’re always dominating conversations with chatter about work, whether it’s your funny co-workers or your hectic workload? This is a red flag that your overachieving tendencies are taking up all your head space. You need to have more to your life than your job.
7. You move from one task to another, with no breaks in between.
As an overachiever, you always have your eye on the next task. Once you’ve completed a project, you quickly jump into the next. You never stop to take a break, recharge your batteries, or compliment yourself for a job well done. This means you never get to celebrate your accomplishments or take notes on what you might to different/better next time.
8. You focus on the destination, not the journey.
The problem with overachieving is that you can get caught up in focusing too much on reaching your destination. You’re so obsessed with this that you end up missing the day-to-day journey, where you can learn along the way or stop and smell the roses. The process is just as important as the result, you know.
9. You cancel social plans.
You always have to get your job done at any cost, so you push people away and take tons of rain-checks on social events because you “have” to work. When people ask you what the payoff is, you might say that working on the weekends will help you stay ahead of your workload, but you do this every weekend so you’re caught in a rut.
10. You lose your cool a lot.
You’ve put yourself under a lot of stress to try to achieve what you want and avoid failure, so you tend to become irritable or lose your temper. This is a sign of burnout because your feelings are being shoved away or you’re not taking time to process them. The result? Your emotions are bubbling over in some pretty intense ways.
11. You’re feeling exhausted.
It’s no surprise that you’re not only tired but downright exhausted. This is because you’ve been working so hard, but also because high stress has been weighing you down. If you don’t have healthy outlets, you risk burning yourself out.
12. You’ve got no energy for anything.
If you’re always pushing yourself and you don’t feel rested before a full day of work, you probably feel like you can’t find any energy for anything, whether that’s a phone call with a friend, cooking dinner, or going shopping. You need to be able to muster up the motivation to live a life outside of the office. Otherwise, what are you living for?
13. You’re stressed out by small things.
You’re so preoccupied with your workload that all your energy is dedicated to it. So, any little stress outside of your work bubble can cause you to feel severe anxiety. If your phone dies and you have to replace it or your sister asks you for advice, you feel like it’s just too much.
14. Your brain is all over the place.
If you’re filling your mind with a thousand tasks, it’s only natural that something’s gonna give out and it could be your memory. Maybe you forget to send an important email or you forget what someone said five minutes after a convention with them. You end up feeling like there’s something wrong with you because you just can’t retain any info.
15. You’re always getting colds.
Your immune system might be feeling the strain of your high-stress situation. You could be getting more colds and flu, on top of feeling more anxious and depressed than usual. Physical symptoms like these are red flags that you’re pushing yourself way too hard. Your body’s begging for a chill-out sesh!
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