We all want a good life. To be healthy and happy. We want to love and be loved. To have experiences, enjoy comforts, and do certain things before we die.
All well and good. But too often we focus on what to do to get the things we want in life—and not enough on what notto do.
That’s where the common traps of living come in—the things that inhibit us from leading the life we want.
We all fall into traps in life. All of us. Moms. Dads. Leaders. Professionals. Interns. Students. Retirees. Geniuses. Dopes.
We all fall into traps in life.
photo by Christopher Windus on Unsplash
The point is not to beat ourselves up for not living perfectly. Nobody does.
Rather, the point is to recognize the traps we’re in—and get busy climbing out. Too often, we go through long stretches of our lives in several traps pretending like all is well when it’s not. The sooner we address our traps and stop avoiding them, the better.
Common Traps of Living
Below are 15 of the most common traps of living, based on my data set of more than 900 people around the world who have taken my Traps Test as of August 2023. As you read through them, note which ones have affected you.
Overthinking: excessively analyzing something, dwelling on possibilities and second-guessing.
Overwork: working too much consistently despite negative effects on other priorities; potential burnout or work addiction
Negative Self-Talk: inner dialogue that makes you feel flawed, unacceptable, or not enough.
Postponing: deferring plans or dreams because it’s not practical or “the right time.”
Self-Doubt: lacking confidence or questioning your capabilities and potential.
Comparing: measuring yourself against others and judging your worth by how you stack up.
Perfectionism: setting unrealistic expectations for yourself or others or needing things to be flawless.
Indecision: wavering between different courses of action and having trouble deciding and moving on.
Fear: holding back or not trying important things due to fears about failure or threats to image.
Avoidance: not facing up to difficult tasks, situations, or conflicts.
Numbing: shutting out feelings by keeping yourself preoccupied with other things (e.g., work, technology, substances).
Complacency: allowing yourself to lose urgency and motivation.
Settling: accepting significantly less than what you want or deserve.
Not Moving On: holding on too long to a bad situation or relationship and not advancing forward.
Catastrophizing: assuming the worst and blowing things out of proportion.
(Take my Traps Test to see the full list of the common traps of living.)
Which traps have you fallen into? Are there any which are pressing now?
Photo by Tom Chrostek on Unsplash
See my Traps Test to find out your top traps—and then get to work on climbing out of them.
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it.”
-Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
P.S. – This always works best when you talk it through openly with others. We all fall into traps, and we all have work to do. So get busy with the important work of intentional personal development.
“We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.” -Ernest Hemingway, novelist
“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.” -Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
“There is more to learn from mistakes than from successes.” -Richard Branson, entrepreneur
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” -Mahatma Gandhi
“Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.” -Brandon Mull, Fablehaven
“Being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing.” -Bryan Stevenson, social justice activist
(Note: This article has been updated several times as I’ve learned more from my global data set of people taking my Traps Test.)
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Everything you need to know about workaholism (work addiction): its prevalence, signs, causes, and costs—and how to overcome it.
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Many people today struggle with workaholism—being addicted to work and struggling to switch it off or stop thinking about it
Psychologist Wayne Oates coined the term “workaholism” in 1971 in his book, Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts About Work Addiction. He defined it as “the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly.” In 2014, researchers C.S. Andreassen, J. Hetland, and S. Pallesen defined work addiction as “being overly concerned about work, to be driven by strong and uncontrollable work motivation, and to spend so much energy and effort into work that it impairs private relationships, spare-time activities, and/or health.”
According to researchers, work addiction has both a behavioral component (working long hours consistently) and a psychological component (being obsessed with work). It’s a serious problem for many.
A Cautionary Tale About Workaholism
Gerald Chertavian grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts with a strong work ethic. After business school, he moved to London to be with his fiancée. Following a frustrating first job experience there, he was approached with an opportunity to buy into a technology company on the verge of bankruptcy. They had precious little to go on, but he decided to go for it.
The challenges were fierce, but Gerald was committed. For years, he pushed and pushed, until one day it was too much. As he told us in an interview for LIFE Entrepreneurs:
“I looked over the side of my desk in London. It was 2 a.m. and I couldn’t see the ground. It was just black. I couldn’t even see the rug below me. It was like looking into the abyss.” -Gerald Chertavian
This talented and vigorous young man early in his career could have worked himself to death. It was a stark wake-up call.
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
Concerns about workaholism shouldn’t be equated with a critique of hard work. There’s incredible value in hard work (especially in smart hard work), from opportunities for learning and growth to success and wealth creation.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s another problem: sloth. Many people fall into the trap of not working hard enough and later come to regret it.
Aristotle famously wrote about the “golden mean” of virtue between two vices. So, between sloth and overwork, the golden mean is hard work—ideally work with purpose, passion, and impact. But that’s a far cry from work addiction.
Workaholism shouldn’t be conflated with hard work, a strong work ethic, dedication, conscientiousness, loving what we do, or occasionally working extra hard to complete an important task. These are all good. By contrast, workaholism takes us into the territory of preoccupation, compulsion, and addiction, with the associated loss of self-control and continuation of excessive work despite negative consequences.
If we love our work, that doesn’t mean we’re addicted to it. But if we’re a workaholic, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we work so much because we love it or because we need to when we actually don’t.
Workaholism is also not the same as having an overly demanding boss who piles way too much work on our plates—or as the excessive work sometimes demanded by startups, turnarounds, or crises. Work addiction, in short, is not the same as work overload. (That’s a different problem.)
The Prevalence of Workaholism
The prevalence of workaholism is hard to pin down because it’s hard to define precisely and even harder to measure. And even when it gets measured, there are challenges with getting nationally representative data sets.
Nonetheless, psychologists estimate that about 10% of Americans struggle with work addiction. Research from a nationally representative random sample in Norway using the Bergen Work Addiction Scale found that 8.3% of the population there struggles with work addiction.
These may not be huge percentages, but they add up to massive numbers of people. According to Zippia Research, 55% of Americans (55%) didn’t use all of their paid time off in 2022.
Researcher Brene Brown jokes that when they start having support meetings for workaholics, they’ll have to rent out football stadiums.
Signs of Workaholism
How to know if we struggle with workaholism? It comes with a number of telltale signs, including:
feeling preoccupied with work even outside normal working hours (we can’t stop thinking about it)
being the first one in the office and the last to leave
not taking a lunch break and other breaks
working often on weekends*
working more than is needed or expected of them
having a hard time stopping work
feeling physical and emotional distress when we’re not working, much like the withdrawal symptoms from other addictions
lacking margin in our lives and suffer from “time poverty” (an acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time)
sacrificing time with our spouse/partner, children, and friends because we’re so consumed with work
suffering negative consequences from working so much, whether physically, relationally, or otherwise.
The Bergen Work Addiction Scale is a psychometrically validated assessment instrument developed by testing 12,000 Norwegian workers from 25 different industries. See the image below and consider doing a quick check.
According to the research, workaholics tend to be status-conscious, hyper-competitive, and achievement-oriented. They have high standards (e.g., must be the best) and tend to be self-critical. Often, they have a strong need for success and external validation.
Workaholics may also struggle with close relationships, vulnerability, and intimacy due to a fear of disclosing flaws. And they may neglect their inner life given their focus on external achievements.
Edward Hallowell writes in his book, Crazy Busy, that it can become a habit so entrenched that it makes you “a slave to a lifestyle you don’t like but you can’t escape.” According to Clockify, a company that helps organizations track how much time people spend working on tasks, the top ten traits of workaholics are the following:
Workaholism can show up in different ways. For some, it may be a standard compulsion that’s fairly consistent over time. For others, it gets progressively worse. And for others, it involves binge-working in fits and starts.
Some people are good at hiding their workaholism from others, knowing that it brings conflict or disappointment, so they sneak in work when others can’t see it.
According to researchers, workaholics often make things harder for themselves by placing more pressure on themselves, making their work more complicated than necessary, and hesitating to delegate work when possible or to seek social support when they’re struggling. They may also be attracted to high-pressure jobs with intense demands.
Personal Values Exercise
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Where does workaholism come from? Researchers have discovered several sources. Here are the main ones:
Childhood causes. Many workaholics grew up with overly demanding or overly protective parents. This can set up long-term behavioral patterns that can be difficult to escape.
In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown notes that some people consider exhaustion a status symbol and view “productivity as self-worth.” Others have an achievement identity. Shirzad Chamine, best-selling author and chairman of the Coaches Training Institute, has identified what he calls a “hyper-achiever” as one of ten “saboteurs” that inhibit our effectiveness and enjoyment:
“The Hyper-Achiever makes you dependent on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation. It keeps you focused mainly on external success rather than on internal criteria for happiness. It often leads to unsustainable workaholic tendencies and causes you to fall out of touch with deeper emotional and relationship needs. Its lie is that your self-acceptance should be conditional on performance and external validation.” -Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence
Emotional causes. If we feel guilty or anxious when we’re not working, it’s easy to numb those feelings by working incessantly. Some people suffer from “productivity guilt”—having a constant nagging feeling that we should be doing more.
Personality factors. Many workaholics struggle with perfectionism, neuroticism, or obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They may have a “Type A” personality characterized by ambition, aggressiveness, and intense achievement striving.
Running from pain. At a deeper level, workaholism is sometimes more about running away from something that running toward the glories of work. There may be great emotional pain, discomfort, shame, or trauma driving it.
“…workaholism is a surprisingly effective distraction from emotional and spiritual problems.” -David Brooks, The Second Mountain
There’s an interesting question about the direction of causality here. It’s clear that workaholism can and often does lead to significant distress in our lives. But researchers have discovered that, for many people, workaholism is also a response to distress in their lives, such as emotional disturbance or anxiety. In other words, it’s caused by distress but also adds to distress, a double whammy.
