Janet couldn’t stop.
Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t know how. As an ambitious professional, she was driven to prove herself, to get ahead, and to build the life she believed her hard work would unlock. The issue wasn’t her ambition; it was how it showed up –through constant pressure, long hours, and an inability to switch off.
The signs of burnout were there. Fatigue, irritability, and a growing sense of unhappiness that shrouded her existence. Yet she reassured herself this was temporary. There was light at the end of the tunnel, and she would reach it if she just kept pushing a little longer. But the tunnel never ended. And the harder she worked, the further away relief seemed.
When hard work becomes a trap
For many high performers, hard work evolves into identity. “Busy” becomes the default answer to how they are, masking what is really going on beneath the surface.
Caught in this state, over time the relationship with work shifts. It stops being something they do and becomes something they rely on. Work provides structure, validation, and a sense of control, particularly when other parts of life feel uncertain.
This is where overwork begins to resemble a form of psychological dependency. Busyness becomes a kind of Stockholm syndrome, where people form an attachment to the very patterns that exhaust them. Work becomes both the source of pressure and the way they attempt to cope with it.
For Janet, the busier she felt, the more she worked. The more she worked, the more pressure she created. Stopping no longer felt like relief; it felt like losing control, identity, and momentum. So she kept going, even as the cost to her wellbeing and her relationships continued to rise.
The hidden state: Freizeitstress
German psychologists describe a state that captures Janet’s experience: freizeitstress, or the paradoxical fear of free time.
On the surface, those experiencing it appear productive and in control. Underneath, however, they feel trapped by their own busyness. Any space or downtime creates discomfort, which they quickly fill with more work.
This has a real cognitive impact. Chronic stress keeps the brain in a heightened state of alert, reducing access to the areas responsible for strategic thinking, creativity, and reflection. Decision-making becomes reactive, priorities blur, and people default to what feels urgent or familiar.
The result is a self-reinforcing loop: overwhelm drives more activity, and more activity deepens the overwhelm. Because performance often remains high, this pattern can continue unnoticed for long periods, even as a quiet unease builds.
Why high performers get stuck
External pressures including targets, deadlines and expectations play a role, but they are rarely the full story. What sustains overwork is usually internal.
Beliefs such as needing to prove oneself, not wanting to let others down, or equating rest with weakness quietly shape behaviour. These beliefs are reinforced by habits like over-preparing, saying yes too often, and staying constantly connected. Over time, this creates a system that feels necessary but is largely self-generated. People are not simply responding to pressure; they are amplifying it.
Three steps to break the cycle
Escaping workaholism is not about doing less; it is about working and living with greater intention. This is achieved in three steps.
Step 1: Understand the source of your work
Start by separating external pressures from internal ones. External demands are visible and often fixed, but internal drivers including beliefs, fears, and standards, are where the real leverage sits.
With support Janet learned that much of her workload came from her own expectations. She felt the need to be constantly available, to deliver beyond what was required, and to maintain control. When she began questioning these assumptions, her behaviour started to shift. Rather than just saying “yes” to every request, she started asking:
What actually needs to be done?
What is good enough here?
What would happen if I didn’t do this?
Reducing unnecessary work at its source is far more effective than trying to manage it once it exists.
Step 2: Challenge your habits
Much of what drives overwork is habitual. We operate on learned patterns that once served us but may now be misaligned with how we want to live.
When we understand that the brain doesn’t distinguish between a healthy and unhealthy habit, we recognise that some of what drives our day-to-day behaviour can be unhelpful to us. In seeking to use this knowledge to our advantage the key is not to overhaul everything at once, but to make deliberate adjustments.
For Janet, this started with bringing to a conscious level the habits that were causing her busyness. She then challenged those which were eroding her energy and happiness, creating space to establish new habits that helped her set clearer boundaries, prioritise more ruthlessly, and live how she wanted to. And a key part of this was challenging the internal narrative that her sense of self-worth was based on how busy she was.
Step 3: Manage your energy, not just your time
Time is fixed; energy is not. Many people try to solve overwork by managing their schedule more tightly, but this often adds to the pressure rather than reducing it.
A more effective approach is to align work that must be done with natural energy patterns. High-focus tasks should be done when energy is highest, while lower-value or administrative work can sit in lower-energy periods. Equally important is recovery. Without it, performance becomes harder to sustain, and the cycle of overwork intensifies.
When energy is managed well, work feels less effortful, decisions become clearer, and the constant sense of strain begins to ease.
A different way forward
Workaholism often hides behind positive traits like ambition and commitment. But when it comes at the cost of clarity, relationships, and wellbeing, it is worth re-examining.
For many high performers, the pressure they experience is not just external; it is shaped by their own beliefs, habits, and expectations. Recognising this is not about blame, but about control.
Stopping being a workaholic means redefining success as intentional action rather than constant activity. The shift begins by looking inward. Because the way out is not found by pushing harder – it is found by choosing differently.
About the author
Rob Cross is the author of Ask 3 Questions: How to Live Well in a Distracted World, and an experienced leadership development coach who works with senior leaders and organisations to build high performance through clarity, purpose and effective leadership. Over the past two decades, he has advised and developed leaders across some of the world’s most respected organisations, including BT Group, SIG, LexisNexis, Prudential, PwC, Sainsbury’s and Deloitte.
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