In the old days, if you were a white-collar worker, the deal was that you worked as hard as you could at the start of your career to earn the right to

If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?

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2021-09-08 16:30:04

In the old days, if you were a white-collar worker, the deal was that you worked as hard as you could at the start of your career to earn the right to be rewarded later on, with security of tenure and a series of increasingly senior positions. This is no longer true. Today, many senior leaders work longer and harder than ever. At the heart of it is insecurity, and indeed, elite professional organizations deliberately set out to identify and recruit “insecure overachievers.” Insecure overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet are driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. If this sounds familiar, you should try to work exceptionally long hours when you need to or want to — but do it consciously, for specified time periods, and to achieve specific goals. Don’t let it become a habit because you have forgotten how to work or live any other way.

“I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it doesn’t matter, that you will rest afterwards, but that moment never comes.”