My Relationship with Work Was Toxic…
I was the company’s dream. And my own worst enemy.
In my early 20s, I wore hard work like a badge of honour.
First in, last out. Overtime king. Never said no.
At the time, it felt noble — like I was earning my stripes.
And to be fair, I was.
My job was factory-floor type engineering. Clocking in and out to the second. Miss your start time, and the pressure would build before you even got through the gates. I learned discipline fast. I took pride in being “the guy who grafts.” Always there, always available. The one you could count on.
But underneath all of that… was a toxic relationship with work.
Overworking Became My Identity
I didn’t just work hard. I was hard work.
If someone around me was coasting or didn’t care, it made my blood boil.
I resented people who got paid the same as me but did less. I took it personally.
Looking back now, I was carrying the weight of the whole business on my own shoulders — mentally, at least.
I missed out on holidays, dinners, weekends.
Why? Because I thought saying yes to everything made me strong. I thought people who needed rest were soft.
I thought one day I’d be rewarded for all this effort. Like someone would show up and hand me a gold medal and a six-figure salary.
But that day never came.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Socrates
“Why Are You Even Doing It?”
I still remember someone on the floor saying to me:
“Mate, why are you doing all this overtime? You're getting paid sh*t anyway.”
And he was right.
Even on double time, it wasn’t worth it in hindsight. I was trading my best years away at £10 an hour.
Sure, the savings helped. I even bought my house young.
But I gave up so much time — time with mates, time for rest, time to just be a young guy figuring stuff out.
The toxic part wasn’t just the hours. It was that I thought it made me better than everyone else.
Rewiring My Thinking
It took me a while to realise this, but being “the hardest worker in the room” is sometimes a trap.
You stop asking the bigger questions:
What’s this all for?
Am I growing or just grinding?
Do I even want what I’m chasing?
Factory life conditioned me to see holidays as weakness and overtime as heroism. But that mindset doesn’t scale. You just burn out, quietly, thinking it’s your fault.
Eventually, I started shifting.
I realised that in most jobs, being a solid B+ player — consistent, efficient, emotionally intelligent — gets you 90% of the way there.
The 80/20 rule started making more sense. Most of the reward doesn’t come from effort alone, but strategy and boundaries.
What I Know Now
Work is still important to me — I like progress. I enjoy the craft. But I no longer want to become my job.
I take rest seriously. I respect energy.
And I try to remind myself that the game I’m playing is my game now — not a machine’s.
For anyone out there tying their self-worth to being the most “hard-working” person in the room…
It’s worth checking if that identity is costing you more than it gives back.
“If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.” — Greg McKeown