Dangers of Being a Workaholic

You might think that being a workaholic is a good thing and that you're bound to have a successful career because your life is devoted to your work. However, for most people being a workaholic has many negative associations. It generally means that you are obsessed with your work and have no time for outside interests or other people. You are single-minded in wanting to get the most out of your career and are prepared to get to the top any possible way you can. Consequently, you may use rather underhand methods to get what you want, which clearly won't go down well with other people.

You could therefore end up jeopardising your career, since if you are completely fixated on your work, always going above and beyond what is expected of you and cosying up to your superiors, this is hardly likely to be appreciated by your co-workers. It can be difficult to form relationships within the workplace if your main focus is on you and your career. If you adopt a selfish attitude and are prepared to stab people in the back to further your career, this won't look very good to anyone and perhaps you'll get ahead in your career, but nobody will respect you for it.

When you're a workaholic your life revolves around work, so that nobody else gets a look in. It can be difficult to establish new friendships or romantic relationships and to keep friends and lovers when you don't have any time for people. You can't expect people to hang around, waiting for you to give them a call and then meet up whenever you have a spare minute, particularly if you have a habit of letting people down. If you're always late and sometimes don't even bother to turn up because work gets in the way you could find yourself increasingly isolated.

Being a workaholic makes it easier for you to ignore your lack of social life and fractured family life, but you can't ignore the health problems that working all the time can lead to. If you work long hours, you may not eat a very healthy diet, simply grabbing whatever food you can; you probably won't take time out of your schedule to exercise; and there is a good chance you won't get enough sleep. You could find yourself gaining weight and feeling lethargic; you may start to feel depressed and have difficulty controlling your stress levels. It is obviously harder to concentrate when you're feeling down and you're constantly run down, which could make it difficult for you to work. You may think that expending all your energy on your career is rewarding and gives you a great sense of satisfaction, but if you focus on your career at the expense of everything else you may discover otherwise. If you isolate yourself from everyone and don't look after your health, you could find that it becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish your career goals, anyway, and that you have nothing else in your life to fall back on.