Do Less, Be More

Breaking away from the limits of work-centric identities

“If you love your job, you’ll be eager to get back online after the kids go to bed.” I was at Ray’s Grill with classmates chatting about our future jobs. I had provocatively shared I wanted a high impact leadership position AND a full, rich life outside work. My classmate’s words echoed the message I had heard from others: those who aspire to the highest echelons of professional success can’t waste time on things that don’t directly accelerate that goal.

Leaders will laud well-being in company keynotes and roll out generous parental leave policies. They’ll share their efficient daily habits, like cold plunges or morning goal-setting practices, that get them to peak professional performance. There are identities deemed acceptable: social impact driver, disruptive entrepreneur, visionary executive. On the personal side: committed parent, relentless self-improver, dedicated athlete. What happens when these identities conflict with each other, or there’s an element that defies these neat buckets? What are the costs to our mental health?

In college, I was a bubbly, pink-clothed sorority vice president. I was also the only woman in my class majoring in physics. While I wore this dichotomy with pride, doubt from professors and classmates, born of the discordant roles I played, wore me down. After graduating, I joined a NYC-based company instead of pursuing the engineering graduate degree I had always planned.

I was their one-dimensional stereotype of success — an unflappable go-getter focused on hitting my performance goals. I suppressed my emotions, ruthlessly asked the same of my teams, and was rewarded for leaning into this identity. But this persona was at odds with how I saw myself outside work, and the clash made me question my ambition.

After leaving that role and taking six months to reflect, I found a new job in management consulting I believed embodied balance. While the company had a results-driven culture, I joined a practice that valued authenticity and genuine care: I was met with empathy rather than ridicule when I stumbled leading my first project. When an old mental health issue from college started to rear its ugly head, however, I questioned the version of resilience the firm celebrated. Did powering through another last minute business trip to put out a client fire demonstrate leadership potential or was I modeling the toxic grind that causes so many to leave the industry altogether?

How can I be someone that loves the thrill of professional success, while relishing evenings with my computer off and in bed with a book by 9:30? If I want to go to a cocktail party without networking with the highest-powered attendees, am I sacrificing making an impact in the world?

On a daily basis at the GSB, I see a tension between whispered conversations and the current driving this community. Classmates will quietly admit they’re tired — they too feel like they’ve sacrificed parts of themselves and impaired their physical and mental health. They beat themselves up over a perception of sub-optimal productivity and spend downtime wracked with guilt about missed opportunities.

Despite this, we compete on how many alumni coffee chats we can snag, select activities and classes to craft our brands, and act like a new to-do list app or color-coded calendar is the answer to it all. Conversations with advisors, professors, coaches, and alumni reinforce this. “You’ll never be able to work for a VC-backed company if you aren’t willing to work 60+ hours a week.” “Don’t mention you care about well-being in an interview, people will think you’re lazy.” “I made 10,000 connections while at the GSB, that’s how I got to be so successful.”

The conversation around balancing work with other dimensions of ourselves is not a new one. The pandemic accelerated this discussion, with employees demanding more flexibility, better benefits, and bringing mental health into the vernacular as never before. Within top professional circles, however, there remains a perception that the differentiator between changing the world and having a mundane middle management job is just “more”. Future founders, CEOs, and investors still glamorize “the grind,’’ to the detriment of their organizations, themselves, and the next generation of leaders.

With the prevailing view that your work becomes your identity, many make the call to tap out. I have considered it. The people that stop striving may be those who could bring a new perspective, fresh energy, or the next world-changing innovation.

During a recent weekend, my husband and I spent the day taking our puppy on a hiking adventure in Point Reyes, 60 miles north of Silicon Valley. It was a different world. We talked about plans for our family, savored fresh oysters with crisp white wine, and fed our souls with salty sea air. I didn’t invite a potentially influential ‘friend’ to join us, we didn’t problem solve my husband’s latest professional challenge, or practice my carefully crafted interview answers. The next day, I dove back into work, reinvigorated with new ideas that came from a healthy distance.

The best connections I’ve formed at work have been from sharing the identities that I’m proud of outside work. From solitary hikes to the new writing hobby that’s stretching my brain in different ways, these identities don’t just make me more effective at work, they have value in and of themselves. They make me a whole person — I am challenged, joyful, curious, confident, and passionate in ways that have nothing to do with my job.

As I approach the end of my time at the GSB, I’m coming up against the struggle many of us face: how do I do this in practice? While I haven’t solved it, here’s what I’m trying out:

• First, I’m talking about who I am outside work with the same passion I express my love of future of work technology — I will show genuine curiosity for other’s identities beyond what they can offer me — no skating over the “small” talk to get to “important stuff”
• Second, I’m defining what aspects of a job enable me to best foster these roles: do I need the ability to disconnect from work to mentally unplug? Colleagues with whom I can go to pub trivia with? Support to progress a creative side project? Each company offers a different flavor of well-being — I want to pick a place that matches my goals
• Third, I’m dedicating time each week to discover and nurture these roles. Even if it’s just an hour to do math puzzles, a hot tub date with a best friend, or trying a new crafting hobby, I will do something that is purely, selfishly for me

We can collectively imagine and create a world in which there are different ways to show up. By modeling the creativity, resilience, innovation, compassion, and diversity of perspective that can grow from fully fostering our non-work identities, and shining a light on those identities in professional settings, we can feel happier and more energized, and still change the world along the way.

Editor: Soa Andrian