“We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough,
the truth of our lives won’t catch up with us.” -Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
Fear. Sometimes the compulsion to work and work comes from a place of fear—fear of not being enough or of disappointing people. Seen in this light, work addiction becomes a matter of overdoing things to avoid the things we’re afraid of (but too often doing damage in the process).
Motivational factors. If we’re highly motivated by extrinsic factors like financial or status rewards, we can tell ourselves that working all the time will bring us the satisfaction and happiness we crave. (See “The Most Common Myths About Happiness.”)
Cultural influences. Some organizations and even nations have a culture that lionizes work and achievement over other values. People living in different countries can have widely varying outlooks on the importance of work.
“American culture valorizes overwork, which makes it easy to slip into a mindset that can breed success addiction.”
-Arthur Brooks, From Strength to Strength
The Problem with Workaholism
Workaholism, like all addictions, can come with a high—sometimes devastating—cost. Here are some of the problems it can cause in different areas of our lives:
Workaholism can contribute to physical health problems, including:
cardiovascular disease
higher systolic blood pressure
insomnia
These are all serious problems. Notably, some languages now have words for “death from overwork” (karoshi in Japanese and guolaosi in Chinese).
It can also contribute to mental health problems, including:
higher levels of mental distress and emotional exhaustion
chronic stress
anxiety
depression
Workaholism can lead to relationship problems, including::
less time with family and friends
more work-family conflicts
Workaholism can have negative effects on our work, including:
more job stress
greater chance of burnout
lower job satisfaction
“Findings suggest that workaholism is related to negative outcomes such as increased job stress, work–life conflict, burnout, decreased job and life satisfaction, and poor physical and emotional/mental health…. workaholism was not related to higher levels of performance or job satisfaction; rather, it was related to many negative outcomes such as burnout, job stress, lower job satisfaction, and poorer emotional/mental and physical well-being.” -Malissa Clark et al., “All Work and No Play?”
Researchers note that work addiction doesn’t necessarily lead to better performance. That makes sense because we’re all human and have limits. At some point, there are diminishing marginal returns for the extra work put in.
Workaholics may get a short-lived rush from completing an important project, but they quickly turn their attention to the next item on their to-do list, placing them squarely on the hedonic treadmill.
Workaholism also leads to lower life satisfaction and more life regrets. In her work as a palliative nurse, Bronnie Ware noted the top regrets of people who were in the process of dying. The second most common regret among her patients was this:
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
Her point here isn’t that hard work is bad in and of itself.
The problem is when we let our work crowd out so many other important things such as our health and close relationships with family and friends. By working too much, we’re optimizing for one aspect of our lives (our work) while harming other important aspects.
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
Unfortunately, the negative effects don’t stop there. There are also secondary effects of work addiction that spill over into other domains.
For starters, workaholism can lead to secondary addictions (e.g., to alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc.).
According to empirical research, work addiction is also related to poor family relationships, family dysfunction, and marital dissatisfaction. Writer John Eldredge likened it to having an affair with his work.
It can lead to neglecting children or missing family events and milestones (e.g., the birth of a child, sports tournaments, dance recitals, graduations). (See my article, “Five Words that Changed Me as a Parent.”)
Work addiction in parents can lead to problems with their children’s mental health. According to a 2022 study of 527 Lithuanian workers, “perceived work addiction of both mother and father was related to higher levels of work addiction of their adult child.”
And what are the opportunity costs of all these extra hours spent working instead of engaging in other worthy endeavors? For example, how can we take care of our aging parents and grandparents or struggling relatives if we’re so consumed with our work?
Also, our communities and nations suffer when many people are addicted to work. How can people find time to build community and participate actively as citizens when they’re working so much?
The physical exhaustion associated with work addiction can also lead to ethical lapses. According to former President Bill Clinton, “Every important mistake I’ve made in my life, I’ve made because I was too tired.”
What’s more, workaholism may be contagious in some workplaces. According to researcher G. Spruell, “Workaholism practiced by even just one member of a work group can suck the spirit right out of the team” and can cause “destructive competitiveness among coworkers.” Overly demanding leaders can create a toxic culture of workaholism in their organization, leading to dissatisfaction, resentment, burnout, absenteeism, high turnover, lower performance, and great personal damage and regret among workers.
What to Do About Workaholism
Addressing the problem is difficult because many workaholics are in denial about their addiction (see “Self-Deception: Why We Do It and How to Stop It”)—and because many workplaces reward people for workaholic behavior.
“…work 16 hours a day, and you’ll probably get a promotion.” -Arthur Brooks, “The Hidden Link between Workaholism and Mental Health”
Thankfully, there are many things we can do to address work addiction:
Track our time. Carefully log how we spend time for several days (or a week). Then go back and review which activities give us energy and a sense of meaning, versus which ones drain us or seem pointless. Consider whether the amount of time we’re spending working versus addressing other important priorities accurately reflects our core values.
Be brutally honest with ourselves. Stop avoiding and pretending. Decide to push past self-denial and face the reality and implications of our choices.
Ask those who know us best. Sometimes, it’s hard for us to see or admit but all too clear to others.
Set boundarieson our work time. Set a weekly maximum number of hours and limit email to certain hours, except under extraordinary circumstances. According to a February 2023 Pew Research Center study, workers with higher incomes and postgraduate degrees were most likely to say they regularly respond to work emails and messages outside of work hours. Though many people are rightly concerned about the exploitation of lower-income workers, it seems that many upper-income workers and managers are exploiting themselves.
Focus on only a few key priorities each day. Avoid the trap of being overly ambitious with expected accomplishments each day. That can set us up for a cycle of stress and overwork. Being realistic about daily and weekly accomplishments can help a lot. (Consider using the Ivy Lee Method: give ourselves no more than six important tasks per day, listed from most important to least important. Then address them in order of priority, and without moving to the next task until the current one is complete.)
Schedule important, non-work priorities. This can help make sure that other important priorities don’t get crowded out of our busy schedules.
Be intentional about time away from work. When we’re used to working hard, it can be easy to become unintentional and passive when we have free time. There’s nothing wrong with chilling out, but if we let it turn into mindless numbing with too much binge-watching or doom-scrolling, it will only make us more anxious and tired. Meanwhile, we’ll have lost important opportunities to connect with family and friends and to do fun things.
“Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist and author
Think about who we’re giving so much of our lives away to—and whether they’re worth it. In her article, “The Wages of Overwork,” writer and journalist Ann Helen Petersen writes, “Leaders are more than happy to exploit workers’ most anxious or engrained inclinations towards overwork.”
Address the underlying issues that cause us to seek refuge in overwork. Do the inner work of discovering what’s causing us to engage in overwork and what we’re running from. These insights can give us clarity about the problem(s) we must address.
Be clear about our purpose and values. This helps us focus on what’s most important in our lives.
Develop good habits of recovery, renewal, and self-care such as:
Sanctuary (places or practices of peace and self-reflection)
Shift our focus from ego and personal achievement to connection with and service to others. Work addiction is often a selfish and lonely way of life. When we stay focused on connection and service, we can avoid getting trapped by our ego.
Remember our mortality. We will all die, and we don’t know when. Remembering this can help us determine what’s important in our lives right now.
Regularly review how we’re doing in all the important areas of our lives. (See my Quality of Life Assessment—which you can set up for regular reminders.) By reviewing each area (e.g., family, health, friends, education, work, service, activities, finance), we can see which ones are neglected and problematic—and then take appropriate action.
“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls… work, family, health, friends, and spirit. Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will never be the same.”
-Brian Dyson, former CEO, Coca-Cola Enterprises
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
Remember Gerald starting into the abyss at 2 a.m. in his London office after years of overwork? Here’s what happened next:
“Right there, I realized that I wasn’t doing what I needed to do with my life. Then I went home and gave myself grades as a father, husband, friend, community member, and businessperson, and I only got one A—and the A was as a businessperson. I said that’s the last time in my life I’m going to look in the mirror and give myself those grades, period.” -Gerald Chertavian**
Reflection Questions
Are you suffering from or at risk of work addiction?
How is it affecting your health, relationships, and quality of life?
“If you think your busyness is some kind of prestige symbol, think again.” -Chris Brogan
“Busyness is not a marker of intelligence, importance, or success. Taken to an extreme, it is much more likely a marker of conformity or powerlessness or fear.” -Christine Carter
“You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.” -Anna Quindlen, writer
“Overwork sucks us into a negative spiral, causing our brains to slow down and compromising our emotional intelligence.” -Annie McKee, author and advisor to top leaders
“Everyone knows that if a child’s parent dies, the child will suffer with sadness, loss, and possibly depression. No one thinks about this being the case when a child loses a parent to success.” -Jonice Webb with Christine Musello, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect
“No matter how much value we produce today—whether it’s measured in dollars or sales or goods or widgets—it’s never enough. We run faster, stretch out our arms further, and stay at work longer and later. We’re so busy trying to keep up that we stop noticing we’re in a Sisyphean race we can never win.” -Tony Schwartz, journalist, author, founder, The Energy Project
“My worry was that I would become addicted to success. It’s a delicate and dangerous zone—the interface between success and significance—to get as much success as you can without getting captured by it, becoming its prisoner.” -Bob Buford, Half Time
“Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. That is why… there is so much unhappiness, so much pain… They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Human beings have always employed an enormous amount of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. We can keep ourselves busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people, and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within. More often than not we don’t want to know ourselves, don’t want to depend on ourselves, don’t want to live with ourselves. By middle life, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.” -John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal
Sources:
Andreassen, C. S., Hetland, J., & Pallesen, S. (2014). Psychometric assessment of workaholism measures. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29(1), 7–24.
