Why You're Working So Hard for a Job You Don't Even Want

Episode 24:  If you are exhausted, overextended and running on empty, you'll already know all about it. What you might not know is why. In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens explores the relationship between overwork, boundaries and the beliefs that quietly drive them. This episode helps you understand why boundaries  matter, and why addressing this might be one of the most important parts of your career change journey.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why exhaustion can make career change feel impossible, and why just accepting that is not the answer
• How to tell the difference between a genuinely demanding job and a pattern of behaviour you have been carrying across roles
• What is often underneath the inability to hold boundaries at work, and why it is rarely just about time management
• The real cost of overworking beyond tiredness, including what it does to your confidence and sense of self-worth
• How beginning to hold boundaries is not just a practical strategy but the beginning of a new identity

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/
Free Coaching Consultation: https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free clarity call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hello, and how are you doing today? So, this week I thought I would talk to you about something you might be feeling right now: exhaustion and overwork, and the feeling that your job is consuming everything. Your time, your energy, your headspace, your weekends, your evenings, that feeling you get at the end of the day where all you can manage is collapsing on the sofa and scrolling your phone is about as much as you can cope with. This sense that there is nothing left over, nothing left of you, nothing left for the rest of your life, let alone for thinking about changing it. Now, before I say anything else, I want to be really clear about something because some jobs genuinely are more demanding than others. Some roles come with long hours and relentless pressure and cultures that expect you to be always on. That is real. And if you're in one of those environments, I'm not going to tell you that it's all in your head or that you've got the wrong attitude. That's not what we're here to talk about today. And also that wouldn't be true or fair. But I do want to offer something today because, in my experience talking to hundreds of women, even when a job is genuinely demanding, there is usually something else at play as well. A pattern, a thought pattern, a way of operating that we've got so used to that we can barely see it anymore. And that pattern can keep us working or overworking, giving more than we need. And for so many women I work with, that can look like giving 120% or 150% to your work. And often you might find yourself working at that 150% capacity long after the circumstances that originally needed that extra push have changed. Maybe you're operating at that capacity or trying to all the time, and that just isn't sustainable. And here's why this matters because if you want to make a change in your career, if you're listening to this podcast because something needs to be different, exhaustion can be a huge obstacle for you. You don't need me to tell you that, but it's not because you're not capable of change, but because when you're running on empty, when you've got nothing left, the idea of having the time or the headspace or the energy to think about your future feels completely out of reach. And change starts to feel like a luxury you can't afford right now. And if this is where you are, I want to say I do understand, I get it, and honestly, I felt like that too at one point in my corporate role. And also just accepting that, just believing this is the way things are, so this is the way things are always going to be, that is not going to help you. Because if exhaustion, if your exhaustion is partly being driven by a pattern that can be shifted, then waiting until you feel less exhausted before you start working on your future means you could be waiting for a really long time. So today I want to look at that honestly. And before I do jump into it, I want to say, as I always do, that remember when we're identifying how we're thinking and maybe how that's affecting our behaviour, this isn't about blaming yourself or being criticized. It's about understanding what's actually going on, creating awareness, because this is the first step to be able to do something about it. And I want to start with the change piece specifically, because I think it's the most important thing to address for you if you're listening to this podcast. Here's what I see with so many of the women who come to me. They know they need to change their working life. They've maybe known for a while, but every time they try to turn their attention towards it, they don't have anything left to give, right? There's no energy, there's no clarity, no capacity to think beyond the immediate demands of any given week. And so they tell themselves that they'll deal with things when things are quieter, when this busy period is over, when they've got a bit more headspace, and then the next busy period arrives, and then the next. And what is actually happening here is that the very thing that needs to change, the overworking, the lack of boundaries, the pattern of giving everything to work and leaving nothing for yourself, this is the thing that is often making the change feel impossible. You can get stuck in this cycle, and it's a really frustrating place to be. The answer is not just to keep pushing through and try to do your coaching or thinking about your future career on top of this already impossible workload. The answer is to look at the load itself to ask what is actually driving it. Is it really as fixed and immovable as it currently feels to you? Exhaustion is not just a symptom of your circumstances, it's also a pattern, and patterns can be changed. Now I want to come back to something I said at the start because I do think it's worth me repeating. Some jobs are genuinely very demanding, and if you're in one of those, that is a real and valid thing. But I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it honestly, just to yourself. Has this been the pattern across more than one role? Have you found yourself giving more, overworking, unable to switch off, taking on more than strictly required, maybe working late in other jobs as well, not just this one? Are you someone that raises their hand, that's always offering to help? Does it feel like you need to go above and beyond? Because if the answer is yes, that is worth paying attention to, not as a criticism, but as useful information. Because if the pattern has shown up in different roles with different managers and different organisations, then the pattern might not be the job. It could be something you have been carrying with you, something in how you operate, how you think about your work, and what you feel you need to do in order to be accepted or valued or maybe even safe. And this is where it can get interesting because