I was raised to work hard. Which is great! I have a fabulous work ethic, especially when I’m fully bought-in to a project, and it’s served me well all the way through school and into the professional world. I think everybody should know how to work hard, and be ready and willing to do so when the time and case demands it.

BUT I think it’s important to note: You are not magically a better person because you’ve worked hard. And conversely, you are not an inherently bad person because you haven’t.

This realization recently clicked with me so jarringly that I stopped what I was saying mid-sentence as true understanding suddenly dawned on me. The friends I was having coffee with at the time, watching this happen to me live and in-action, laughed in surprise and asked if I was okay. “Your face just totally changed!” they said.

I was talking with them about the challenges I’d been experiencing with my career development post-9-to-5 job. I’d been dilligently at my computer every day I had free, watching training videos, researching, ideating, and programming, but I had started spinning my wheels. The lack of forward progress was leaving me doubting and feeling crummy about myself. I wasn’t getting the results I’d hoped for, despite the effort I was putting in, so I concluded that I wasn’t working hard enough. I was convinced that if I could squeeze more hours out of the day I could overcome my challenges - but how could I do that and still balance being a good mom, friend, and partner??

Gif of Tweak from South Park saying 'Oh God!'
commence spinning out

“I was taught my whole life to work hard,” I said to my friends; I’d learned it from family, school, and jobs. Working hard was supposed to fix everything, but the amount of sweat I was putting in wasn’t achieving my goals; instead it was stressing me out and making me feel like I was failing. Telling myself I needed to work harder was the only solution I could see, but it just wasn’t working. “It’s like working hard just isn’t a…virtue…” I said. And then my brain rebooted.

I all at once realized that the immense pressure I was putting on myself to “get things done” did not make me a better person. The problems I was wrestling with did not, by merely existing, make me a virtuous, hard-working, role model for others to be impressed by. Rather, they were just normal-person problems that I was handling poorly by being stressed-out and constantly questioning myself. In fact, in many cases my so-called “hard work” was actively preventing me from getting things done.

I realized if I kept this up the only thing I’d have to show for it would be “at least she worked really hard” on my tombstone.

My friends, wise as they are, talked me through this revelation, and told me to go home and marinate on it.

I went home, and at my (also wise) husband’s direction, took a glass of wine to our hammock. I laid here, drinking wine and listening to the birds, and cried.

I cried with relief that I wasn’t actually lazy, or a failure, or stupid. I cried because I could finally relax and go easier on myself. The immense pressure to work hard or otherwise fail was gone; I realized it was a lie I and others had been telling myself. There were other, smarter ways to get things done.

I’m sure this seems painfully obvious to some (it certainly was to my husband, who was routinely flabbergasted when I told him I needed to work harder), but to me it was revelatory to really internalize the idea that I was, in fact, doing enough. I wasn’t running into roadblocks because of personal, irreversible flaws that could be resolved by putting in more hours, but rather because I needed to rethink my methods and FFS give myself a break.

So please remember: working hard isn’t a virtue, it’s a skill. Learn to use it tactically, and then go out for a coffee with your friends.