Do any of us need to work 130 hours a week to succeed? It won’t surprise you that I say “no!” but it seems Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, doesn’t agree with me.
Mayer was recently interviewed in Bloomberg Business. Mayer believes that rival company Google is so successful because of the 130 hours employees like her used to put in:
The other piece that gets overlooked in the Google story is the value of hard work…The actual experience was more like, “Could you work 130 hours in a week?” The answer is yes, if you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom… For my first five years, I did at least one all-nighter a week, except when I was on vacation—and the vacations were few and far between.
So much for Arianna Huffington’s sleep revolution? Here is yet another example of the workaholic lifestyle being touted as the recipe for success. And yet we all know that burnout is real and working 130 hours per week is just downright unhealthy.
Does your workplace culture Yahoo! ?
If you’re working in a Yahoo! like culture, how’s that going for you? Are you enjoying burning the candle at both ends? Is your Self care suffering?
You may not be able to quit immediately, but you can bring some Self care into your life so you can begin finding your way out.
Try my Setting Intentions worksheet (it’s free). It’s hard to turn around a freighter once it’s in motion. Setting an intention will set a course towards change so it can happen and keep you from losing direction before you see the change.
Also, read my post on how to decorate your boundaries. If you set a boundary of working 40 hours per week, you’ll need to reinforce that boundary. Learn how to decorate it so people don’t trample it.
Do you have a Marissa Mayer-like part who pushes you to work too many hours?
But what if the Yahoo! culture is inside you? What if you have a part of you who, like Marissa Mayer, pushes you to work too many hours?
It may be tempting to want to fire the CEO of your own personal Yahoo! Except, you already know what I’m going to say. You can’t fire or get rid of any parts.
All parts are welcome, even when they’re extreme. Extreme parts have something to tell you. What does this extreme, striving part want you to know?
Like I said in my most recent newsletter, it’s time to ask your inner Marissa Mayer: What are you afraid will happen if you stop doing what you do?
Why does this part of you think it needs to push you so hard, even though it could be harmful for your health? What is it afraid will happen?
What is your inner Marissa Mayer afraid of?
I highly recommend trying my “getting to know a strong part of you” meditation (also free). It will help you get fully seated in Self before having a conversation with this striving part of you.
When you listen to your MM part, you might hear things like:
- I’m afraid of failure and looking stupid.
- It’s easier to cope with my job than my intimate relationship.
- I need everything to be perfect in order to feel calm.
But don’t take my word for it. Let Self find out what this part really believes the issue is.
Then, see what Self can do to help this part of you begin to relax. What would it need from Self in order to loosen it’s chokehold on your schedule?
Then, be sure to follow up with this part so it can begin to relax further. Congratulations, you are now part of the resistance movement!
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My July newsletter discussed how to talk to an extreme part of you. In this case, it was Bend-Over-Backwards BOB, the part who couldn’t stop accommodating others even if it hurt.
Be sure to sign up so you get more insider tips on how to work with your parts, cultivate more Self, and restore balance to your life.
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Image credit
“IMG_4184” by Flickr user Eirik Solheim is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.