Morkeviciute M., Endriulaitiene A. Understanding Work Addiction in Adult Children: The Effect of Addicted Parents and Work Motivation. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 8;19(18):11279.
Spruell, G. 1987. Work fever. Training and Development Journal, 41: 41-45.
* We should note that in today’s economy, many people choose to work nontraditional hours, as opposed to the standard Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Of course, choosing to do so isn’t in and of itself a sign of work addiction.
** Gerald Chertavian and his team built that company, Conduit Communications, into one of Britain’s fastest growing companies, eventually having more than 130 workers in several countries and earning more than $18 million in annual revenues. Six years later they sold it for a significant return and made millionaires out of many of their colleagues in the process. He later founded YearUp, a national 501(c)3 workforce development organization committed to ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, education, and justice for all young adults—no matter their background, income, or ZIP code.
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What a victim mentality is, signs of it, where it comes from, its many costs, and what to do about it.
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When we have a victim mentality, we believe that bad things we experience are the fault of others and will keep happening so there’s no point in changing. We may even feel that the world is against us.
Essentially, we identify ourselves as a helpless victim of negative circumstances. It’s a form of self-sabotage and often comes with an addiction to drama.
When we have a victim mentality, we have thoughts like the following:
Why me? (Again.) Why can’t I ever catch a break? Why did this happen to me? Why didn’t they love me more? Why don’t they call me more?
We wallow in our misery and feed on the neediness that comes with it.
We should pause here and note that we all experience hardships and some people do go through terrible experiences, from war, poverty, disease, tragedy, and loss to violence, rape, assault, abuse, and more. Far too many people are victims of violence or crimes.
But there’s a difference between being a victim of such things and having a victim mentality. The mentality of victimhood can be strong regardless of the circumstances. With a victim mentality, someone can exaggerate the extent of harm done, misattribute it (e.g., taking neutral scenarios or ambiguous information and interpreting them as hostile), and/or add to the pain by ruminating on them or blowing them up. This can go on for years, or decades, or even a lifetime unless we break the cycle.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
-Maya Angelou, poet and civil-rights activist
Signs of a Victim Mentality
How to identify the signs of a victim mentality? With a victim mentality, we’re likely to engage in several of the following behaviors:
believe that bad things happen to us consistently
feel sorry for ourselves
believe that most aspects of our lives are negative and beyond our control
feel powerless to make changes
believe that others are generally more fortunate than we are
feel repressed anger or self-pity
focus on bad things and all we lack (what Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy call being “in the gap”)
feel frequently embattled
put ourselves down often
feel trapped in life
take things personally
feel defensive or even hypervigilant around others, expecting to be hurt
endure bad behavior or circumstances without doing anything about it
refuse help when it’s offered—sometimes not even accepting that there may be a solution—perhaps getting defensive or feeling attacked when someone tries to help because it could undermine our victim identity
keep finding and staying with people who treat us poorly—and sometimes rejecting people who treat us well
have a hard time trusting people (including ourselves), sometimes being suspicious of their motives
judge and criticize others in order to feel okay about ourselves—and often dividing people starkly into good or bad categories without gray zones
jump to conclusions about others and cut them out of our lives in dramatic fashion without considering other sides of the story
want our victimhood to be acknowledged and affirmed by others
struggle to see the suffering of others
distrust authority
assume there are biases involved in keeping us down
feel a sense of entitlement
live in the past
“Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.”
–Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur and philanthropist
Unfortunately, a victim mentality can be contagious, and we can attract others who have a propensity to complain and blame.
Where It Comes From
A victim mentality can come from many sources. The most common source, according to many psychologists, is childhood. There are many possibilities here, from excessive criticism or having unmet needs to parents who railed about the injustice of life—and how we’re suckers if we trust others.
A victim mentality can be passed down for generations (and exploited by political campaigns and social medial algorithms). It can also originate from various forms of neglect or abuse.
“Many of these children harbor such deep anger toward their parents that they unconsciously desire to remain dysfunctional, as a way of getting back at them. Dysfunction is their way of showing their parents how they have messed up…. These children cannot see, let alone consciously accept, that they are now causing most of their own pain.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
A victim mentality can also arise from betrayal, in which people betray our trust (especially repeatedly), or from violence or trauma. These experiences can damage or destroy our self-esteem and make us passive, submissive, or unable to set appropriate boundaries.
The common denominator is significant inner pain and distress.
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
Why do people adopt a victim mentality? What are the underlying motivations at work? A victim mentality is a coping mechanism (often subconscious) in which we’re actually seeking validation or help from others, albeit in unproductive ways.
In many cases, it’s an attempt to gain attention, love, or approval. In victim mode, we enjoy the attention or sympathy we get from others. Psychologists call this “secondary gain,” a phenomenon in which there are some benefits associated with not resolving a problem, such as feeling pleasure when we receive attention or concern. And it can feel liberating to give up responsibility for addressing our problems by wallowing in victimhood.
We may harbor a subconscious desire to continue the pattern of victimhood because it can bring us attention and keep us in the center of a drama, thereby stroking our ego. Playing the victim can also be an attempt to manipulate people, sometimes coming from a narcissistic personality disorder.
Low self-worth can aggravate this mindset. We may blame ourselves for our predicament but lack the capacity to acknowledge or address it.
Fear is also a common denominator. When playing the victim, we may be able to avoid vulnerability and taking risks.
The Problem with a Victim Mentality
Clearly, there are many contributing factors. But it’s essential to understand that having a victim mentality comes with a hefty price, both in terms of our mental health and our life and work more broadly.
In terms of our mental health, having a victim mentality can:
drain our mental and emotional energy, leaving us with less strength and will to make improvements
lead to frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness, and helplessness
harm our mental and emotional wellbeing
be used as a justification for other maladaptive behaviors, including numbing behaviors like drinking or taking drugs
undermine our resilience, making us less equipped to deal well with tough situations in the future
increase our risk of anxiety and depression
In our life and work, having a victim mentality can:
become a vicious cycle in which we respond poorly to tough situations, only inviting more challenges and a sense of futility
become an entrenched identity in which our sense of victimhood is pervasive
“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity…. You will then ignore, deny, or sabotage the positive in your life.” –Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Ultimately, having a victim mentality doesn’t give us anything satisfying or worthwhile. And it backfires because it drives people away from us, leading to further isolation and loneliness, which are terrible for us.
Essentially, we’re feeling aggrieved about our lives while we keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
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In the workplace, people with a victim mentality can negatively affect those around them. When a team has someone with such a mindset, it can:
make people defensive
damage relationships
prevent trust
hurt team morale
reduce productivity
be contagious, leading to a collective downward spiral
A victim mentality is not only an individual phenomenon but also a collective one, according to researchers, with groups falling into this mindset. That can be a daunting challenge for managers.
“…people with a victim mentality are very difficult to handle.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
How to Stop Playing the Victim
What to do about it? Psychologists note that we learn victimhood—it’s an acquired not inborn personality trait—and that we have the capacity to overcome it.
If we’ve experienced real trauma or abuse, it’s ideal to disclose it as early as possible to trusted family members, friends, or trained professionals, as that can lead to more support and quicker processing and healing. Beyond that first step, there are many things we can do to break this cycle:
Recall that we all experience negative emotions. The key is to avoid wallowing in them.
Develop a healthy view of ourselves and our capabilities—and build ourconfidence and assertiveness by preparing well for important projects and focusing on learning and developing as we go.
“…what helps victims best is the development of a healthier self-concept.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
Catalog our strengths—including our knowledge, skills, and abilities—and brainstorm how we can use them to overcome our challenges.
Recall situations in which we’ve overcome adversity and challenges. We may be more resilient than we think.
Change our self-talk by analyzing and questioning our beliefs, disputing the idea that we’re a helpless victim. For example, we can ask whether our identity as a victim is true, and whether our current beliefs are useful or harmful to us.
Stop hanging out with people who are wallowing in victimhood. Spend more time with positive and proactive people.
Learn about the victim mentality and its consequences via books, articles, podcasts, videos, or conversations.
Realize that we still have agency even though life is sometimes unfair and comes with pain, loss, and heartache.
Be honest with ourselves and see a victim mentality for what it is: self-sabotage. Prepare to move beyond it.
Decide to let go of the victim mentality and choose to be happy and thrive.
Forgive others and ourselves and make peace with our past.
Take responsibility for the whole of our lives, regardless of whether we experienced anything unjust or unfair.
“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it.
If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”
-Richard Bach, writer
Be kind and caring to others and find ways to serve them. By doing so, we’ll escape our unhealthy preoccupation with ourselves and our dramas.
“Constructive action is the opposite of victimized brooding.”
-Dr. Robert W. Firestone, clinical psychologist
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
What can we do if friends or colleagues are caught up in a victim mentality? There are many things we can do:
First, avoid judging them harshly. Keep in mind that they may have gone through great difficulties or even trauma that we’re not aware of. Don’t label them. Recall that being or feeling like a victim can be hard enough without labels and associated stigmas, not to mention blaming the victim.
Don’t play their grievance game. By listening attentively to their tales of woe, we’re enabling them, not helping them. Redirect the conversation to more productive territory. Set boundaries while still showing care and compassion.
Offer encouragement. Remind them of the things they’re good at and of the things they’ve accomplished previously.
Offer help with finding solutions. Ask them what they’d do if they had the power to fix things. Help them brainstorm ideas for making progress, starting small, such as with a short list of readily achievable steps they can start taking now. Help them realize they have the capacity to solve things. Avoid swooping in as the hero and fixing things or giving them answers.