those patterns almost always have roots. They don't just appear from nowhere, they develop over time, often from very understandable places. The person who learned early on that their value was in what they produced, or the person who discovered that going above and beyond got them noticed in certain ways, maybe that simply doing their job didn't get them noticed, the person who has a sense that they need to keep proving themselves that they're not quite enough without that constant performance. So if this resonates with you, sometimes just simply having that possibility reflected back to you for the first time might be helpful. The idea that the overworking is not just what work is like, that it might be something that you have some power, some agency over, that is a very different and often quite freeing thought. So if this pattern has followed you from role to role, the pattern could be the thing to look at, not just the job. So what is actually underneath it? What drives this pattern of overwork and over-delivery and the inability to protect your own time and energy? Now you might know, you might already know what's driving it for you, or you might never have thought about it before. So now is the time to reflect. And I'll just give you some examples that I've seen in my experience because it almost always comes back to some version of the same thing, a belief, often one that's been there for a very long time, about what you need to do in order to be enough, in order to be valued, in order to be safe. It might sound like I have to work harder than anyone else to prove I deserve to be here. Or if I say no, people might think I'm not committed. Or I can't let standards slip because my whole identity is built on being the person who delivers. Or this one, which will often be quite painful to realise, is I don't quite believe I'm enough without this type of performance, without showing up in this way. So I keep performing just in case. Now, those beliefs, no matter how compelling they feel to you, are not the truth. They are thoughts, and often they might be old thoughts, often thoughts that made complete sense at one point in your life when they were formed. And they've simply never been updated. If you've been thinking these thoughts over and over again, they've started to become familiar, just a part of how you experience yourself. So you might never have questioned them. So you might just be living with them as facts, right? Considering that they're the truth. But does the you of today, with everything you've achieved, with the position you're in now, with the knowledge and skills and experience that you have, do you need to think these thoughts? Or has your self-concept not caught up with where you actually are now? And this is often where the lack of boundaries comes in because when you believe, even subconsciously, that your value is in your output and that saying no is not a safe thing to do, that you need to keep proving yourself, then of course, of course, it's gonna feel hard to hold boundaries. Boundaries feel like they're gonna threaten your whole system. They feel like they're gonna be the thing that's gonna expose you as not being enough after all. So you keep going. You keep delivering, you keep saying yes, you keep working through your lunch break, logging on after work, checking your emails on your day off or even on holiday. You keep thinking about work tasks and how you're gonna solve them tomorrow in the evenings, instead of being present with family or friends or just giving yourself a break. And you get more and more depleted. And the idea of having time and headspace for yourself, let alone for your future, keeps slipping further away. Lack of boundaries at work is very rarely just about poor time management, it is usually about what we believe we need to do in order to be acceptable. And that belief is worth examining. And I want to talk about what this is actually costing you because it's easy to underestimate it. So it's important that we see it clearly. The obvious cost, the most obvious cost, is time and energy, and you know about that already because you're living it. But I want to go a little bit deeper on it because every time you say yes when you really mean no, you're sending yourself a message. Every time you stay late when you had plans, every time you take on more than your share, every time you deprioritize your own needs for the job, you're teaching yourself something about what you're worth and about whose needs matter, about how much your time and energy and rest and life outside work actually counts. And you are the one learning that lesson over and over again, even when no one else is listening. And there's a huge confidence cost here as well. Women who are consistently operating without boundaries, who always go above and beyond and never protect their own space or time, often find that their sense of themselves gets quietly eroded. Because there's a connection between how we treat ourselves and how we see ourselves. And when you repeatedly act as though your needs are the least important thing, it starts to feel like they are. And then, importantly, for what I do with clients, there's the future cost. The version of you who's ready to make a change, who has the clarity and the energy and the headspace to actually build something new. It's really hard for her to exist when everything is being poured into a job that is consuming you. You're spending resources you need for your future on a role that if you're honest with yourself, you've already decided you want to leave. So I want to offer you something here that I find is a really useful reframe that I work with clients on in my coaching, and I want you to sit with it, right? Because if you know that you want to leave your current role, you have, in some sense, already resigned. Not officially, not yet, but in your head, maybe definitely in your heart, you've already made the decision that this is not where you're staying for the long term. So here's the question I want you to ask yourself: why are you still performing as though your entire future depends on it? Why are you still staying up late, still taking on extra projects, still going above and beyond in a role you've already mentally left? What are you doing it for? Now I want to be really clear about what I'm saying here. I am not saying do a bad job. I'm not saying stop caring about your work or let your standards fall in ways that would genuinely damage your reputation or your relationships. Professionalism, it does always matter. But there is a significant difference between doing your job well and running yourself into the ground for a role that you're already planning to leave. And I think most people who are in this pattern are doing the second thing, not the first. They're operating at a level of output and availability and self-sacrifice that goes far beyond what is actually required. And they're doing it out of habit or fear or the same old pattern, not because the role genuinely demands it. I usually ask my clients, how much are you giving to your current role in terms of like percentages?

