Workaholism - She Ain't Cute

Hi friends!

I’m wrapping up a trip home to visit my parents, and will be back to California in the coming weeks where I hope to start looking for a place later this summer! Based on initial poking around, the Bay Area rental market seems to be rebounding significantly, and friends have told me the New York market is on fire as well. It seems like people are flocking back to big cities to kick off their Hot Girl Summers, which we were all obviously robbed of in 2020.

Accurate.

(If you need a refresher on Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot Girl Summer vibe, please read this amusing article on Vox. Also, this should tell you how cool I am - I am referencing memes from 2019. HOT TAKES.)

Thanks (as always) for subscribing to the newsletter, and thanks for the feedback on last week’s newsletter on hobbies, which seemed to resonate with a lot of you. Some of you appreciated the suggestions for mini hobbies, and some of you appreciated the reminder that hobbies can actually be helpful to our careers.

As one reader shared with me:

“It almost gave me ‘permission’ to not be working all the time.”

It’s an interesting comment, right? In this hustle culture we’re all caught up in, and the complete blurring of work/life delineation we’ve experienced in the last 18 months of the pandemic, we feel like we need ‘permission’ to not be working around the clock. 

This week, we’re going to explore that concept of working around the clock. Workaholism, which often implies working long hours, is also tied to overarching negative feelings related to work, and ultimately leads to feeling burnt out. It's a huge topic with lots of avenues to explore, and some of it is intuitive, but the studies referenced below are pretty interesting.

If these articles are helpful or relevant to you, I’d love if you shared/reposted below:

There isn’t any currently any Substack functionality to share on Instagram, which is how some of you found and follow this newsletter. It makes me think I should consider a “To-Woo” List Twitter account to share some anecdotes… guys, another HOT TAKE a decade behind the curve: Sharing on Twitter! 😖

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Musings:

I think that most people from most stages of my life would describe me as someone who likes to do... a lot. Some of my tendency to do ALL. THE. THINGS can be attributed to an Asian immigrant upbringing, but it probably can also be attributed to just liking the constant stimulation.

I spent high school equally active in the International Baccalaureate program and in a performing arts program.

The mathlete scene from the Mean Girls musical is all of my wishes come true.

I spent university active in extracurricular activities, and participated in the student managed investment portfolio (CPMT), case competitions (ICBC), and various social shenanigans (RIP TSE and WBG, IYKYK)¹.

From there, I sought out careers that were pretty demanding (investment banking, notorious for very long hours), then a high paced startup, and in the last few years, in private equity, raising capital for a variety of fund strategies. I’m no stranger to the concept of dedicating a lot of time to school, or work (tbh, writing last week’s newsletter was pretty eye opening for me too!).

Yet, when I reflect on my own experiences, not every stretch of working hard felt equally difficult. Some periods of working really hard have felt like an absolute grind, while some stages (despite working roughly the same number of hours) has felt completely different, which I want to unpack a little bit.

Two major questions emerged for me in determining when working a lot becomes workaholism (or working a lot with negative connotations):

1. What’s the motivation for working all the time? (we’ll explore this here in the ‘Musings’ section)

2. What can make working long hours positive and rewarding? (we’ll explore in the ‘Conversations’ section below)

What makes working a lot a bad thing? It’s similar to any -holism, I suppose. Just like alcoholism isn’t necessarily defined by the quantity of drinks one consumes (though, obviously, the two are correlated), workaholism is more than just working long hours.

And it turns out, how we ultimately relate to our work is much more important than the number of hours that we work. A study from the Harvard Business Review in 2018 shows²:

“Employees who worked long hours (typically more than 40 hours a week), but who did not obsess about work, did not have increased levels of RMS (risk of metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, high cholesterol).”

“Workaholics, whether or not they worked long hours, reported more health complaints and had increased risk for metabolic syndrome; they also reported a higher need for recovery, more sleep problems, more cynicism, more emotional exhaustion, and more depressive feelings than employees who merely worked long hours but did not have workaholic tendencies.”

I think a lot of what causes anxiety and stress in our jobs is our underlying motivation. Again, similar to other compulsions, working isn’t definitionally ‘unhealthy’, but in excess, or with the wrong motivation, can cause stress or anxiety - which creates the feeling of obsession referenced in the study above.

How we relate to working and working hard can be positive. For example, work gives us:

• Sense of purpose

• Sense of identity

• Growth and education

• Social stimulation

• Financial stability

But workaholic tendencies are the negative ways in which we relate to work:

• When we’re motivated by external validation, social validation or status

• When we’re motivated to work by avoiding other feelings or obligations

• When we feel like we have no control over our work or workload

• When we feel guilty when not working

• When we feel unmanageable pressure

• When we constantly feel inadequate

I think sometimes the term workaholism can be a badge of pride, (like perfectionism), but its been suggested that workaholism actually stems from negative self-image and low confidence. Feeling the need to do/prove oneself all the time isn’t actually a positive attribute, and doesn’t necessarily lead to more productivity or success - it leads to burnout.