“People dealing with individuals with a victim mindset should recognize that there is a difference between rescuing and helping.” -Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
Help them gain a larger perspective beyond their own challenges. It’s vital for them to realize that many others are in need or pain as well.
Manage expectations. Quick fixes are rare here. Help them avoid impatience in overcoming the victim mentality, which could lead to them giving up and feeling worse. Overcoming it can be especially challenging because for many it’s embedded deeply in their identity—and has been for a long time. It may be hard for them to see themselves clearly and honestly—and to make the needed changes.
Conclusion
A victim mentality can become debilitating if we let it.
Bad things happen to all of us, but we have a choice as to how we interpret them and what we do in response. That may not be easy or fair, but in the end our lives are what we make of them.
“I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
-Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist
Reflection Questions
Has a victim mentality crept into your mindset?
How is it affecting your life, work, and mental health?
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
“…an individual’s sense of personal control determines his fate.” -Dr. Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
“Apathy and depression are the prices we pay for having settled for and bought into our smallness. It’s what we get for having played the victim and allowed ourselves to be programmed.” -Dr. David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender
“Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their identity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sense of self invested in it.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“…even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.” -Victor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor
“The difference between the hero and the victim is the way they react to the pain they experience.” -Donald Miller, business executive and author
“…people suffering from the victim syndrome are prone to aggravate the mess in which they find themselves. Strange as it may sound, they are often victims by choice. And ironically, they are frequently successful in finding willing victimizers.” -Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
“While you can’t control your experiences, you can control your explanations.” -Dr. Martin Seligman, psychologist
“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” -Napoleon Hill
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” -Oprah Winfrey
“Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it we never do anything wise in the world.” -Helen Keller
“A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” -Viktor Frankl
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One of the most insidious traps that we can fall into these days is numbing—escaping from our thoughts and feelings by doing other things. When we do this, we’re taking the edge off feelings that cause us pain or discomfort. We’re anesthetizing difficult emotions. The problem is compounded by the fact that many families and cultures teach people, either explicitly or implicitly, to suppress their feelings.
We can numb not only with things like alcohol, drugs, or smoking but also with binge-watching shows or doom-scrolling social media. Our numbing might be excessive work and busyness or constant emailing and texting.
“…one of the most universal numbing strategies is what I call crazy-busy…. We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won’t catch up with us.”
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
Our numbing can entail shopping, gambling, eating, or sex—or even excessive exercising or cleaning. Some of these, like exercise, can be healthy in moderation but become problematic when done excessively.
Increasingly, we’re seeing what I call “power-numbing”—engaging in several numbing behaviors at the same time, such as drinking, texting, and scrolling while binge-watching. (My friend Renae Jacob calls it “multi-vicing.”)
The point isn’t that we have to stop doing all these things. Some can be done in moderation or even often. The key is choosing which behaviors serve us and not letting ourselves unconsciously numb swaths of our life away. The point isn’t to deprive ourselves of pleasures but rather to stop escaping from our lives.
A key consideration is the severity of the behavior in question. Our numbing behaviors can range from mild or moderate to severe, and at the further end of that spectrum lies addiction.
Addiction and Numbing
In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, researcher Brene Brown describes addiction as “chronically and compulsively numbing and taking the edge off of feelings.”
According to researchers, having an addiction disorder entails losing our ability to choose freely whether to stop or continue a behavior. An addiction leads to adverse consequences when we engage in it, such as problems with our life or work roles, financial loss, emotional trauma, dangerous situations, or bodily injury or impairment. Meanwhile, when we stop the behavior abruptly, it often leads to irritability, anxiety, feelings of helplessness or hopelessness, or depression.
In essence, addiction is an attempt to use shortcuts to feeling good, but it doesn’t work. Many factors can fuel addictions, including trauma, addictive medications, genetic disposition, sexual and gender stresses, and related disorders that coincide with the addiction.
Unfortunately, addictions are common, and they can lead to other addictions as well. According to the Addiction Center, nearly 21 million Americans have at least one addiction, yet only 10% of them receive treatment.
Of the nearly 140 million people 12 and older who drink alcohol, more than 20% of them suffer from alcohol abuse or addiction
25.4% of all users of illicit drugs suffer from drug dependency or addiction
Drug abuse and addiction cost more than $700 billion annually in healthcare expenses, crime-related costs, and lost workplace productivity
About half of individuals with a diagnosed mental illness will also struggle with substance abuse at some point in their lives, and vice versa
“…statistics dictate that there are very few people who haven’t been affected by addiction. I believe we all numb our feelings. We may not do it compulsively or chronically, which is addiction, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t numb our sense of vulnerability.”
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
The problem isn’t confined to substance abuse. Many people are addicted to work. Technology is also a big culprit these days, with giant tech companies creating addictive products and big-data algorithms adept at capturing our attention and rewiring our brains. Think of how quickly we’ve handed over huge chunks of our days—and thus our lives—to devices and screens.
The average American spends 5 hours and 24 minutes on their mobile device daily
Americans check their phones 96 times per day, on average (once every ten minutes)
47% of people believe they’re addicted to their phones
71% of people admit to checking their phone within the first ten minutes of waking up
“Imagine walking into a control room with a bunch of people hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. This might sound like science fiction, but this actually exists right now, today…. Right now it’s as if all of our technology is basically only asking our lizard brain what’s the best way to impulsively get you to do the next tiniest thing with your time, instead of asking: in your life, what would be time well spent for you?”
-Tristan Harris, Executive Director, Center for Humane Technology
73% of Americans admit to binge-watching video content
The average binge lasts three hours and eight minutes
90% of millennials and members of Generation Z binge-watch
70% of Americans aged between 30 and 44 often binge-watch TV shows or films
26% of those aged 18 to 29 binge-watch TV every day
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
disappointment at ourselves for not being able to handle everything perfectly
the sense that we’re living a life in which we’re not true to ourselves
trauma
abuse
Beneath the discomfort that we’re escaping are fears—fears of failing or struggling or looking bad or feeling unworthy.
We can also have urges to numb if we have a deadening job that’s boring, monotonous, and lacking opportunities for autonomy and initiative—or if our work lacks purpose, connection, or opportunities for development and recognition.
The Problem with Numbing
Numbing is a short-term defense mechanism that can end up making things worse for us. It can lead to financial and health problems as well as fights with loved ones or broken relationships (sometimes because we lash out at others when our pain finally surfaces after being repressed).
When we numb, we may feel flat, both physically and emotionally, and become distant or detached from others, perhaps preferring isolation, which can lead to loneliness and despair. We may lose interest in activities we used to enjoy and stop being present in our own lives. Numbing can also diminish our motivation and creativity.
An unintended side effect of our numbing is that it works in both directions. Numbing difficult emotions such as pain and sorrow also numbs our experiences of happiness and joy.
“We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.”
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
Also, we may need more and more of the numbing behavior to feel good, setting us up for trouble down the road.
We may not notice that there are also indirect “opportunity costs” of our numbing behaviors—the value of what we could have been doing if we weren’t numbing. Instead of working excessively or binge-watching, what if we were connecting more with loved ones, reading a great book, learning a new language or musical instrument, getting our hands dirty with gardening, visiting new places, gazing at the stars, or reveling in the richness of being alive?
“When we numb, we walk away from ourselves.”
-Andrea Owen, How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t
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Fortunately, there are many things we can do to reduce our numbing behaviors and mitigate their impacts. Here are many useful approaches:
Recognize that our bodies are trying to speak to us through our emotions. Our emotions can serve an important role as signals or warnings, but only if we pay attention to them. But numbing deprives us of the chance to do so.
Realize that we started numbing for a reason—and reflect to discover what that reason was. Are we feeling overwhelmed at work, or conflicted between our home and work roles, or powerless to help someone we care about?
Notice our numbing behaviors. Be curious about what thoughts and feelings lead to an urge to numb:
Why? Where is it coming from? What are we trying to avoid? What lesson or insight might it hold for us?
In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown recommends asking if the numbing behavior (e.g., drinking, overworking, etc.) stops us from being emotionally honest, feeling like we’re enough, setting boundaries, and connecting with others. Consider whether we’re using it to escape from our lives.
Name the feelings that cause us to want to numb (e.g., overwhelm, shame, loneliness, despair). Sometimes getting clarity and understanding can open the door not only to relief but also to important insights and hope for improvement.
Take time to feel what we’re feeling—what author Andrea Owen calls “controlled emoting”—and accept our feelings as worthy. Learn how to feel our feelings instead of numbing or dismissing them. Accept ourselves fully without judging ourselves and thinking we’re bad when we have certain thoughts.
Sit with our pain, leaning into it. Connect with it and acknowledge it instead of fleeing it. Though many of us were taught to avoid or suppress emotional pain, that only makes things worse. Our pain is there for a reason, and we can handle it better when we allow ourselves to feel and process it and then, eventually, to let it go as it moves through us.
Talk about our feelings with a trusted friend or trained counselor or therapist. Choose one who can listen attentively and empathetically without trying to fix us. (See the end of this article for a list of support resources.)
Trust that we’ll be okay. Recall all we’ve experienced and overcome in the past.
Take a break from our go-to numbing behaviors, such as social media or streaming shows.
Leo Babauta, founder of Zen Habits, recommends setting a “practice container” to address numbing with the following steps:
Choose to do something productive instead of numbing. Go for a walk to clear our head or try journaling. Choose something we enjoy and that adds value to our lives.
Recognize that the addiction wants us to isolate from others. That’s the worst thing we can do. Numbing behaviors tend to thrive in secrecy, so we must bring them to light.
