Work-Life Balance: Handling the Stress of High-Level Success

Today, there are greater oppor­tu­ni­ties than ever to achieve high lev­els of pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess. Along with that lev­el of suc­cess comes a greater aware­ness of work-life bal­ance and how it can impact stress lev­els. Find­ing a bal­ance is not easy. In fact, as you reach greater lev­els of suc­cess, your stress might rise because you feel out of place as if you are not good enough for the new role you are tak­ing on. Let’s explore some ways to con­quer work-life bal­ance and feel­ings of imposter syn­drome by first under­stand­ing how these feel­ings can devel­op.

Therapy for Executives

Reach­ing the top of your pro­fes­sion like­ly involves a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment of your time and ener­gy while also requir­ing a lev­el of per­son­al and fam­i­ly sac­ri­fice. Now that you have achieved your goals, you are like­ly rec­og­niz­ing the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal toll that it took on you and your fam­i­ly. My wife likes this new food? My son likes bas­ket­ball? My daugh­ter is inter­est­ed in tak­ing care of ani­mals? Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these real­iza­tions come with not just guilt, but for many, also a pang of regret. Com­plaints such as “You don’t know us any­more” or “You’ve been too busy work­ing on your career” may feel invalidating–despite every­thing you’ve sac­ri­ficed to get to this point. You may feel like your fam­i­ly does­n’t val­ue or under­stand the stress you’ve gone through, the peo­ple you’ve worked with, or the projects you’ve fin­ished. You may feel like a hero at work, but when you come home, you may feel like an out­sider, or in some cas­es, the vil­lain.

As you car­ry these expe­ri­ences with you, you may cope with this stress by work­ing even more, deter­mined to be seen, or to escape. How­ev­er, as you con­tin­ue to “work your way out of this sit­u­a­tion” (no pun intend­ed), you might start to feel that you are behind the curve, wor­ried that your col­leagues will start to believe that you are in over your head and call you out on it.

The result is a greater lev­el of stress, which can end up mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion even worse. You may not cul­ti­vate the close rela­tion­ships nec­es­sary to help you main­tain a sense of men­tal bal­ance and peace, thus ele­vat­ing feel­ings of worth­less­ness, or even pur­pose­less­ness. Below are four tips to use as you nav­i­gate this ongo­ing chal­lenge. 

Work Life Balance Tips

Work­ing to deal with feel­ings of worth­less­ness, stress, and imposter syn­drome is key to regain­ing or main­tain­ing your men­tal and emo­tion­al bal­ance. Here are a few ways to help you with that process:

1. Sep­a­rate feel­ings from facts – Just because you think some­thing does not mean it is true.
2. Take note of your accom­plish­ments, write them down, and put them in a vis­i­ble place – These are a tan­gi­ble reminder of your suc­cess­es.
3. Talk with others—Connecting with some­one you you trust can help reduce stress and feel­ings of worth­less­ness.
4. Drop the com­par­i­son – Focus on mea­sur­ing your achieve­ments against your own work instead of mea­sur­ing them against oth­ers.

One of the best ways to address these issues is to talk with a ther­a­pist. Let’s dive into what ther­a­py can offer as you work toward men­tal and emo­tion­al bal­ance.

Executive Therapist

Ther­a­py allows you to explore the emo­tion­al strain of your career and devel­op greater cop­ing skills. Stress man­age­ment begins with rec­og­niz­ing the harm­ful thought pat­terns that arise at your work­place.  

Come work with me and learn ways to set achiev­able expec­ta­tions for your­self, estab­lish healthy bound­aries (both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly), and imple­ment strate­gies to man­age your emo­tions effec­tive­ly. Work­ing with a me can allow you to find the guid­ance you need to achieve your men­tal health goals, includ­ing strate­gies to cope with symp­toms of anx­i­ety, stress, and more.

I also believe in help­ing you devel­op your emo­tion­al aware­ness and assist­ing you in attun­ing to your feel­ings rather than sup­press­ing them. By explor­ing what guid­ing prin­ci­ples influ­ence the deci­sions you make we can col­lab­o­rate to cre­ate goals that align with your val­ues.

Ther­a­py gives you a chance to step out of your dai­ly rou­tine, giv­ing you a fresh per­spec­tive that can help you shift your pri­or­i­ties and re-estab­lish the bal­ance your life needs to reduce your stress and enjoy the suc­cess you worked so hard to achieve.

Con­tact us today to sched­ule your appoint­ment, where we can deter­mine your ther­a­py goals and struc­ture your ses­sions around meet­ing those goals, while main­tain­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty to piv­ot as you need. Let’s work togeth­er to help you thrive, no mat­ter what your pro­fes­sion­al sit­u­a­tion may be.

Let’s get you to feel­ing bet­ter