Giving it “our all” is not dedication, it is insanity.

It was very early in my journey on the educational marketing path that I was faced with a question: when making money off of an event is not the point, do we charge for attendance? In my twenties, feeling generous and, truth be told, still quite naive, I was a strong advocate of “don’t take money from people if you don’t have to.” Until something someone said stopped me in my tracks: “if you add no value to your event, nobody else will.”

A month into my transition into a new job, a new organization, new teams, a new country and, let’s be honest, another phase in my life, I am reminded of that moment. It is so tempting to throw everything I have into the working hours. I feel excited by the projects I am tasked with, I love the place I am working in, I could easily walk in there at 7 AM and not move from my computer until 20:00 (except for bathroom breaks I have to take). I could easily mistake that scenario with “giving it my all” on the job. My older (and hopefully wiser) age points me into the direction of some interesting questions: if you give it you all on the job, what is left for your personal life, for your family? If you put all your energy into your work, when is there time for reflection, idle time (which are the homes of amazing ideas), when do you rechage so that there is an “all” to give tomorrow, and the day after and the day after? If you start the marathon with a sprint, will you ever reach the finish line alive? Or sane?

Coming into a new job, country, team, iteration of my life, the pull to “prove myself” still lingers on. I still hear the knock of the “superwoman” complex trying to call the shots when I have a hard time shutting my computer at the actual end of the work day, switching into a different mode at home, resting, doing nothing, speaking up about what I want (or don’t). It is an almost palpable effort to go against that current.

I am grateful for the guiding light of that early lesson in my career: if I don’t place any value on my time, health, peace of mind, nobody else will. And not because others don’t care but because they follow my lead, rightfully assuming that I know best what it is I want for myself.

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash