Career Advice - Overworking - Work Guilt

Feeling Pressured to Be Productive, Even After Hours

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

I hold a managerial position and have been fairly successful at work. My hours are typically reasonable and I'm lucky to have time to enjoy myself outside the office and ample vacation. It's something I've always been able to do, but lately I find myself distracted with thoughts of work no matter where I go. I feel like if I'm hanging out on the couch with my boyfriend on a Sunday afternoon, I should be checking my email or working on some of my projects -- even though I normally am able to get everything done during business hours.

What the heck is going on, and is there any way to deal with it?

Signed,

Accidental Workaholic

Dear Accidental Workaholic,

Americans have a tendency to live for work, while Europeans work to live. This living for work can make work your life, and create tremendous stress on anything that is not work that you try to incorporate into your life — like a husband, a wife, children or a golf game. At the very least.

People most susceptible to work guilt are:

* Freelancers

* Telecommuters

* Anyone not on a salary who works for a percentage of their sales or income

* Anyone on a salary who gets a bonus based on their percentage sales or income

* Anyone in a job that is not secure — whether due to an uncertain economic time, industry, company or performance ability

* Anyone with an addictive tendency who uses work to avoid feeling

* Anyone with an unstable personal life who uses work to avoid going home

Dealing with the guilt:

Work guilt definitely interferes with personal lives. In fact, pretty much everyone in America who works, has trouble incorporating their personal and their work lives because it is possible here to have so much if you work hard. And people here want a lot. The idea that a person can have a lot more than his or her parents had, is a motivator to make people work … and work … and work …

Work guilt is counter productive — or damaging — when an employee starts producing less because they are so tormented by their feelings of guilt. When the feelings impede work and/or personal relationships, then there’s a problem that needs adjustment.

Check out my 10 tips for proactive stress relief to help you deal with some of the pressures you're feeling.

And as for being distracted by work when you're with you boyfriend, maybe you guys need to spice things up a bit! Check out my book Romantic Date Ideas. It's chock full of ideas for keeping your relationship interesting, and should definitely relieve those Sunday work blahs!

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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