23 Aug Your Daily Dollop of Encouragement: How Our Ambition at Work Can Hurt

If only we were superheroes … or if there were enough hours in a day.

If we had the ability to bend space and time, we could accomplish all that we want to get done. Whether its extra projects, catching up on a bloated email inbox, advocating for that promotion, or simply taking that lunch break, it seems like a day is never enough to get everything done at work.

Sometimes, in our efforts to get way too much done, the proverbial ball gets dropped.

But let’s talk about what you’re truly capable of.

Believe it or not, even superheroes get tired (though you wouldn’t know it from the innumerable movie sequels).

The best of us know when to hold ’em or fold ’em. But we are not all “the best of us.”

Working too much can be detrimental to our health—both mental and physical—and negatively impact ourselves and our businesses.

Working too much decreases the quality of work

Running on four measly hours of sleep and three (or twelve) cups of coffee, all in an effort to plow through our workload, doesn’t give our brains the chance to rest from the previous night, or the previous week, or the previous calendar year.

If you’ve only gotten 4 hours of sleep last night, ten-to-one you didn’t get any sleep the night before that, either.

Our brains begin to break down, and so too does our immune systems. We need to learn to take breaks to avoid breaking down!

The quality of our work will begin to diminish, and this can begin to seriously affect your business. Would you rather take your time to give a client a product that is 100%, or rush when you’re at your weakest to give a product that hardly reflects what could have been?

The answer is obvious, and the solution is simple: know when to call it.

Know when to take a break

If you feel like you’re mentally fatigued and can’t find time to break away from your business to give a l’il somethin’ for your personal life, then it’s high time you find a way to cut loose for a little while. Remind yourself that taking a break can only be beneficial to production; it should be a mandatory notion to follow on a regular basis.

Show your company—but most of all, yourself—that you’re top-tier talent, capable of producing the good stuff. And you can only be capable of that sort of productivity when you are completely yourself. That means well-rested, adequately fed, totally awesome.

We all want to build Rome in a day, but there’s a reason why that old saying exists: Rome obviously wasn’t built in a day.

Put things off for later when you feel like you can’t carry the weight anymore. Dodge burnout. Because once you’ve hit the bottom, it’s hard to pull yourself back up.

Always take things in stride

Guess what?

You are a human being.

Novel concept, right?

There are only so many things you can accomplish. Taking things in moderation is key to maintaining physical and mental health.

Don’t worry, your business will get to where you want it to be. It just takes time, careful planning, and lots of patience to reap the fruits of your labor.

Don’t worry—you’ve got this. When you are you—rested, refreshed, focused, driven—you are mind-blowingly awesome.