Workaholic or Happy Worker?

​Being a workaholic entails working so much that it becomes detrimental to your personal health or your social relationships. It also entails the inability to slow down even though you know it will have a detrimental impact on your life.

Alternatively, loving your work, working hard, or working long hours does not automatically mean that you are a workaholic. Work can be fulfilling and meaningful. It can also add to our sense of security by way of increased income, reputation, or social capital.

If you simply love your work, but you’re not addicted to it, keep it up. Don’t let others shame you into working less. The goal here is to set boundaries and ensure that your workload doesn’t sneak up on you and become detrimental to your well-being.

If you are a workaholic, it’s important to get to the source of the issue. In most cases, it’s a complicated array of individual characteristics like self-esteem, security needs, and ego, and organizational pressures like unrealistic work demands and flawed reward systems.

Definitions matter. Be honest with yourself - are you a workaholic or a happy worker? This will ensure that you self-regulate in ways that are productive.