Why Professional Insecurity Pushes You to Overwork
Our brains prefer to sort things into nice, binary categories. It’s simple, efficient, and allows us to react quickly and decisively to threatening situations. And what could be more threatening than today’s work environment? Political and economic instability, uncertainty in the job market, and the impact of AI on career security are enough to make even the most well positioned feel the ground shifting beneath them. When feelings of insecurity rise ever higher, I frequently see clients slip into a form of binary thinking that is an easy recipe for burnout: “If I’m not doing everything in my power to protect myself, I become vulnerable to bad outcomes.”
There are many versions of this sort of overcompensation, but overwork is one of the more common. Our instinct dictates that we pull every lever within reach to become indispensable and protect our worth. We take on extra projects, work longer hours, and rarely delegate or ask for help for fear of looking incompetent. The consequences start stacking up: We may accumulate a sleep deficit. Our loved ones might complain we aren’t present. Our mental and physical health starts to suffer. In an effort to outrun our anxieties, we begin trading away boundaries for a greater feeling of control.
Make no mistake. Effort matters, and being perceived as dependable and valuable does meaningfully impact opportunities and security. However, in the heat of anxiety, the great distortion lies in how much safety we think we can truly buy with sacrifice. The sobering reality is that a multitude of factors wholly outside our control exist that impact our risk: Your entire division might get liquidated as part of a strategic move. An economic downturn might tank your business’ sales. A new leader may arrive with different priorities, preferences, or ideas about who fits their vision for the team.
It’s not that we shouldn’t try to prevent foreseeable risks. It’s a question of being clear-eyed about what we do and do not have control over. Once we recognize those limits, we can make more deliberate choices about what risks are worth mitigating and what price we are willing to pay to do so. The energy that remains can go toward the people, priorities, and parts of ourselves we don’t want anxiety to bargain away.
In the end, the goal isn’t to feel perfectly secure. It’s to accept that some amount of risk is unavoidable. Paradoxically, that acceptance gives us back a more genuine form of control: the ability to make choices based on our values rather than allowing anxiety to make them for us.
For many of the professionals and executives I work with, therapy provides a regular place to step outside the intensity of the moment and get clearer about what deserves their effort, what lies beyond their control, and what they don’t want to sacrifice in the pursuit of unrealistic certainty.