You come home from work. And you feel tired.
Because you really are. It feels like you have a soul-sucking job that eats you alive. You die a little every day at your office.
The workload is crazy, the pressure is insane and if you just take one moment to rest, you will fall behind.

To cope with all the challenges and demanding bosses, you bring your work home, trying to complete everything and impress the whole company.
You put your mask on every time you get out of the house. Nod and smile at work to build connection and relationship. You even go out with your coworkers sometimes, just to get your connection going.

However, you are too tired by the time you get home

And you really don’t have any energy left.
Your home is the only place you can be yourself. So if tired, you let your family know that. If you are busy, you let your family know that you are busy. So that they will leave you alone.

However, once they get used to it, you will no longer play an important part in their lives anymore. Before you know it, a solid wall between you and your family has been built. And before you know it, you retire and you are all alone, just like you wished tens of years ago.

You don’t want that to happen, do you?

We all want our families and friends to be with us, stay with us forever. But are you really acting that way? Or you let your job become a wall between you and them?

Here are 5 signs your job is stealing you from your family.

1. You roll your eyes when someone talks about work-life balance

Work-life balance is a term that people talk about a lot. But that term is not applicable to you. If you have work-life balance, who is going to finish that project, who is going to complete that job, and who is going to get the promotion? Not you for sure.

So, screw work-life balance. Your life can wait, can’t it?
This is an example of a workaholic. You might be a workaholic if you think that way about work-life balance.

It is easy for you to deter your life to the future when you first start your career, but it is not okay for the family. Your family is not going to be the same forever. Your children will grow up and leave the house. Before you realize, you don’t have that much time with family. It is vital maintaining balance unless you want your work to be your life.

2. You start working before dawn and come back home after your family falls asleep

It’s not that you are madly in love with your job, but it’s because you are too busy. If you don’t slowly kill yourself to work every day, you will fall behind.

To make sure you are catching up with your work, which is increasing every day, you have to start working before dawn and only come home after your whole family is asleep.

In fact, you don’t talk to your family more than 5 sentences a day. You see your co-workers’ faces so much more than seeing your children.

3. You say no to family occasions to focus on your work

It is harder and harder to arrange a trip with your family, to stay away from your work for a while. You don’t know when it started. But every time you want to go on a trip with your family, something urgent comes up at work and only you know how to solve the problem.

You don’t remember the last time you went to see your children’s play at school, last time you have a romantic night out with your spouse because you are working all the time.

4. You feel like your family doesn’t support you

Nonetheless, you will feel resentful toward your family because you start to hear their complaints about you not spending time with them. You feel like they don’t understand.

You are doing this for them, because of them. They are on top of your priority. But why don’t they see it that way?

The thing is, you might mean well and they are truly the reasons why you work so hard to provide for them. But what you are doing doesn’t make them feel that way.

5. If you sit with your family, you don’t know what else rather than your job to walk about

Because you don’t have time to get out there and live your life because you are trapped in your job. You are very talkative when it comes to job-related matters. However, you fall out of the loop when you try to have a normal conversation with your family.

You don’t know the movie they are talking about because you don’t watch movies. Also, you don’t know the name of your kids’ best friends because you never talk to them.

It seems that you don’t understand what they say and they are not interested in what you have to say. You weren’t born to work. You were born to live a worthy life.

Don’t let your work get in the way of your life. Don’t use your work as an excuse for not having enough time to love and be loved.

When you are sick and tired, your job is not there for you. When you are vulnerable and lonely, your job doesn’t cheer you up. When you are on your deathbed, your job is not there, holding your hand and be with you until your last breath.

So don’t make your job the top priority in your life. Family comes first.

If you are guilty of letting your job steal you from your family, don’t stay late at work, don’t bring work back home. Get off and go home on time. And make sure you smile, laugh and appreciate your family for always being there for you.

Author’s Bio

Mai Pham believes we can create our own happiness. She helps overwhelmed and frustrated people to ditch their stress and enjoy their lives again. Grab her free actionable cheatsheet: 5 Simple Tips to Release Stress and Bring You Calm in Under 5 Minutes and join her free 7 Joyful Days Challenge email course. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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