Introduction

Last week we talked about the root of habits such as Overworking

“Only You can’t create the blueprint for balance in your life & business.”

Overworking has become so embedded in women’s lives

To kick off this women’s history month, I’m going to shed more light on getting rid of overworking habits. Overworking has become so embedded in women’s lives it’s an epidemic!

As First-Generation Women, you were raised to take pride in working hard; however, no one ever showed us how to set limits and boundaries for ourselves! Our parents worked so hard to ensure we had a better life growing up than they did, which is admirable and a gift in itself.

You may not realize it, but our parents’ definition of hard work may be limiting us from reaching our fullest potential. Our lessons on what it means to work hard come from their experience as immigrants in this country. They learned that the more you put into your work, the more you can take care of your family.

In a capitalistic society, it’s easy to get exhausted and burnt out being overworking is encouraged! We often pride ourselves on our go-getter, workaholic culture. This makes sense in a capitalistic society that rewards risk-takers who disrupt industries and start companies from their garages or dorm rooms. But it’s easy to get exhausted and burnt out when being overworked is encouraged!

But we can Beat the deadly trend

As a First-Generation Woman, you also get to be the first generation to create a blueprint for balance. If your life is too busy for you to live in it, it’s time for you to make changes. Evaluate everything in your life, from relationships, friendships, and even pastimes, and ask yourself if it still serves you the way it did when you were younger. If not, make changes. Stop doing things out of habit and start doing them out of choice: Just because something worked well when you were younger doesn’t mean it works well now.

When we think about our native countries and consider the pace of life, there’s a more manageable rhythm that aligns with being a human rather than a production machine. In countries in Africa, there’s enough respect for your personal life that you can’t just call someone at 10 pm to ask them to do something. People actually seem proud to tell you that they haven’t slept in days in America.

You may have become so disconnected from your body you have no idea how to slow down and pay attention to your body limits. Probably used to pushing through those feelings of fatigue or ignoring those feelings of stress to get more done. You may be afraid that someone else will take over if you slow down, and your business will run down.

Overworking our Physical State vs our Mind

It’s not emphasized enough, but using your brain to work is just as demanding and energy-consuming as doing a physical workout! It’s actually worse because you’re also trying to build a business, set up a team, and/or lead your group. The type of mental effort involved in this requires a lot of energy and focus. To succeed, you need to be able to use all of your mental resources in the most efficient way possible. The more efficient you are, the better you’ll perform.

Think of those days when you’ve done mental work for hours and were as exhausted by the end of the day as if you did a workout! Producing, integrating, analysis, problem-solving, decision making all require different parts of your brain, so try to group similar tasks together with a break in between.

Get comfortable doing one task at a time. STOP MULTITASKING! It is more energy-consuming, not efficient, and creates mental fatigue. The single most important thing you can do is unlearn bad habits: we all have them, but some are particularly detrimental to our work efficiency.

But how do we unlearn the Bad habits of Overworking?

Are there any tricks or tips we can use to make the process easier?

A habit is a routine or behavior performed regularly, sometimes without conscious thought. We all have habits, and some of them help us, and others sabotage our success.

“It takes an average of 66 days before a new behavior becomes automatic.”

According to Dr. Wendy Wood, professor of psychology and business at USC and author of the book Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.

1. Take a moment and identify what you want to change.
2. Do a quick audit of your life right now. What is working, what isn’t?
3. In your journal, write down the things you want to achieve in the next 6 months, 1 year and 5 years.
4. If you’ve been saying “I want that” for years, write down how you will get it now.
5. Set one goal in each area of life: Health/Fitness, Career/Money, Social/Family, Spiritual/Personal Growth, Fun/Recreation
6. Identify one habit that is sabotaging your progress in each area and write out the first step to change it.
7. Create a clear vision for each goal and start taking action today!