If you’re someone who has a hard time slowing down, staying busy can feel like a necessity. You finish one project and immediately move on to the next. You answer emails at night. You say yes to extra work even when your calendar is already full. You keep your schedule full, even when it feels draining.

On the outside, you might be seen as driven. Reliable. Someone who gets shit done. But underneath all that productivity, there’s usually more going on.

A lot of the millennial professionals I work with push themselves to the point of burnout. A lot of my sessions are dedicated to helping people learn how to ease their obsession with their work (workaholism) in particular. It’s often not really about ambition or loving your job. It’s about deeper, more complex behaviors and old beliefs, and a simmering anxiety that convinces you everything will fall apart if you stop moving.

If that feels familiar, here are 5 things that might be driving your need to stay busy, especially in your career.

1. Work Keeps You Too Busy to Feel Things

For many people with anxiety and neurodivergence, unstructured time can feel uncomfortable. When you stop moving, all the things you’ve been pushing down start creeping in, like sadness, frustration, uncertainty, anxiety, loneliness, and boredom.

So instead, you keep your calendar full. You stay late at work. You say yes to things you don’t really have the time or energy for. 

Busyness is often a trauma response. It’s a way to manage anxiety, especially when sitting still makes everything feel louder. It keeps you from having to look too closely at what isn’t working in your life.

This isn’t your fault. Our society is designed to keep people busy in order to fuel capitalism. But more and more people, especially younger generations, are starting to realize they don’t want this kind of life. Noticing the pattern in your own day-to-day can help you decide if it’s actually serving you.

2. You Learned That Productivity Equals Worth

A lot of millennials grew up with the message that productivity equals value. You learned that the harder you work, the more you matter to the people around you.

Whether it came from school, parents, bosses, coworkers, society, or all of the above, it sticks with you. It shows up as:

• Feeling guilty for resting or relaxing
• Measuring your self-worth by how much you get done in a day
• Believing you have to constantly prove yourself to others

These beliefs tend to be insidious, sneaking in when you don’t even realize it. The pressure to always be producing is especially real for people with ADHD or autism. Maybe you’ve spent years masking or trying to keep up, so the habit of pushing yourself harder feels automatic.

Believing your only worth is in what you do or create keeps you locked in a cycle of anxiety, perfectionism, and burnout.

3. Perfectionism Keeps You Trapped

Workaholism often ties in with perfectionism. (And perfectionism is often directly related to past experiences, trauma, and not being able to believe you’ll be able to handle hard emotions.) You tell yourself you’ll stop once everything is finished. You’ll rest once the project is perfect. Once the inbox is empty.

Except the finish line keeps shifting. There’s always more to do, and nothing ever feels good enough.

Perfectionism is exhausting, but it’s also a protective coping mechanism. If you keep everything under control, and if you never mess up, maybe you won’t have to deal with disappointment or criticism. It’s actually a brilliant way to cope with old wounds from childhood. Your brain came up with this to protect you from that pain.

However, in adulthood, that becomes a trap. You’re trying to avoid pain, but in the process, you end up hurting yourself.

4. People-Pleasing and Fear of Letting Others Down

Another reason for keeping yourself busy is people-pleasing. You don’t want to disappoint anyone, and you feel constantly burdened by the need to make sure things get done the right way.

You might commit to things before even thinking about whether you have the time or energy for them. Or you convince yourself you can handle something because saying no feels impossible.

This habit usually isn’t just about being nice. It’s about wanting to feel safe, loved, and valued. Again, it’s a brilliant coping mechanism your brain came up with to protect you and ensure your connections felt safe. But it can leave you drained and resentful.

5. Avoidance of Bigger Questions

Sometimes workaholism is about a combination of beliefs, like the fear that you won’t be able to handle hard emotions or the fear looking at underlying and looming questions about your life will send you into a tailspin.

Questions like:

• What actually makes me happy?
• Who am I outside of work?
• What’s missing in my life?

When you stay busy all the time, there’s no room to sit with those questions or your emotions. That can feel easier in the short term. However, over time, it adds up to feeling numb, disconnected, and stuck.

So What Can You Do About It?

I won’t tell you to quit your job or magically stop caring about work overnight. This isn’t all-or-nothing. It’s about slowly creating more space for yourself outside of work. Here are a few places to start:

Notice the Patterns Without Judging Yourself

Pay attention to when and why you tend to overwork. Is it when things feel uncertain? When you’re anxious? When you’re avoiding something else? Awareness is the first step.

Practice Setting Small Boundaries

You don’t have to start by saying no to everything. But you can practice setting small limits, like not checking work emails after a certain time. Or taking an actual lunch break instead of working through it. Have compassion for yourself, because this will likely be a tough transition, and you won’t get it right all the time. Don’t let it be another excuse to beat yourself up. 

Challenge the Productivity = Worth Story

This one takes time and a lot of unlearning, but start noticing when you equate your value with what you get done. Ask yourself: If I did nothing productive today, would I still matter? Where did I learn that my productivity is tied to my value? Who does that actually benefit? 

Make Space for Rest That Doesn’t Feel Like Work

Some people turn rest into a to-do list. Try letting yourself have unstructured time without a specific goal. It might feel uncomfortable at first. That’s normal and okay.

Get Support When You Need It

If the pull to overwork feels too big to manage on your own, therapy or coaching can help you untangle the habits and beliefs that are driving it.

You’re Allowed to Be a Person, Not a Machine

You don’t have to earn rest. You don’t have to be productive to deserve value.

If this feels impossible or hits a little too close to home, that’s okay. I know it’s really tough to internalize, and you’re not the only one caught in this cycle. It’s something I help a lot of my clients work through, especially millennial professionals with anxiety, neurodivergence, and perfectionism.

If you want help figuring out how to slow down without everything falling apart, that’s exactly the kind of work I do. You can learn to dial down the guilt, create a life without shame, and make space for yourself outside your career. I’ll be in your corner every step of the way.

Learn more about working with me here, or get in touch to set up a free, no-obligation consultation.