The pandemic arrived, putting the skids on everything that up until then had been running quite smoothly. Suddenly I was working harder than I had ever worked before, spending countless hours chained to the desk creating, writing and presenting. My working hours were spreading across the weekend, the days were blurring into one. I was eating far too many corn chips and my trousers getting uncomfortable tight. I was even having the occasional glass of wine having given up alcohol three years ago.

Confusion reigns and the symptoms of each are very similar, but there is a difference and the reason this is important, is because the management of each differs.

Depression. It’s a leading cause of disability globally. One in five adult Australians is at risk of developing a mental health disorder in any given 12 months. In corporate Australia the statistics are even worse with one study reporting one in three workers from across a range of industries is suffering from some form of mental illness. Of these 36% were diagnosed with depression, 33% had anxiety and 31% were suffering from unsustainable work stress.

Burnout was reclassified by the World Health Organisation in 2019 as an occupational syndrome resulting from exposure to chronic unmitigated work stress resulting in extreme physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism and reduced performance.
It is estimated that 5-7% of the working population are affected.

Denial is a super-strong forcefield. But even our strongest defences eventually give if we push too hard for too long, sacrificing everything for this thing we call work.
As a child, my work ethic was drummed into me by my parents. They believed the only way to achieve success was to always work harder than the next person.
Overwork doesn’t work. Our work capacity maxes out at about 38 hours. At 70 hours a week we’re no more productive than if we worked 55 hours. Worse still it leads to mental exhaustion, increases your risk of depression or anxiety and puts you on the fast-track to burnout.
To be blunt. Overwork is killing us. While Australia doesn’t keep records of this, other countries including Japan, South Korea and China do. It’s one thing to love your job, but it’s never worth dying for through heart attack, stroke or suicide. Busyness doesn’t equate to being effective, efficient or fulfilled. If you’re constantly exhausted, worried how long you can sustain working at warp-speed six without self-combusting it’s time to pull back and ask – What do I really want?