How you can help yourself

If you think you may be a workaholic, there are practical ways to improve your quality of life. Here are a few ideas you can use right away:

-Take care of yourself. Workaholics are notorious for neglecting their health. You may not realize it, but your health is worth a million dollars! Think of how much money you’d have to pay to get a heart transplant, or for other major surgeries to repair your body. When you add it all up, you’ll see you can’t afford not to take care of yourself. Eating right and getting exercise are essential. Being healthy should be your first priority always, because without your health, nothing else matters.

-Another idea is to plan how much work you will do in one day and stick to it. That way you’ll be less likely to go overboard because you don’t know where to draw line.

-Reserve time for friends and family. Whether it’s Saturday and Sunday or Wednesday and Thursday, use your time off to spend time with your loved ones. Make a pact with yourself that your time off will only be spent with ones you care about most- that means no co-workers!

-Last but not least, always make time for yourself. Take up a hobby if you don’t have one already. There needs to be a time where you spend time appreciating you. Whether you like to hit gym, play a sport, or curl up with a great book, there needs to be some you time. No matter what goes on at work, you need to have something to look forward to at end of week. Even if it’s just taking a bubble bath or renting your favorite DVD, I guarantee it will make a difference.

You see, in twenty years in management, for every "yes" I've gotten in my career that's visible, there's least five "no's" that aren't. For every success I've achieved, there's at least as many misses. Yet when we look at other people's successes, we miss struggles, frustrations and disappointments that came before them, so we think their success was easy.

How you view your disappointments, falls, and setbacks will impact your success. Do you see them as stepping stones or brick walls? People who are winning at working live Ralph Waldo Emerson's words, "Men succeed when they realize that their failures are preparation for their victories."

People who are winning at working don't blame others for what's happened to them, and they don't use other people's definitions for success and failure. They use their own. They know it's not failing to miss their mark, change paths, re-assess goals, try something new or adjust direction. To them, failure happens when they stop trying to achieve their personal best.

(c) 2005 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.