unknown 15:17

Right?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Are you giving 100%? Are you giving more? And often they'll tell me that they're giving 120% or even 150%, sometimes even more. So think about that now. How much are you giving? How much time, energy, headspace are you giving to your current role, the one that you know isn't right for you? And I want you to think about this question, which is what I also ask my clients like, why are you continuing to give that extra 20% or 50% to a job that you know no longer works for you? And what would happen if you pulled back even by 10%, 20%, maybe even 50%? Now, especially if you're someone who always strives to overdeliver in your job, you could probably afford to pull back to 80% or even 70% and still be outperforming some of your colleagues who don't care as much as you or don't have your experience or your skill. Can you make the changes you want to your life and continue to really give 120% to your role? Is that really viable? Hopefully, hearing me talk about it today, you can see that you don't need to, that it's not viable to spend time and attention on your future and still give 120% to your role? And let's keep thinking about the fact that maybe you don't have to. What would it look like for you to treat your current role as something temporary? What if it's just a stepping stone that you're going to manage sensibly while you invest your real energy in what comes next? What would it look like to do your job well professionally without that extra 20% that's currently going into working that is not giving you anything back? That 20% is yours. It belongs to your future. It's the energy and time and headspace that you could be using towards figuring out what you actually want and getting the support you need and taking the steps that will change your life. Your current role is not your future. It's your present, and you can manage it well without letting it consume all of you, all of your energy and resources that your future's going to need. I want to finish with something that I think is a really important idea in this episode because I don't want you to leave thinking this is about just managing your workload better. It's really much bigger than that. Beginning to hold boundaries at work is not primarily a time management strategy. It's not about that, it's the beginning of a new relationship with yourself. Because every time you hold a boundary, every time you protect your own time, you say no to something that's not yours to be carrying, that's not your responsibility. When you leave at the end of the day, when you simply stop giving more than is reasonable, you're doing something that goes beyond the practical. You're acting like someone who believes that their time and energy has value. You're treating yourself as though you matter, and those actions, repeated over time, begin to change how you see yourself. The women I work with who begin to shift their boundaries do not just get their evenings back or their lunch breaks back or their weekends back, they start to make different decisions across all different areas of their lives. They start to expect more, ask for more, settle for less of what is not right for them. Because the identity that comes from holding onto your own space, from taking yourself seriously, from treating your needs as valuable, that identity is one of the most powerful foundations you can build your next chapter on. And here's the thing about that, you don't have to wait until you're in the right job to start building it. You can start here in this role that you're in now. In fact, I would argue that this is the place to start. Because if you don't address the pattern here, it's very likely to follow you into your next role. A new job's just not like this automatic reset button for all your old beliefs. No, the thinking that's been driving the overworking will still be there unless it's been looked at and shifted by you. So wherever you are right now, if you're in a role you want to leave, in the middle of figuring out what comes next, or even just beginning to think about what a different working life might look like for you, this is worth paying attention to. Not as like something else to add to your to-do list, but as part of what it means to become the person who is ready for what comes next. You do not need a new job to start becoming a different version of yourself at work. You can start working on that now, here, today, and it will be a really important thing that you can do for yourself. So, to summarize today, I do want to go back to this point that exhaustion and overwork are real things, right? And some jobs are genuinely more demanding than others, and I am not dismissing that. But if you honestly notice that there's a pattern that has been with you across more than one role, it's worth being curious about what is driving it. Not as self-criticism, not as judgment, but as information. The lack of boundaries that keeps you doing more is almost always connected to something deeper than just time management. It's usually connected to a belief about yourself and a belief about what you need to do in order to be enough. And that belief, once you can see it, can be changed. And the cost of not addressing it is real, not just in tiredness, but in what it's teaching you about your own worth and the energy it is taking from you and your ability to work on your future. And if you're in a role that you already know you want to leave, you have permission, real permission to step back, to stop giving 120%, 150% to something that is not your future. Reclaim that time and energy and headspace that belongs to your next chapter. Now you'll have noticed today that I have not talked about the how, right? I haven't talked about how to actually begin identifying and holding boundaries in place because this is work I do with my clients directly because it's really quite personal and specific and needs proper support to do it well. But I hope that today has given you a clearer picture of why it matters and maybe even helped you see your own situation from a slightly different angle. So if any of this has resonated with you and you want to start doing this work properly, the link to Book of Free Consultation is in the show notes. So come and have a conversation. It costs nothing and it might just be the thing that starts to change everything. Thank you so much for listening. I'm going to see you next week. Bye for now.