The hidden costs of going above and beyond at work and how to protect your time

By Toni Frana, Career Expert at Zety.com 

At the beginning of your career you are ready to prove yourself to your boss, your team, and the organization you work for. You show them you are dependable, eager, and a team player by staying late, volunteering for extra projects and a willingness to go above and beyond each day. But, there are consequences to that, over time. The drive to impress and constantly ‘be on’ can take a toll on you, draining not only your evenings and weekends, but also all of your mental energy. 

The good news? Doing your best and making a positive impression doesn’t mean you have to do it all. Learning to set boundaries early in your career is not about saying no, it’s about making the things you say yes to, more meaningful. In this article, you’ll learn how to protect your time and well-being while still building a reputation as someone who delivers results. 

The Pressure to Prove Yourself 

As someone just starting their career, it’s very common to feel the need (and pressure) to over deliver. This stems from fears about job security and imposter syndrome. Always over delivering can become a compensation for the feelings that come with imposter syndrome and lack of job security. 

In addition, many companies do emphasize and praise the “hustle” culture, which can definitely blur lines between being a dedicated employee and overworking. The challenge during this time in your career is to learn to balance your enthusiasm for what you are doing and the goals you have for yourself with the endurance you have and need to get things accomplished without experiencing burnout. 

The Hidden Costs of Always Going the Extra Mile 

Consistently overperforming can lead to emotional, mental and physical consequences. People who find themselves working excessively often experience fatigue, anxiety, and lack of focus eventually can cause burnout. Because overperforming risks you burning out, the focus on working in that way can actually backfire on you professionally. 

Overextending yourself can lead to mistakes in your work that cost the company time and money. Also, when you are overextending yourself, it’s possible your manager will have unrealistic expectations about what you can do to deliver results. If you are consistently saying yes to everything, that will tend to become the exception, not the rule, and it could be hard to scale back from that once you’ve set the tone. 

For example, if you land your first full-time job and say yes to everything all the time, staying late, checking email at midnight and never declining a task even when your schedule is already full, within a short time, it’s likely you’ll feel it. You will be exhausted, anxious and struggling to keep up, which can cause dips in performance because you’ll be running on an empty tank. 

This example is not uncommon, and many new professionals easily confuse overcommitment with excellence. If this happens to you, your goal is not to stop caring about the work you do, it’s to work smarter and not harder. 

Setting Healthy Boundaries Without Hurting Your Reputation

Zety, a go-to source for resume templates, analyzed user behavior to uncover professionals feel setting boundaries is key to making sure you maintain good work life balance. Sometimes, it can be hard to set these boundaries because you believe people will have the impression that you are being difficult. That isn’t the case at all, however. In fact, boundaries give us the opportunity to sustain our workload, and ability to deliver results in our roles. 

To set boundaries here are a few key tips: 

• Proactive Communication: Talk with your manager. If you have competing priorities, ask something like this: I’d love to take both of these projects on, but I want to ensure I can meet the objective and deliver high-quality work. Which of these should take priority? 
• Clarify Expectations: Spend some time speaking with your manager about timelines and performance standards so you know what you are expected to do within that framework. 
• Set Time Boundaries: Commit to your off time and off hours and stick to them as much as possible to give yourself the rest you need. 

These quick and manageable tips can lead to more productive work environments and helps make sure you don’t experience burnout. In addition, your manager will be impressed with your professionalism and self-awareness from your ability to proactively communicate and have direct conversations about expectations. 

Skills to Help You Protect Your Time 

Successfully setting boundaries takes some time and practice. Exercising your ability to protect your time may not feel natural at the beginning of your career. However, there are a few skills you can start leaning into for practice:

• Time Management: Protect your time using techniques like time blocking, the Pomodoro Method, Eisenhower Matrix, or another tool.
• Communicate: Learn how to say “no” or “not right now” respectfully.
• Self-Awareness: Check in with yourself frequently and make adjustments when feeling stressed before getting burned out.
• Delegation and Collaboration: Be proactive about asking for collaboration, and even delegating tasks if you are overloaded. 

These skills are key to protecting your time not only as your career begins, but beyond. In addition, they are highly sought after transferable skills that you can leverage as you make career moves in the future. As you advance in your career, time management, effective communication, self-awareness, delegation and collaboration will be integral to your career growth and development, particularly if you are working toward leadership roles and opportunities. 

Reframing Success

After completing college and landing your first job, you likely have ideas of what success looks like. It’s important though, to be flexible with what that success will look like. If you are equating it with overworking and saying yes to everything, it will be helpful to instead think about success in terms of impact, consistency and growth. The focus on overworking and always being present will not breed long-term success. In fact, sustaining a career in a healthy way happens when you find a balance between performance and your well-being. 

Standing out in your career does not require you to burn yourself out to get there. By leaning into direct communication, consciously setting healthy boundaries, and committing to protecting your time you will achieve a smoother transition to a healthy and long-lasting career. Taking care of your energy allows you to be a better advocate for your team, your career, and of course, yourself.