Dont lose part of yourself because of your work
When work pushes you into becoming someone you don't recognize, remember: no project is worth losing yourself over—here's how I learned to survive it.
At some point during your career, if you care enough about your work, you will come across a project or a client that really tests everything you stand for as a human being. I have been there, and I want to talk about it.
When the project breaks you
It could be the way you are treated, how the project is being run, the amount of work, or the way others around you are being treated. Whatever it is, your daily experience runs against some of the most important values you hold dear. And when you go through it, the struggle weighs heavily on your soul.
I remember one project — I will not name the client, obviously — where the pressure was relentless for months. The scope kept growing, the deadlines kept shrinking, and the feedback was never constructive, only punishing. I watched myself change. I became short-tempered with my team. I started checking email at all hours. I stopped exercising. I stopped calling friends. My wife noticed before I did — she told me I was not the same person I had been six months earlier.
That scared me more than any client feedback ever could.
The drama triangle trap
There is a concept called the Karpman drama triangle — developed by Steve Karpman — that describes three roles people fall into under stress: the Persecutor, the Victim, and the Rescuer. I have seen myself and others cycle through all three during difficult projects.
As a Persecutor, you become a control freak. You are hyper-critical. It is always someone else's fault. You micromanage and point fingers.
As a Victim, you feel helpless. You blame circumstances, you blame the client, you blame your organisation for putting you in this position.
As a Rescuer, you try to fix everything and everyone, burning yourself out in the process because you cannot say no.
The reality you perceive starts to diverge heavily from what it actually is. I have to admit, I have played all three roles at different times. Recognising the pattern was the first step to breaking out of it.
The painful awareness
It is most painful when you are still aware enough to see that you are losing part of yourself. You know you are becoming someone you do not like. You can feel it happening — the cynicism creeping in, the patience evaporating — but the momentum of the project keeps pulling you along.
Here is the thing I want to say clearly: no project and no client is so important that it justifies losing part of yourself working on it.
But I guess you know that already. The question is how you go through the experience and survive.
What helped me
- Exercise. A lot more than usual. When things were at their worst, I ran almost every day. It was the only thing that helped me reset.
- Talk to someone. Your spouse, your friends, anyone outside the work bubble. They remind you that work is just a part of life — not all of it.
- Spend time with family. You are also a human being, a son, a husband, a father, a friend. When I spent time with Sophie, I remembered who I was outside of the office.
- Zoom out. I always try to relate difficult experiences back to my long-term goals in life. How does this fit into the bigger picture? What am I learning that I could not learn any other way?
- Own your choices. Every time I wanted to quit, the little voice inside reminded me: no one forced me into this. I made my own decision, and now I have to go through with it. That ownership — however uncomfortable — gave me a sense of control.
The good news
If you survive it and learn from it, you come out much stronger. You may not gain a technical skill from the project, but you become a better human being — a better version of yourself. And that lasts forever :)
Alternatively, you may lose part of yourself and become a version of yourself that you do not like. The choice is not always obvious in the moment, but it is always there.
I realise that this post may not resonate with many of you — but it might with a few. If it does, I hope it helps you a bit. Or at the very least, knowing that there are people who went through what you are experiencing now, and some of us survived to say that it is going to be alright :)
Cheers,
Chandler
