Your calendar is chaos. Back-to-back meetings, urgent requests, and last-minute invites take over your day.
You don’t own your time—your job does.
For many, this fast-paced life feels like success. People need you. You’re important. The pressure pushes you to perform. Isn’t this what winning looks like?
Not quite.
Overwork: The Invisible Enemy
“Many leaders cannot tell the difference between being ‘fully alive’ and feeling a mixture of adrenaline, caffeine, sugar, pressure, compulsivity, addiction, and competition, all driven by a deeply repressed fear and insecurity.” (Chapman, D., Dethmer, J., Klemp, K. 2015)
When work demands pile up, your body becomes a dumping ground for stress. Late-night binges, one more drink, or another scroll through Instagram might feel like a relief, but they are symptoms of a deeper problem: a culture of overwork that normalizes striving, competing, boot-strapping, and hustling to feel like you are enough.
The real question is: How do you stop this cycle of sacrificing your health, happiness, and sense of self in the name of work?
1. Find a Better “Off” Switch
Overwork wires your nervous system to treat deadlines and demands as threats, keeping it on high alert. Even after the workday ends, your body doesn’t know it’s safe to relax. Without an intentional “all clear” signal, you’ll default to quick fixes like alcohol, weed, or dopamine-heavy distractions to “force quit” your stress.
You might think, I don’t have time to exercise or do mindful breathing. But the irony is that these small resets make you more productive. Studies show that chronic workload—having too much to do, skipping lunch breaks, and checking work emails during leisure time—is linked to both mental and physical exhaustion and sleep disturbances (Cropley et al., 2020).
You need an arsenal of relaxing behaviors that don’t have negative long-term consequences for your body. In other words, you need a better “off” switch to counter the vigilance of nonstop work.
Instead of relying on unhealthy vices, try…
- Taking a 10-minute, device-free walk to transition out of “grind mode.”
- Skipping the screen time at home. Read a book or embrace the quiet.
- Connecting with a partner or friend—ask questions rather than conquer more tasks.
These practices may seem trivial, but they help your body complete the stress response cycle. Using healthy “off” switches to get our nervous system out of hyperproductive work mode breaks the cycle of waking up exhausted, hungover, and running on caffeinated empty.
2. Address the Culture, Not Just the Symptoms
Overwork isn’t just personal; it’s cultural.
- Workplaces reward late-night emails.
- Society glorifies hustle.
- Masculinity ties worth to productivity.
The data are clear: Workplace environments that emphasize overwork, such as expecting availability 24/7, increase stress and cause health-related problems (Baek et al., 2024).
When success is measured by busyness, slowing down or unplugging may seem like a failure (or the threat of a poor performance review).
You might think, I can’t set boundaries without risking my career. That fear is valid, especially in high-pressure environments. But, without change, the grind doesn’t just hurt your health—it hurts your work. If you don’t challenge these systems, they only grow stronger.
Studies show that boundaries increase focus, creativity, and long-term productivity:
- Block focus time on your calendar: Frame it as a way to deliver better results.
- Turn off email notifications after work hours: Explain how this improves efficiency.
- If necessary, have a candid conversation with your manager about workload and priorities: Frame it as protecting your ability to perform sustainably.
You might think, This isn’t realistic in my workplace. True, you can’t change the system overnight. But you can craft team norms (e.g., no emails after 7 p.m.), advocate for better workplace policies, or align with coworkers with similar values.
This isn’t about having an Office Space moment of total disregard. Hard work isn’t the problem—it’s fulfilling and meaningful for many. It is about examining where you do have agency to create more balance.
Change often starts with someone saying, “This isn’t sustainable for me. What else is possible?”
3. Change Your Core Identity
For many, overwork isn’t just a habit—it’s who they are. Hustling and striving often start early, driven by a fear of not being enough or having enough.
Over time, this drive to achieve becomes central to your identity. You’re the guy who takes on more, who delivers results, who’s indispensable.
But this identity can also become your cage. If you’ve only ever measured your worth through your work, you might not know how to operate differently. The thought of doing less feels like losing yourself.
The solution isn’t to abandon your drive but to reframe it.
Instead of letting overwork define you, treat it as a tool you control. You can turn it up when needed, but you can also dial it down.
Start by asking these questions:
- Who am I beyond my work?
- What do I value besides achievement?
- What fears drive my relentless ambition? How has this served me? How is it holding me back?
When you build a fuller, more balanced identity—one that allows for hard work without sacrificing your health and happiness—you can create a life that sustains you rather than drains you.
The Path to Freedom
Overwork feeds on the fear that if you stop, you will lose your edge or become irrelevant. It tells you there’s no alternative, that your worth depends on output.
The irony is that your grind is potentially sabotaging the very future you’re chasing. Without your health, what good is career achievement or material success?
You might think, I’m not burnt out yet. I can keep going. Many high performers dismiss the messages they get from their bodies—irritability, poor sleep, chronic reliance on uppers or downers to make it through the day—all point to an impending crisis.
Thankfully, this cycle isn’t inevitable. Breaking free starts with small steps: cultivating better power-down routines, setting boundaries at work, and rediscovering who you are beyond a workhorse. It also requires courage to challenge the systems and beliefs that keep you stuck.
Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it takes courage. But the alternative—burnout, poor health, and addictive patterns—is far harder.
When you say, “I refuse to conform to a system that disrespects my well-being,” you lead by example. You show others that success doesn’t have to cost your health or happiness.
The result?
A life that you don’t need to escape from every night with substances and scrolling. That’s true success.