You want to love your work. After all, you spend so much time there. And when we find someone who says they love what they do, we call them lucky. They never work another day in their life. But there is an assumption we rarely interrogate: that loving your work is inherently healthy.
The classic scenario. You’re engaged. You’re capable. You’re trusted with responsibility. You’re building something meaningful.
From the outside, it looks like a career path that is working. From your point of view, it looks like you are doing all the right things.
But what became clear to me during my conversation with Traci DeForge on Founders of the Future, Episode 211, is this: the moment work stops being something you do and starts being who you are, the bill begins to compound.
It is a gradual shift. It’s not immediate. It’s certainly invisible at first, until you see the inevitable results.
The Praise That Masks the Problem
Work addiction doesn’t announce itself the way other addictions do.
It doesn’t isolate you socially — it elevates you. It doesn’t diminish your reputation — it enhances it. It doesn’t trigger concern — it earns external admiration. You are a hard worker. You are committed. Everyone can rely on you.
In the episode, Traci describes a classic path. Her rapid rise in a male-dominated industry. The familiar, often stupid questions many women who advance have to endure until they make it to a certain point. And just like that, seamlessly, responsibility turns into identity.
Nobody intervenes when behavior produces results. And you may not even notice how that same behavior slowly erodes you as a person.
Work addiction brings accolades, not interruption. That makes it far more difficult to recognize — especially for high-functioning leaders.
The Subtle Line We Cross Without Noticing
There is a difference between commitment and compulsion, and between dedication and an increasing inability to disengage. A friend once told me he noticed the shift when he realized his family felt like they were in the way of working more.
The line is not crossed in one dramatic moment. It’s crossed incrementally, when boundaries around work time become loose and unenforced, and when being unavailable produces anxiety instead of relief. One more email. One more phone call. Getting ready on Sunday night for Monday. Nothing to see here.
Often the warning signs of having taken it too far are present long before the reckoning.
We just can’t say no anymore. It’s who we are. Strangers need us more than our family. Without us, this won’t get done right.
Our stress needs numbing. Pick your drug. Alcohol. Food. Exercise. Relationships are quietly deprioritized — who has time to keep up? And inevitably, our health gets negotiated instead of protected.
When success is working and we are getting overwhelmed, we assume we are doing it right. Yay to us. Moving forward. Hustling and pushing ourselves and everyone around us.
The Illusion of “Just One More Push”
For a very long time, I believed I would eventually reach a point where everything would fall into place. Where it would get easier. Where the road bumps would be smaller.
Instead, I realized that one push just gets you to the next push, followed by a never-ending lineup of the next thing that needs effort. It will not change unless we change.
Until You Are Forced to Ask Different Questions
Just as it took a full health crisis — including five days in the hospital and emergency surgery — we often push ourselves far beyond what is reasonable.
Our bodies know before we do. And when the breakdown begins, it often happens long after twenty warning signs have already appeared. We ignored them until we couldn’t anymore.
This is why so many people who experience a major health scare later say it was the best thing that could have happened. It was a wake-up call.
My question to you is this: what question should you be asking right now if you suspect you may be a workaholic? And if that word doesn’t resonate, look at how much of your self-esteem is wrapped into your title, your social media following, or the number of likes you receive.
Why “Balance” Is the Wrong Goal
The answer isn’t balance. Balance implies separation. Work over here. Life over there.
What’s required instead is integration — the ability to grow professionally without abandoning physical, emotional, and spiritual stewardship.
I hesitate to label ambition or the desire to make an impact as dangerous. But as someone who is four weeks out from surgeries and procedures, I will say this: pay attention to the signs.
Because when you reach burnout, it is already very late. Notice when it first shows up as numbness, narrowing focus, and the inability to imagine another way of being. Notice the justifications you make for working more at the expense of everything else.
Leadership Is Not Proven by Output Alone
We often equate leadership with the ability to perform and to get others to perform. We evaluate who can handle the pressure. Who can carry the load without faltering. Who can stay in the game the longest.
This conversation, combined with my own recent experience, reminds me that true leadership includes the capacity to stop — before your body, your relationships, or your circumstances force the stop for you.
That requires discernment. Restraint. And a willingness to question the very behaviors that made you successful.
A Closing Reflection
Work addiction is rarely about work. It’s about belonging. Identity. Worth.
And the reason Founders of the Future fall into it is not because they lack discipline, but because they are exceptionally good at applying it in one direction only.
If you’re reading this and feel successful but tired, accomplished but borderline burned out, respected but quietly depleted, then you are already in the midst of that tension forming. Your body knows before you do.
Listening to it may be the most strategic decision you make.
If this reflection resonates, an Uncovery Session may be the right next step.
Let’s grow,
Beate
Beate Chelette is The Growth Architect & Founder of The Women’s Code, a training company specialized in providing companies an ROI on Balanced Leadership. She has been named one of 50 must-follow women entrepreneurs by the Huffington Post. A first-generation immigrant who found herself $135,000 in debt as a single parent, she bootstrapped her passion for photography into a highly-successful global business, and eventually sold it to Bill Gates in a multimillion-dollar deal.
Beate works with business leaders and supports organizations by developing and providing training the training, tools, and expertise to create and maintain a balanced, equal and inclusive work environment that fosters creativity, employee engagement and corporate growth.
Recent clients include Merck, Women’s Legislative Caucus of California, Cal State University Dominguez Hills, Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), NFTE, CreativeLive, the Association of Corporate Growth, and TracyLocke.
Beate is the author of the #1 International Amazon Bestseller “Happy Woman Happy World – How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome” a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.
To book Beate to speak or train please connect here.