What if it isn’t the hard work?

If you had to pick THE thing that has gotten you to where you are – that has contributed to your success, what would it be

Did you say hard work?

If so, I'm gonna venture a guess and say that you struggle with overworking. That you find it hard to take time off. That you tend to work on vacations and weekends and late nights. That you are hyper responsive to emails even at night and on weekends. That you feel panicky when work is a little slow.

There's nothing wrong with working hard, and hard work probably has contributed to your success.

But if it's at the very top of the list, it means that you think that your physical body (your presence) and your time are the most important thing to your achievements.

What about all the other things? 

Your intellect.

Your resilience.

Your curiosity.

Your ability to learn new things.

Your efficiency.

Your substantive skills. 

Your personality.

Your ability to communicate.

Your ability to lead.

Your ability to problem solve.

All of these things have contributed and will continue to contribute to your success. 

When you haven't sold yourself on the value of those… on the value of YOU as a while… and instead, you think your main value comes from how hard you work, then it is going to continue to be hard for you to take time away from work or to turn your brain off from work.

Because you have sold yourself on the false premise that how much time you put in is what makes you valuable. Above all else.

So of course it feels impossible to take time off. Of course if feels impossible to not check your email all the time. Of course even when you are slow at work, you sit there at your computer “just in case.”

Some exploratory questions: How do you offer value that doesn't have anything to do with the time that you spend working or the amount of hours that you bill? That doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of time you're physically present at your desk or in your office or at events? That doesn’t have anything to do with how available you are?

And once you start to see that your value is so much broader than how hard you're willing to work and how much you're willing to work, taking time off and being able to create some separation between work and the rest of your life gets so much easier.

A ❤️ note to you: If you worry more than you’d like about what people think, congrats! You’re human. But worrying about what other people think, replaying conversations and events over and over in your mind, isn’t serving you. I help people care less about what others think and more about what they think. If you’re interested in learning how to do that, send me an email (jenn@jenndealcoaching.com) or sign up for a free consult at www.jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult.