Why you might be struggling as a work martyr
Tell me if this sounds familiar:
You’re sitting in a meeting at work, discussing a new project, when your manager asks who wants to take the lead. “I definitely don’t have bandwidth right now!”, you think to yourself, mentally rattling off your current to-do list. You have way too much on your plate, as usual. But 10 seconds pass, and no one else has raised their hand yet. Your palms begin to sweat, and you know what’s about to happen….As if it’s no longer attached to your body, you see your hand start to go up in the air. “No, wait!”, you mentally say to yourself in a panic. But it’s too late. You’ve taken one for the team, and you’re leading yet another project.
If this sounds familiar, you’re in good company. And you might be suffering from the (non-official, as far as I know) ailment: you might be a work martyr.
“What is a work martyr?”, you might be wondering. A work martyr (at least in my unofficial, self-defined terms) is someone who constantly “takes one for the team”, at the expense of themselves. They give and give and give, saying yes to work that they ought to say no to, and overcommitting themselves to no end. They end up greatly appreciated, an integral part of the team, and unfortunately, doing the work of about 3 people for the price of 1.
There are big issues with being a work martyr, as you can imagine. You typically end up:
Overextended, completely maxed out and feeling like you don’t have enough hours in the day,
Too responsible, like the entire team relies on your work and wouldn’t survive without you, so you won’t let yourself take a break,
Resentful because you’re carrying a disproportionate amount of the load
It’s not ideal.
But if being a work martyr is so problematic, why do so many people do it?
As with most things, for the people who struggle with this bad habit, much of it begins internally. Most often, it starts with self-doubt and worthiness issues. These things establish a deep-seated need to “prove” oneself and one's value as an employee.
It can happen in many ways. Maybe it begins because:
A boss (innocently) tells you how much they appreciate that they can rely on you when something needs to get done. This feels great, and becomes a badge of honor. Suddenly, being the “reliable” one is your thing, and you become hell-bent on preserving that image at all costs, saying yes to everything to uphold your reliability.
You have a bit of imposter syndrome that’s wrecking your confidence in your role. As a result, you (unintentionally) decide to work 10x harder than everyone else on your team, thinking it will help you self-soothe when you feel inadequate. Your mental logic is, “if I work way harder than everyone else, nobody will realize I shouldn’t be here because I’ve made myself so valuable!”
Maybe it begins because you have trouble trusting others on your team, so you think to yourself, “if I don’t do it, who else will?!” “It definitely wouldn’t get done to my standards!”
See how that works?
Most often, bad habits when it comes to work begin internally, with our own “head trash”. That’s why all of my work focuses on self-development. Because I truly believe that if you can unpack your head trash and improve the unhelpful things you think about work, your entire career can change. Only once you’ve identified the cause of the pain can you fix the outcome. (It’s like removing the splinter from your foot to alleviate the pain, instead of changing shoes and hoping that fixes things).
And the reason I know so much about this work martyr stuff and how much the internal work matters? Because I’ve struggled with this before too, of course!
That example I gave at the beginning of this post, talking about raising your hand seemingly outside of your control? I lived that example more times than I can count! I did it all. I remember begrudgingly taking on project after project. I remember resenting my team, and thinking I wasn’t paid enough. I remember sitting on a plane that was about to take off for South America, leaving for vacation, and wondering whether I was making a mistake because “everyone needed me”. (Lucky for me, I worked for an amazing boss who kindly told me that “even the Patriots need to survive on field without Tom Brady”, and that I needed to get over myself and enjoy my trip).
When I went through my “work martyr” phase, I was so incredibly frustrated. My approach obviously wasn’t working, and no matter how much I agonized, I felt like a tiger who was trying to change its stripes! I couldn’t change my work martyr ways because it was who I was. Thankfully, I was wrong, but it took a lot of growing pains and a whole lot of hard lessons before I could realize that fact.
Once I took time to investigate what was really going on, I realized there were 2 main causes: 1) the fact that I had attached my identity to being the “reliable one” on the team 2) my lack of confidence in myself and my skills, which manifested itself in over-delivering to overcompensate.
I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I was fortunate to learn how to unpack and address these feelings so that I could finally begin to improve my career. I fixed the root problem, and as a result, I could improve the bad habits I had been exhibiting. Then, everything changed. While it was still challenging to hold myself back from volunteering at every possible moment, I tried new tactics, like counting to 20 before raising my hand, and **gasp** letting some non-urgent tasks get re-prioritized. It was amazing, because finally I was able to make some progress.
Over time, and with a lot of effort, I started establishing myself as a member of the team who was reliable, but also honored their boundaries, and that was a role that I enjoyed way more than being a work martyr.
So, if you’re ready to give up your work martyr ways, maybe consider addressing the root cause instead of the outcome. It might feel like the harder route, but I promise that it’s the better one. And if you need some help doing it, I’ve got you covered!
P.S. Do you identify with being a work martyr? If so, I’d love it if you would tell me in the comments! It’s always nice to see that others are right there with you. :)