You ever meet one of those people who responds to “How are you?” with a five-minute monologue about their job? “Oh, work has been crazy. We’re ramping up for a new launch and I’ve been pulling 60-hour weeks. But, you know, gotta hustle.”
We get it. You have a job. It’s consuming your soul. Congratulations.
For a lot of us, work has quietly taken over our lives. Somewhere between college graduation and our first “real” job, we started tying our entire sense of worth to our productivity. Social plans revolve around our workload. We answer emails on Saturday mornings. We can’t remember the last time we read a book for fun.
And while “hustle culture” is losing its grip (thank God), we’re still haunted by its ghost. Even if we’ve rejected the 24/7 grind, the guilt of not doing enough lingers. There’s always another project to finish, another side hustle to launch, another passive income stream to create.
But here’s the thing: You are not just your job. And if you don’t build a life outside of work, you’re going to wake up one day with a solid LinkedIn profile and absolutely nothing else going for you.
So, how do you build a life that’s more than just work? Here’s a start.
1. Reclaim Your Evenings Like Your Life Depends on It (Because It Does)
If your boss isn’t paying you to answer emails at 9 p.m., stop answering emails at 9 p.m. We’ve been conditioned to believe that being “available” makes us good employees, but all it really does is teach people to disrespect our time.
Work will take as much space as you give it, so set boundaries that force it to stay in its lane. That means closing your laptop at a reasonable hour, turning off Slack notifications and resisting the urge to check in “just real quick” before bed.
What do you do instead? Literally anything else. Read. Go for a walk. Call a friend. Have an actual hobby. Remember hobbies?
2. Find an Identity That Isn’t Your Job Title
If your only personality trait is your career, you’re one layoff away from an identity crisis. You are not “marketing coordinator at X Company.” You are a human being with interests, talents and a calling that goes beyond your 9-to-5.
Start investing in things that have nothing to do with your paycheck. Serve in your church or community. Pick up an instrument. Learn how to cook something that isn’t frozen. Figure out what you actually enjoy when you’re not being paid to do it.
3. Stop Wearing Busyness Like a Badge of Honor
We’ve been trained to treat exhaustion like an achievement. The more overwhelmed we are, the more successful we must be, right?
Wrong. Chronic busyness isn’t a flex. It’s a sign that something is off. If your schedule is so packed that you can’t remember the last time you had an unplanned night off, that’s not a sign of importance. It’s a sign that you might need to reassess your priorities.
A full calendar isn’t the goal. A full life is. And those are not the same thing.
4. Put “Rest” on Your To-Do List
If you’re the kind of person who won’t do something unless it’s written on your planner, go ahead and schedule rest like you would a work meeting. Because, in case you missed it, rest is not optional. It’s part of the design.
Even God took a day off. And let’s be real—you are not more essential than the Creator of the universe.
Rest doesn’t just mean sleep (though, if you’re running on four hours a night, go ahead and fix that). It means doing things that restore you. That could be time with friends, exercise, reading, creative projects or just sitting in silence for five minutes.
Make time for rest or burnout will make time for you.
5. Actually Have Friends (And See Them in Person)
Work friendships are great. But if your only friends are your coworkers, your social life disappears the second you change jobs.
Invest in relationships that have nothing to do with your career. Text your friends. Call them. (Yes, actually call them.) Make plans and then follow through.
Being “too busy” to maintain friendships isn’t just a phase—it’s a fast track to loneliness. And loneliness, according to study after study, is one of the most dangerous things for your mental and physical health.
Friendships take effort, but so does every good thing in life. And when work is stressing you out (because it inevitably will), you’ll need people who remind you that you are more than what you do.
6. Do Things That Have No Purpose Other Than Joy
Not everything has to be productive. Not everything has to be a side hustle. Not everything has to be “worth it” in some career-oriented sense.
Some things should just be fun.
Paint, even if you’re bad at it. Dance, even if it’s only in your kitchen. Play a sport, even if you have no intention of going pro.
God didn’t create us to be productivity machines. He created us to be whole, joyful, relational beings. When we ignore that part of ourselves, we miss out on the full life we’re meant to have.
7. Detach Your Worth from Your Work
At the root of our obsession with work is often a deeper issue: We don’t know who we are outside of it.
For a lot of us, our careers are where we find our value. If we’re successful, we feel worthy. If we’re struggling, we feel like failures. But that’s a dangerous way to live, because work will always be unstable.
Your worth is not in your output. It’s not in your title, your salary or your career trajectory. It’s not in how “busy” you are or how many projects you’re juggling.
Your worth was settled a long time ago. You are already enough, whether or not you ever get the promotion, start the business or achieve whatever career goal you’re chasing.
So work hard. Do things with excellence. But don’t let work be the thing that defines you. Because at the end of the day, it won’t be your job that people remember about you. It’ll be the life you actually lived.
And if you’re too busy working to have one? You’re missing the point entirely.