Pray for help in facing and healing our pain, particularly with chronic numbing behaviors or addictions that feel overwhelming. (For those struggling with addiction, consider support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous—and see more below—and their guiding principles such as the 12 Steps.)
Serve others, even in small ways. Contributing to others can take us out of a wallowing self-focus and give us a chance to feel good about helping people, even via small acts of support or kindness.
Conclusion
As humans, we all feel pain and discomfort, so it’s understandable that we’re tempted to escape it via numbing. We need to learn, though, that too much numbing makes things worse, not better.
Avoiding gets us nowhere. Anesthetizing is a temporary salve. Escaping doesn’t help at all.
Better instead to turn and face the discomfort, listen to what it’s telling us, and do something about it—ideally, with help from others. Going it alone isn’t wise, so we need to get better at asking for help and letting people experience the satisfaction of helping us.
The alternative to numbing is experiencing life more fully and addressing the inevitable challenges we face head-on.
Reflection Questions
To what extent are you numbing with screens, work, substances, or other escapes from your thoughts and feelings?
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
“A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.” -Brene Brown
“I know from my own clinical work that when people are beaten and hurt, they numb out so that they can’t feel anymore.” -John Bradshaw
“We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.” -Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go There You Are
“When you’re in survival mode, you numb yourself.” -Clemantine Wamariya
“I learned to be with myself rather than avoiding myself with limiting habits; I started to be aware of my feelings more, rather than numb them.” -Judith Wright
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” -Audre Lorde
“She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings.” -Ellen Burstyn, American actress
“The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.” -Russell Brand
“Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you—it’s the cage you live in.” -Johann Hari
“If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” -Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.” -Alice Miller
“At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of the pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain.” -Frank Tallis
“Drugs take you to hell, disguised as heaven.” -Donald Lyn Frost
“Addiction, at its worst, is akin to having Stockholm Syndrome. You’re like a hostage who has developed an irrational affection for your captor. They can abuse you, torture you, even threaten to kill you, and you’ll remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal.” -Anne Clendening
“Addiction is the only prison where the locks are on the inside.” -unknown
“Remember just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” -Robert Downey, Jr.
“Never underestimate a recovering addict. We fight for our lives every day in ways most people will never understand.” -unknown
“…almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong…. A core part of addiction… is about not being able to bear to be present in your life…. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.” -Johann Hari in his 2015 TED talk
“Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to—alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person—you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip toe if you must, but take the step.” -Naeem Callaway
Many people feel empty inside, even if it’s hard to admit for some. This article contains the signs and causes of feeling empty—and what to do about it.
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The feeling may be virtually undetectable, but if we’d pause to notice we may discover an inner emptiness sometimes. A silent question about whether all we’re doing is really worth it.
We may be feeling hollow or numb, or living without passion or joy. Are we racing quickly but getting nowhere in a hurry?
“Part of the problem… is that everyone is in such a hurry…. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find these things are empty, too, and they keep running.” -Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Such a feeling may be hard to admit. We may pride ourselves on being a go-getter, a producer. Maybe we’re a committed spouse or parent. Or a hard-charging professional or executive. But the feeling is what it is, regardless of whether we acknowledge or resist it.
We all feel empty sometimes. That’s common. The problem comes when it’s a persistent feeling that gnaws at us and that inhibits healthy relationships and our productive functioning in the world.
In our age of plenty, with grand technological advancements and material comforts for so many, many have warned about a crisis of meaning. The pandemic called the question about our relationship to work and our priorities.
The Signs of Feeling Empty
What are the signs of feeling empty inside? Here are eight of the most common signs:
lacking motivation or enthusiasm for our life and work
feeling disconnected from ourselves or our feelings
feeling distant from others, with a tendency to withdraw from others or an inability to form close relationships
feeling unfulfilled and purposeless
lacking energy
losing interest in activities that we once found enjoyable
feeling like we’re a spectator to our life and not a full and active participant in it
Such feelings may get scrambled in cognitive dissonance because we don’t like to think of ourselves as the kind of person who has them. We may feel ashamed of such feelings, as if they’re beneath us, even though they’re natural and common.
We may also be trying to cover up feelings of emptiness with other things—things like entertainment, social media, gaming, overwork, shopping, gambling, food, sugar, alcohol, etc. (See my article, “Are We Numbing Our Lives Away?“) These, of course, are only temporary salves. They may work for a while, but then the emptiness returns.
At a deeper level, feeling empty can be a defense mechanism keeping us from re-experiencing trauma, or it can be a sign of depression. (If you suspect it may be one of these, check out the mental health and emotional support resources listed at the end of this article.)
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We should also distinguish between an inner emptiness stemming from disconnection and a kind of spiritual emptiness praised in Taoism and Zen Buddhism that allows us to free ourselves from unhealthy attachments to things like success, wealth, beauty, and certain desired outcomes. The idea is that even such good things can cause us suffering because they’re fleeting and beyond our control.
“Become totally empty / Quiet the restlessness of the mind / Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness” -Lao Tzu (Laozi), ancient Chinese philosopher
We may want to empty ourselves of the illusion that painful things are permanent and fixed versus fluid and in flux.
We can also empty ourselves of our attachments to our thoughts. With mindfulness practice, we can merely observe our thoughts and let them come and go instead of conflating ourselves with our thoughts. (So it very much depends on the kind of emptiness we’re talking about, whether it’s an emptiness of distress or enlightenment.)
The Causes of Feeling Empty
There are many things that can cause the distressing feeling of emptiness. One of the most common causes is physical and mental exhaustion. This can come from many thing—often a combination of things—including insufficient sleep, poor self-care (e.g., neglecting regular exercise and movement and good nutrition and sleep habits), racing around to family activities, or a stressful job with a demanding boss. Such things can snowball into burnout.
In his wonderful little book, Let Your Life Speak, educator and author Parker Palmer describes a deeper form of burnout:
“Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess—the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.”
-Parker Palmer, educator and author
Feeling empty can also be caused by many other things, including:
loneliness
repressing our emotions
losing ourselves in an all-consuming relationship that leaves precious little time for ourselves
spending too much time on social media, streaming sites, or gaming
feeling exhausted from mental rumination about painful thoughts and the associated negative self-talk
living a divided life, with a lack of coherence between our inner and outer self, or living in ways that violate our core values or that don’t center us in our purpose
At a deeper level, feeling emptiness can also come from experiencing trauma, with our mind and body wanting us to emotionally detach from the pain, thereby making us feel empty inside as we struggle to access our feelings.
According to Dr. Margaret Paul, psychologist and author, ultimately there’s only one root cause of feeling inner emptiness: a lack of love. She notes that it’s not a lack of someone else’s love, but rather a lack of love of ourselves, or what she calls “self-abandonment.” This often comes from an ego that draws the wrong conclusion from our experiences in the world, making us believe that we’re not worthy of love when in fact we are.
Personal Values Exercise
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
Fortunately, there are many things we can do to address prolonged feelings of emptiness that inhibit our quality of life. Here are some practices and mindset shifts:
stop ignoring the feeling of emptiness and acknowledge it, giving ourselves grace and not judging ourselves harshly for feeling that way, instead allowing the feelings to flow through us and then letting go
resolve to identify and address the root causes of our pain and anxiety, since avoiding them only brings a temporary reprieve and ends up harming our emotional well-being over time
notice when we feel empty and what we’re doing and with whom, so we can avoid these emptiness triggers
reframe our mindset from a sense of dread that we’re flawed to a helpful signal that there’s something in our life that needs attention
figure out what self-care practices work best for us and double down on those
make a list of fun, engaging, and fulfilling activities and people and build them into our schedule
reinvest in learning and growing (e.g., via courses, books, podcasts, TED talks, etc.)
learn a new skill or develop a current skill further
engage in a creative practice such as songwriting or dance
seek professional help from a therapist our counselor, if needed (see the resources listed at the end of this article)
The point is not to do all, or even most, of these things. Rather, the point is to start with one or two that seem most promising or intriguing and build from there, paying attention to what’s most helpful and what isn’t.
Ultimately, feeling empty may signal that we’re becoming more aware and conscious of what’s important in our lives—and the deeper experiences we may be missing. That can be a very good thing if we have the foresight and courage to do something about it.
Reflection Questions
Are you feeling empty inside?
Is it an occasional feeling or something that’s been persistent and that has started to detract from your life and work?
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
“Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken.” -George Eliot, English novelist
“Feeling empty is often a sign that you’re disconnected from something—whether that be your soul, a lack of meaning/purpose, or your emotions.” -Aletheia Luna, writer and educator
“You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.” -Carl Sagan
“The hard work of sowing seed in what looks like perfectly empty earth has, as every farmer knows, a time of harvest. All suffering, all pain, all emptiness, all disappointment is seed: sow it in God and he will, finally, bring a crop of joy from it.” -Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
“I have met too many people who suffer from an empty self. They have a bottomless pit where their identity should be—an inner void they try to fill with competitive success, consumerism, sexism, racism, or anything that might give them the illusion of being better than others. We embrace attitudes and practices such as these not because we regard ourselves superior but because we have no sense of self at all. Putting others down becomes a path to identity, a path we would not need to walk if we knew who we were…. as community is torn apart by various political and economic forces, more and more people suffer from the empty self syndrome.” -Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
Resources for Mental Health and Crisis Prevention
Consult a mental health professional if you believe it may be depression or if your feelings are debilitating and not merely occasional. Here are some support resources:
BetterHelp (online network of licensed therapists)
Many of us get into trouble when we start living and leading in ways that conflict with our values. That usually starts with not knowing what our core values are.
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Our values are what’s most important to us. What we believe and stand for. Our convictions about what’s most important in life.
