Are you a high-powered professional struggling with work-related stress and anxiety? Are you and your spouse, or you and your family, fighting at home because you lack work-life balance? Do you experience angry outbursts or find yourself easily wound up?
Some stress is good; work stress that interferes with your life is problematic
We all experience stress in our lives, and a moderate level of stress is actually beneficial. Manageable stress helps us by improving problem-solving skills, motivating us to work towards goals, and helping us feel good about life. Moderate stress is productive, but too much negative stress lowers performance and lowers motivation.
For many ambitious professionals, work-related stress has long ago moved from the manageable/positive zone to overwhelming/negative. Has anxiety from your job invaded your relationships, damaged your health, or interfered with your sleep? If so, it may be time to seek professional help.
A checklist for work-life balance going bad
Since we all experience anxiety on a spectrum, it can be hard to know when work stress is getting the best of us. If you experience one or more of the feelings on this checklist, it is likely that you need help getting your work stress under control.
- Do you feel isolated, lonely, or disconnected from other people (in your family, network of friends, or colleagues at work)?
- Do you have difficulty “switching off” from work?
- Are you having difficulty staying motivated?
- Is it difficult to prioritize your work tasks?
- Are you constantly feeling uncertain about your progress? Not sure if you are performing as well as expected?
- Are you unable to sleep (insomnia)?
How did our stress go from good to bad?
If you are competitive, ambitious, and know when to act fast, this may have played a part in helping you move up the career ladder. These Type A personality traits are fantastic assets to help you succeed and move into more demanding, high-powered positions.
This same personality, however, makes it more difficult to build healthy responses to stress. People with Type A personalities tend to be more self-critical, impatient, aggressive, and easily angered when stressed. You may be overly concerned about your career success, feel overloaded, and struggle with work-life balance. As work-life balance skews toward work, people tend to experience more acute fear of failure, difficulty managing pressure to meet deadlines, or experience imposter syndrome.
Intense work involvement, overloading on professional commitments, and working long hours in a stressful job, tend to carry the strain over into your home life. Maybe you start arguments more easily, withdraw emotionally, or are more easily antagonized. In a vicious cycle, pressures at home spill back into your work life as the effects of difficult situations at home linger the next day, affecting your concentration or productivity at work.
Loss of work-life balance affects your health and relationships
Overdosing on stress makes you more prone to stress-related illnesses, such as high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart disease. In your personal life, you are likely to be less compassionate, more prone to anger, and more aggressive. When work stress becomes home stress, your family, your relationships, and your health all pay the price. Even couples who enjoyed a supportive relationship tend to become overwhelmed when work stress becomes too big a factor.
Moving towards better, more-fulfilling relationships with family and friends
Letting your guilt, fears, and anxieties run the show may be running havoc on your mental and physical health. With the right tools, you can master your work-related stress, improving your overall health and work/life balance. We can teach you effective stress management techniques to help you become more relaxed, patient, and easy-going with family and friends. You can learn to switch from work mode to home mode.
In therapy, I will do more than help you reduce workplace stress. Therapy will help you look into the real causes of your workplace stress, helping you create real solutions by combining techniques that will meet you where you are, meet your goals, and help you find the solutions that work for you long term.
It’s time to take control of your stress. If you are concerned about failing at work or at home, reach out today.