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Conversations:

We all work a lot. I mean…. if you’re someone who subscribes to a career newsletter, chances are, work is a big part of your life. Most of the people in my friend group and network spend a lot of time at work, yet I wouldn’t necessarily describe them as workaholics. I wanted to explore what *does* makes people happy at work, despite working so much, and a few themes emerged:

It’s debatable if a pyramid was the best graphical depiction of this concept, because the importance of each these elements isn’t necessarily dependent on the level below it… but it’s a refreshing change from my many Venn diagrams, no? You’re welcome.

Another study, this one by the Society of Consulting Psychology looked at workaholism in context of their measure of an individual’s “Cognitive Hardiness”³, defined below, and found that having hardiness goes a long way to reducing stress and anxiety related to work.

Cognitive hardiness is defined as:

• Having an internal locus of control (“I intrinsically like the work.”)

• High self-efficacy and self-esteem (“I feel appropriately challenged and I feel good about doing this work.”)

• Optimistic disposition, and viewing change as a challenge (“I am making a difference.”)

Again, while this probably seems intuitive, it checks out with some of the conversations I had with some of the people in my network that spend a very high percentage of their time working.

It’s not negative….. if I intrinsically like the work

“I work 2-3 hours more per day now that I’ve left the corporate world and started my own company, which cuts into my family/social time. I manage to squeeze it in by waking up earlier in the morning, or after bedtime for the kids. I don’t mind it, because I am so stoked to work on this idea, do research and iterate, and it energizes me.”

- CEO of a small business, who left a large energy company

Engagement (or excitement, or intrinsic motivation) is a major factor in whether working long hours is not only defined as workaholism, but actually whether doing so is bad for people’s health.

The Harvard study above, actually has data to show that loving your work can offset some of the ill effects of workaholism.

“Both [workaholics and engaged] workaholics reported more psychosomatic health complaints (e.g., headache, stomach problems) and mental health complaints (e.g., sleep problems, depressive feelings) than non-workaholics. However, non-engaged workaholics had higher RMS — a 4.2% higher risk — than engaged workaholics. (This number might seem small, but even a small increase can pose a serious health risk.)”

“The second key message from our study is that workaholics who love their jobs are somewhat protected from the most severe health risks, and this may be because they feel that their work is worth all the hard work they put in.”

It’s not negative…. if I feel appropriately challenged

“I hated being a junior investment banker. Yes it was long hours, and some hours were spent building valuable technical skills, but many hours were spent doing the most mundane tasks ever.

One night at 1am I was printing and binding copies of a 100-page pitchbook I had slaved over for a week. Something possessed me to rip out every 12th page, just to see if anyone would notice… the next morning at the pitch, literally not a single person noticed. I quit that afternoon.”

- Ex-investment banker, now hedge fund manager

There are two opposite poles to this concept, one where you’re working a lot, but on things that are not challenging or interesting to you; and at the opposite end, where you’re working on things that you feel completely out of your depth on.

Working tirelessly on something that is not suited to your skill set in either direction can have negative impact on your self-esteem and eventually your motivation and how you relate to work.

It’s not negative…. if even if I am working super hard, I feel like I can impact outcomes

“I work a lot. I love my team. I love the work that I do. I am good at it. But working around the clock the last few months leading up to our fundraise - which has been challenging - has been demoralizing. There are so many x-factors that will determine the outcome and success of the company that I cannot control.”

- Startup executive burnt out by their company’s recent fundraise

Optimism is a big part of cognitive hardiness, and it turns out highly driven, impatient individuals (specifically the women in the study) experience even higher stress when they are pessimistic. Continually hitting a wall, or feeling like you can’t advance the progress of yourself, your team or your company is bound to lead to pessimism and increase the negative feelings associated with work.

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Resources/Links

• All studies referenced in the footnotes below

• Cool Ladies Doing Cool Things: In the US last Friday we celebrated Juneteenth, the date commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in the US as a national holiday for the first time! Opal Lee is an 89 year old former teacher and lifelong activist who first marched in 2016 from Texas to DC to petition for this very cause (ABC News)

1. Here’s an easter egg if you’ve read this far. The university party (nay, business conference) that ended it all for our business program’s social club.

2. https://hbr.org/2018/03/how-being-a-workaholic-differs-from-working-long-hours-and-why-that-matters-for-your-health

3. https://www.societyofconsultingpsychology.org/index.php?option=com_dailyplanetblog&view=entry&category=main-blog&id=22:the-advantages-of-engaged-workaholics