“Your core values are the deeply held beliefs that authentically describe your soul.” -John C. Maxwell
Many of us get into trouble when we start living and leading in ways that conflict with our values. First, we must know what our core values are.
The Costs of Lacking Clarity on Our Values
Lacking clarity about our core values can get us into trouble in many areas.
For example, lacking clarity about our core values makes it harder to:
bring more meaning and significance into our lives
“Perhaps the most significant thing a person can know about himself
is to understand his own system of values.
Almost every thing we do is a reflection
of our own personal value system.” -Jacques Fresco
Lacking clarity about our values reduces or weakens our:
do something unethical and illegal, perhaps damaging our reputation and career
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
Naturally, there’s a flipside to all the costs listed above. There are many powerful benefits that come from knowing our values.
A big one is that our core values, along with our purpose, can serve as a sort of safe harbor in our lives—a place to return to amidst the storms and chaos.
“A highly developed values system is like a compass.
It serves as a guide to point you in
the right direction when you are lost.” -Idowu Koyenika
Our values can help us continue living in integrity even when times are tough, providing an important source of comfort and solace.
Our core values can also serve as a catalyst of motivation, keeping us inspired and moving forward in a state of empowerment. They can point us toward an exciting vision that resonates with who we are and what we want at the core.
Finally, according to University of Pennsylvania researchers, encouraging new workers to express their personal values at work was linked to them significantly outperforming peers, being more satisfied at work, and higher retention.
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
Discovering our core values and living by them can improve all dimensions of our life and work.
The key, of course, is not just knowing our core values or writing them down.
The key is living them—building them into the fabric of our lives. Using them to guide our decisions, actions, priorities, and allocation of time and energy—and as a guide to crafting a good life.
Reflection Questions
Do you know your core values?
To what extent are you honoring and upholding them lately?
What more could you do to clarify or re-examine your values and integrate them into your life and work?
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Postscript: Inspirations on Values
“When making a decision, big or small, choose in favor of your values. Your values will always point you to the life that holds the most meaning and happiness.” -Rob Kaiser
“Focus not on doing less or doing more, but on doing what you value.” -Gretchen Rubin
“Life is good when you live from your roots. Your values are a critical source of energy, enthusiasm, and direction. Work is meaningful and fun when it’s an expression of your true core.” -Shoshana Zuboff
“Core values serve as a lighthouse when the fog of life seems to leave you wandering in circles.” -J. Loren Norris
“Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.” -Stephen R. Covey
“A clear purpose will unite you as you move forward, values will guide your behavior, and goals will focus your energy.” -Ken Blanchard
“When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened.” -John C. Maxwell
“The more that we choose our goals based on our values and principles, the more we enter into a positive cycle of energy, success, and satisfaction.” -Neil Farber
Sources
Creswell, J.D. et al., “Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses,” Psychological Science. 2005 Nov; 16 (11): 846-51.
Daniel M. Cable, Francesca Gino, and Bradley R. Staats, “Breaking them in or eliciting their best? Reframing socialization around newcomers’ authentic self-expression,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 58, Number 1, pp. 1–36, February 8, 2013.
Hitlin, S. (2003). Values as the core of personal identity: Drawing links between two theories of self. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(2), 118.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Are there universal aspects in the structure and contents of human values? Journal of Social Issues, 50(4), 19–45.
Schwartz, S. H., & Bilsky, W. (1987). Toward a universal psychological structure of human values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 550–562.
Meg Selig, “9 Surprising Superpowers of Knowing Your Core Values,” Psychology Today, November 27, 2018.
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Many people aren’t clear about what they want and where they’re going. Lacking clarity is one of the most damaging traps we can fall into.
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Do you know who you are? What you want? Where you’re going and why?
We may have a vague sense of these things but no real clarity. We lack a clear vision that pulls us forward toward its sweet and compelling destination.
Meanwhile, we keep our heads down and stay busy as a form of avoidance. Sometimes this situation continues for a very long time, placing us in an extended state of drifting.
Lacking clarity is one of the most damaging traps we can fall into. Why? Because lacking clarity affects everything, including our quality of life, relationships, work, leadership, and dreams. And because having clarity is a superpower. Life is so much better and richer when we have a clear vision of a better future, anticipation about what it will feel like when we realize it, and conviction about what’s important and meaningful.
What We Should Get Clear About
Okay, so clarity is important, but clarity about what? Here are the ten most important things we should get clear about:
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
“…compared with their peers, high performers have more clarity on who they are, what they want, how to get it, and what they find meaningful and fulfilling.”
-Brendon Burchard, writer and speaker
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
Given all the compelling benefits of achieving greater clarity, the question then becomes how to go about it. What can we do to bring more clarity to our lives? Here are 16 actions we can take:
Eliminate distractions, clear out clutter, and create more white space in our lives. This makes room for self-awareness, pattern-mapping, and new insights.
Do one thing at a time.
Take more action more often. Many people assume they need clarity before acting, but sometimes clarity comes from taking action. Act, assess, learn, and adjust. Then repeat.
Reflect after acting. Step back periodically to see how things are going. What’s emerging and what’s getting in the way?
Talk to others. Share what we’re unclear about and ask for their input. They may be able to see things we can’t from their vantage point. (Consider doing this in small groups.)
Develop a clear vision of what life will be like when we’re living the life we want. Start by defining what success looks like in different areas, including family, relationships, health, work, education, community, and more.
Spend more time thinking about our desired future. Also, engage in planning and actions that move us toward that future. Best to schedule time for it on our calendar.
Journal about what’s going on and what isn’t clear yet. Write freely and let thoughts appear uninhibited.
Start acting like the person we want to become. Bring our desired future into our present.
Turn our purpose, values, and vision into a daily mantra or affirmation.* This will help embed them into our consciousness and build them into the fabric of our days.
Ask what we would do if we had less time. By doing so, we force tough choices about what to focus on.
Reduce exposure to negative influences. They extract a tax on our energy and attention. And they pull us away from our own priorities.
Engage in regular centering activities. Take breaks and go for walks. Try deep breathing or meditation.
Follow a regular, daily routine. Be sure that it includes time for quiet reflection.
Make time for systematic self-care. Don’t neglect good habits of nutrition, hydration, movement, and sleep.
Work with a coach or mentor. Focus on getting more clarity on purpose, values, vision, strengths, passions, goals, priorities, strategies, capabilities, and service opportunities.
Related Traps
Lack of clarity is common, and it can be pernicious, affecting so much of how we think and what we do. It’s also accompanied by several associated traps:
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
Achieving clarity about who we are, what we want, and where we’re going can be very challenging. But lacking clarity leads to drifting and settling. And having clarity is a superpower that adds energy and richness to all we do.
Reflection Questions
To what extent are you clear about who you are, what you want, and where you’re going?
What more will you do, starting today, to achieve greater clarity in your life and work?
Strengths Search Tool to help you identify your core strengths and integrate them more into your life and work
Passion Probe to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time
Postscript: Inspirations on Clarity
“Clarity precedes success.” -Robin Sharma
“Clarity is essential. Knowing exactly what you want builds your self-confidence immeasurably.” -Brian Tracy
“Clarity is the child of careful thought and mindful experimentation.” -Brendon Burchard
“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” -Paolo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
“As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you—the first time around.” -Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur and author
“It is essential to know yourself before you decide what work you want to do.” -Stephen R. Covey, leadership author
“People often complain about lack of time when lack of direction is the real problem.” -Zig Ziglar
“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.” -Cal Newport
“It’s a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration. Those emotions are poison to any living goal.” -Steve Maraboli
“Unhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.” -Don Herold
“…as your inner world becomes more orderly and clear, your actions in the outer world should follow suit.” -Deepak Chopra, spiritual teacher and writer
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” -Carl Jung
“Clarity is the most important thing. I can compare clarity to pruning in gardening…. If you are not clear, nothing is going to happen.” -Diane von Furstenberg
“The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” -Niccolo Machiavelli
“…the world’s wisdom traditions offer a valuable secret. They teach that the unsettled mind comes about through one thing only: losing sight of who we really are…. The answer lies in finding out who you really are—a conscious agent who can choose, at any time, to live from the level of the true self.” -Deepak Chopra
“We want luminosity—the sense of possibility and promise we feel when we absolutely know that all is well and that we’re doing what we’re meant to be doing, right here, right now. We reach luminosity through a different quality of action—clarity, focus, ease, and grace in action.” -Maria Nemeth
“Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more—more unseen forms become manifest to him.” -Rumi
* Brendon Burchard recommends choosing three aspirational words that describe our desired future self (e.g., “kind, loving, joyful”) and making them a daily smartphone alarm to keep them top-of-mind.
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These days, we’re under a lot of pressure to move quickly, so it can be tempting to take shortcuts. But that can be a big mistake.
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These days, we’re under a lot of pressure to move quickly. Things are changing rapidly, so it’s tempting to jump on the fast track. Or try for a quick fix.
Facebook’s motto from a few years ago captured it well:
“Move fast and break things.”
Mark Zuckerberg speaking. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In today’s culture, people expect quick results. We live in an age of instant gratification. We’re used to swiping, and our attention span is shrinking rapidly to the duration of a TikTok reel.
It can be tempting to seek the easy way, the path of least resistance. People are looking for life hacks, time hacks, relationship hacks, and more.
Actually, it’s been going on for a while, but the time horizon keeps shrinking. The shortcuts are getting shorter.
“I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.” -Queen lyrics from their song, “I Want It All”
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
There are different kinds of shortcuts that are prevalent these days. For example, there are:
Health Shortcuts
It can be tempting to rely too much on pills and medications and neglect focusing on a healthy lifestyle with good and regular sleep, nutrition, exercise/movement, and self-care.
Ethical Shortcuts
We see people taking ethical shortcuts in many domains, including business, government, and sports. Think Bernie Madoff, Nixon, and Lance Armstrong. It doesn’t help that our brains are so good at rationalizing questionable behavior. I recall being the co-captain of a school soccer team and catching a player cutting corners on the team’s “Cooper test,” which required that all players run two miles through the campus in 12 minutes to be eligible to play on the varsity squad. It led to painful consequences for the player and the team.
“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” -Warren Buffett, investor
Financial Shortcuts
Financial shortcuts are tempting, especially given all the financial pressures many of us face. We see these temptations at the individual level with “get rich quick” schemes and speculative “opportunities.” We also see it at the organizational level (think Enron) and even the industry level (think subprime mortgages) and country level (think about the Russian laundering and Malaysian embezzlement schemes).
Quality Shortcuts
It’s often a bad idea to take quality shortcuts, especially when it comes to things like health and safety, hiring, risk assessment, and customer service, as these shortcuts can come back to bite us. Just think of all the airplane and automobile disasters and recalls.
Educational Shortcuts
The temptations are great in schools too, from relying on Cliffs Notes summaries instead of the actual book to outright cheating. We also see it at the institutional level, with universities trying to game the rankings systems with tricks and techniques instead of the actual hard work of improving the educational experience for students.
Relationship Shortcuts
It can even be tempting to take shortcuts in relationships, especially given how uncomfortable many people are with being alone. When we first meet someone, we can hit the “fast forward” button and leap to overly optimistic assumptions about compatibility and fit based on things like chemistry, looks, attraction, status, and common interests. We can fool ourselves into believing this person is “the one.” By skipping the discovery phase of learning about each other’s story, core values, needs, issues, and aspirations we can invite real trouble down the road.
Personal Values Exercise
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
There are even spiritual shortcuts we can struggle with. A common case in point: cheating on our time in prayer or contemplation as we get busy with the affairs of the world and preoccupied with our own status in it.
Jack Kornfield, a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher and author, warns about what he calls a “spiritual bypass.” He explains that if we have a solid spiritual practice (like meditation or prayer), or if we’ve had deep spiritual or transcendental experiences, we can falsely believe that we’re essentially done with our spiritual journey and its inner work. But then life tends to intervene with a challenge with our spouse, partner, children, or work, sometimes aggravating old wounds. In such cases, it’s easy to fall back into destructive behavior patterns and have to face the realization that we’re not fully whole or healed or okay, that we still have work to do. (See this short video with Jack Kornfield talking about the “spiritual bypass” problem.)
“Certain meditation can bring tremendous benefits to us. But it’s also possible to use meditation as a spiritual bypass, so that we can escape our difficulties by finding some peace and calm. But later on—at work, with family, or in relationships— old patterns and ways that we get caught up in begin to show themselves.” -Jack Kornfield
Entrepreneurship Shortcuts
Given the speed that many startups need to operate with, with their search for a viable business model before they run out of cash, there are many temptations to take shortcuts in Startup Land. For example, entrepreneur and author Steve Blank warns about “organizational debt”: “all the people/culture compromises made to ‘just get it done’ in the early stages of a startup,” because things are so frenzied and chaotic.
He explains it by comparing it to “technical debt,” which is the accumulation of programming shortcuts made in haste by coders when time is short. Their shoddy code must eventually be refactored and cleaned up before it causes too many problems for customers or even brings the whole tech platform down. Blank notes that organizational debt is just like that but on the people side, when the startup skimps on things like onboarding, training, job descriptions, compensation, pay scales, HR budgets, communications, and more. Entrepreneurs may get away with it for a while, but such organizational debt, he says, “can turn a growing company into a chaotic nightmare” or even kill it.
In startups, given their unique context of extreme time pressure, resource constrains, uncertainty, and chaos, there’s also a temptation to take ethical shortcuts.
“Within entrepreneurial cultures, there’s often a feeling that it’s OK to ignore or bend some regulation. Sometimes regulations are legitimately outdated or potentially too restrictive to let innovation flourish. But the challenge for entrepreneurs is that the line between appropriate and illicit is often quite murky.” -Eugene Soltes, Harvard Business School Professor
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Clearly, there are many types of shortcuts—and many situations in which we’re tempted to take them.
So why do we take shortcuts, given their risks and downsides? We’ve already noted the cultural and organizational influences above, but we also take shortcuts when we’re in the grips of our ego or pride, or greed or ambition, or a desire for fame or glory.
Sometimes it works out. We can get lucky and get rich quick. Or succeed anyway despite skipping steps.
But many times, it doesn’t work out at all.
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
“Short cuts make long delays.” (Pippin warning Frodo in J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Fellowship of the Ring)
Taking shortcuts can have grievous consequences: things like reputational damage, financial ruin, injury, or even death.
Plus, when we take shortcuts, we miss the learning and growth associated with the toil of the normal route. We miss the wisdom and character-building that can come from experience and setbacks, from having to re-evaluate or push through. And we can feel a deep sense of regret for the poor choices we made.
Entrepreneur and author Rajesh Setty notes that it’s “easy to miss that the ’real cost’ of taking a shortcut is way higher than the ’perceived cost’ of taking one,” and that the “real cost” of a shortcut is “the loss of an opportunity to become better for the future. If it is too good to be true, it probably is.”
Writer Thomas Oppong recommends avoiding shortcuts and taking “long cuts” instead, which he describes as “long-term and consistent routines, habits, behaviors, principles, and rules that help us become better versions of ourselves.” Such long cuts are things like longstanding habits of saving, investing, and healthy living.
Conclusion
Of course, avoiding shortcuts doesn’t mean being a slowpoke. It doesn’t mean being stubborn or foolish.
If there are genuine ways to save time and be more efficient, great. For example, we can often accelerate our move up the learning curve with a task or challenge by working with a mentor or coach and being open to learning from others, including small groups, so that we don’t waste time “reinventing the wheel.”
That’s all well and good. But we should be wary of the too-good-to-be-true shortcuts that can harm us, our relationships, and our future. In our age of speed and pressure, we should be thoughtful about which road to take.
“Slow and steady wins the race.” (proverb)
Personal Values Exercise
Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” -Beverly Sills
“In life, most short cuts end up taking longer than taking the longer route.” -Suzy Kassem
“Every shortcut has a price usually greater than the reward.” -Bryant McGill
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” -Mahatma Gandhi
“There are no shortcuts. The lazy will accomplish nothing in life. The human path of least resistance is the path to total failure and oblivion. You must always walk the hard path. The fewer the people on the path, the greater the glory. A genius is alone on his path.” -Thomas Stark
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” -Benjamin Franklin
“The riskiest thing you can do is get greedy.” -Lance Armstrong
“If there were shortcuts, people smarter than you and me would have found them already. There aren’t. Sorry.” -Seth Godin
“Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.” -Frances Hutcheson
“Those that spend the most effort in search of shortcuts are often the most disappointed and the least successful.” -Seth Godin
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When things aren’t going your way, it may be tempting to deflect attention from your own role in things and blame others. Perhaps you’re blaming your spouse. Or boss. Perhaps you’re blaming a friend or colleague. Or the economy or inflation—or politicians, the media, or a rival political party. Your parents, or your circumstances.
Blaming may give you a feeling of satisfaction as you look outside for responsibility and wallow in the unfairness of it all. But that feeling is fleeting. In the meantime, you haven’t moved forward at all. In fact, you’ve moved backward.
“No good comes from blame.”
-Kate Summers
Signs of Blaming
How to tell if you’re blaming others? When blaming, you’re likely:
holding others responsible for your own frustrations and problems
expecting others to change to suit your needs
showing defensiveness
causing emotional escalation with the person and issue at hand
“It is far more useful to be aware of a single shortcoming in ourselves than it is to be aware of a thousand in somebody else.”
-Dalai Lama
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
“Wherever you find a problem, you will usually find the finger-pointing of blame. Society is addicted to playing the victim.”
-Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Though it may feel good in the moment, blaming comes with many problems:
Most importantly, it doesn’t work. You don’t move forward in any way, shape, or form when you’re blaming. (“The blame game is a waste of time. Any time you’re busy fixing blame, you’re wasting energy and not fixing the problem.” -Rick Warren)
Blaming damages relationships. (People don’t like it at all when they’re the target of blaming.)
It reduces your productivity and effectiveness.
Blaming often entails lying—bending the truth to minimize or eliminate your own responsibility while exaggerating the fault of others. As such, it harms your credibility.
You suffer the most, not the person you’re blaming.
Blaming leads to escalation into bigger issues—especially when it’s unfair blame or blame that misses important contextual factors because you don’t have all the information you need.
You don’t learn from mistakes since you’re focused on the fault of others.
Blaming can lead to other negative emotions—such as anger, resentment, or even hatred or rage—which are even worse.
It can rob you of your potential influence on others.
Apparently, blaming can be contagious, leading others to fall into this trap as well in a downward spiral.
“Blame is fascinating—it shapes our lives. It can be a benign way of positioning ourselves, a gentle joust or banter, or it can be poisonous, hurtful, or devastating for its victims. It can tear apart marriages and fracture work relationships; it can disable major social programs; it can inflict damage on powerful corporations; it can bring down governments; it can start wars and justify genocides.”
-Stephen Fineman, The Blame Business
Take the Traps Test
We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.
It’s natural and common to play the blame game. But that doesn’t mean it will serve you well. Your brain my subconsciously leap to blaming by default. What’s going on here?
Blaming is an odd combination of defense mechanism and attack strategy. You’re defending your precious ego by attacking another person with the assignment of fault. It’s a way to avoid or release negative emotions.
Blaming preserves your self-esteem by helping you avoid responsibility for mistakes. You want to be right and win the argument to protect your fragile ego. By blaming others, you feel like you can escape guilt and responsibility.
Blaming is also a form of social comparison, allowing you to feel superior and gifted with greater social status, at least in the situation at hand.
Also, blaming can come with perfectionism, giving us a way to maintain our illusion of perfection as we find fault in others instead of ourselves.
How to Avoid the Blame Game
So far in this article, you’ve seen what blaming is, the signs of blaming in action, the many problems with it, and why we do it so much.
But you can’t stop there. You need to know what to do about it—and what to do instead. Here are six top tips for avoiding the blame game:
Practice empathy and try to understand the context, motivations, and feelings of the other person. Work to account for the other person’s perspective. Ask questions and explore their perspective.
Focus on finding a solution, not a scapegoat. In the end, that’s most important.
Instead of assigning all the blame to another person, try a “50-50” split instead: assume equal responsibility for the problem, or at least joint responsibility. Ultimately, the allocation of blame matter much less than resolving the issues well.
Focus on collaboration, not blame. Consider ways in which teaming up to address the issues may benefit you both and avoid unnecessary emotional potholes.
Take full responsibility for your life, choices, behaviors, and outcomes, even if there are outside factors present (as there always are). It’s a powerful practice that will serve you well.
Final Thoughts
Though blaming is common and natural, don’t trade in it. It’s a trap. Blaming gets you nowhere fast and will even take you backward and cause damage. By avoiding the tram of blaming, you can improve your mental state, quality of life, relationships, leadership, and effectiveness.
“It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world,
but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility.”
-Paolo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
Reflection Questions
Are you playing the blame game?
Is it serve you well—or harming you?
Which of the top tips for avoiding blame will you try, starting today?
Wishing you well with it.
–Gregg Vanourek
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Postscript: Inspirations on Avoiding the Blame Trap
“When we blame, we give away our power.” -Greg Anderson
“To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents.” -Maya Angelou
“One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.” -Stephen R. Covey
“You become a victim when you blame yourself or others for some problem or error.” -Jay Fiset, Reframe Your Blame
“A loss is not a failure until you make an excuse.” -Michael Jordan
“Blame is the demonstrated lack of self-respect choosing to deposit one’s negative actions onto others to reinforce one’s view of being of good, fair, and approved.” -Byron R. Pulsifer
“Stop the blame game. Stop! Stop looking out the window and look in the mirror!” -Eric Thomas
“Blame means shifting the responsibility for where you are onto someone or something else, rather than accepting responsibility for your role in the experience.” -Iyanla Vanzant
Burnout has been a big problem for millions of people for a long time now. And it’s getting worse.
Burnout is also affecting more young people. And the pandemic, with all the extra stressors and pressures it’s brought to so many, is aggravating the burnout problem. These are major ingredients of the “great resignation.”
What is burnout? According to the Mayo Clinic, job burnout is “a special type of work-related stress—a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”
When we’re burned out, we feel run-down and exhausted or empty. It’s related to overwork (when we work beyond our capacity) and workaholism, a state of addiction to work in which we struggle to switch it off.
The Covid Context
The pandemic has added fuel to this fire. Here’s some recent data:
52% of survey respondents reported experiencing burnout in 2021, up from 43% in Indeed’s pre-Covid survey, and 67% say burnout has worsened during the pandemic.
According to a 2021 Deloitte survey, 77% of respondents say that’ve experienced burnout at their current job, with more than half noting more than one occurrence.
91% say the quality of their work has been negatively impacted by having an unmanageable amount of stress or frustration.
83% say job burnout can negatively affect their personal relationships.
Nearly 70% of professionals feel their employers are not doing enough to prevent or alleviate burnout.
Also, the average share of adults reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder and/or depressive disorder, has increased dramatically, from 11% in January-June 2019 (before the pandemic) to 41% in January 2021 (during the pandemic), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Effects of Burnout
We know that job burnout can have major negative effects on our health and lives, including:
Note that burnout doesn’t come automatically from long hours. Whether it sets in can depend on many factors, including context, personality, mindset, and worker actions.
Quality of Life Assessment
Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
So where does all this leave us, amidst a pandemic with a burnout epidemic? According to a Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 workers around the world, 41% of workers were considering quitting or changing professions this year. In the U.S., more than four million people quit their jobs in April 2021. That’s the biggest increase on record, according to the Department of Labor.
The reasons for leaving a job are often multifaceted. Common reasons include not only burnout but also:
Substandard pay
Lack of meaning at work
Work that doesn’t fit with, or even violates, our values
Lack of dignity or respect at work
Feeling like a cog in a large machine
Lack of human connection
Lack of good management and proper recognition
Poor working conditions
The pandemic has caused a shift in priorities in life for many. In some cases, it’s provided motivation to pursue a dream job or more meaningful work. Or it’s stoked resentment about being treated poorly, or not getting adequate support. The great resignation is a tectonic shift that should wake us all up to the need to think and act anew about work.
What to Do About It
We’re all responsible for our own condition. Including the need to act when a situation is bad or toxic. Though the context is tough for many, there’s still much we can do not only to reduce or eliminate burnout. And to improve our working and living conditions:
Boundaries.Set boundaries and get better at saying “no.” If we try to please everybody, we’ll fail miserably. No matter how hard we may try, we can never do things just as others might want or expect.
Breaks. Take regular breaks (e.g., Pomodoro technique) to improve your physical and emotional state, gaining a fresh perspective in the process.
Exercise.Move your body more to build strength, endurance, and energy. It causes positive reactions in your body that affect your mood, and it helps you sleep well.
Gratitude.Be grateful for what you have. That can have powerful effects on your quality of life, including improved wellbeing, life satisfaction, sense of connectedness, and physical health.
Hobbies. Find something you enjoy (e.g., gardening, hiking, photography) and build it into your daily or weekly routine.
Job Crafting. Craft your work intentionally. Take actions to shape or redesign what you do at work, especially changing your mindset toward your work to make it more satisfying and meaningful, but also changing tasks and relationships when possible.
Meditation and Mindfulness. Mindfulness has been defined as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally” (Jon Kabat-Zinn). Researchers have found many benefits from mindfulness practices, including improvements in mental and physical health, as well as performance.
Nature.Fresh air and sunlight are essential. Given all our screen time, we need to be sure we’re getting outside enough with walks, hikes, runs, bikes, or trips to the park.
Nutrition.Our bodies need good fuel if they are to remain resilient and energized.
Reframing. Reframe things from setbacks or defeats to challenges or opportunities (for learning and growth).
Savoring. Fully feel and enjoy positive experiences, magnifying and extending them in the process.
Self-Reflection. Engage in self-reflection and seek to identify the root causes of your burnout. Look especially for what may drive a sense of resentment (such as work causing too much missed family time during the precious formative years of children).
Sleep. Sleep turns out to be one of the most essential practices for physical and mental health. Poor sleep has tremendous deleterious effects on a wide range of factors: addictive behaviors, anxiety, appetite, attention, concentration, creativity, decision-making, depression, ethical behavior, impulsiveness, irritability, memory, motivation, relationships. Don’t forget about naps.
Writing / Journaling. Research has shown that writing about stressful experiences can help people create meaning from them. (The same can be true for talking through feelings with others.)
Yoga. Yoga can increase flexibility, strengthen muscles, center thoughts, and relax and calm the mind.
“The truth is that stress doesn’t come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.” -Andrew Bernstein
Burnout is “civilization’s disease…. It is not only an individual disorder that affects some who are ill-suited to the system, or too committed, or who don’t know how to put limits to their professional lives. It is also a disorder that, like a mirror, reflects some excessive values of our society.” -Pascal Cabot, Belgian philosopher
“Every important mistake I’ve made in my life, I’ve made because I was too tired.” -Bill Clinton
“In life itself, there is a time to seek inner peace, a time to rid oneself of tension and anxiety. The moment comes when the striving must let up, when wisdom says, ‘Be quiet.’ You’ll be surprised how the world keeps on revolving without your pushing it. And you’ll be surprised how much stronger you are the next time you decide to push.” -John W. Gardner
“What do we want more of in life?… It’s not accomplishments. It’s not popularity. It’s moments when we feel like we are enough. More presence. More clarity. More insight. More truth. More stillness.” -Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key
“Creating the culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity.” -Arianna Huffington
“We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.” -Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
“Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy.” -Soren Kierkegaard
“Burnout sets in when two conditions prevail: Certainties start to characterize the workday, and demands of the job make workers lose a sense of control.” -Ellen Langer
“A rested Andrew can do more in four hours than a tired Andrew can do in eight. It’s not only diminishing returns; [not being rested] is like a scorpion’s tail—it can undo things. That’s true of everyone’s productivity and particularly in an intellectual role like that of a CEO. A lot of boards don’t get that. People need to be fresh.” -Andrew Mackenzie, CEO, BHP
“Burnout is about resentment. [Preventing it is] about knowing yourself well enough to know what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful.” -Marissa Mayer, tech executive
“Overwork sucks us into a negative spiral, causing our brains to slow down and compromising our emotional intelligence.” -Annie McKee
“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” -Ovid
“Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.” -Parker Palmer
“No matter how much value we produce today—whether it’s measured in dollars or sales or goods or widgets—it’s never enough. We run faster, stretch out our arms further, and stay at work longer and later. We’re so busy trying to keep up that we stop noticing we’re in a Sisyphean race we can never win.” -Tony Schwartz
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” -Henry David Thoreau
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