Why Can't I Switch Off From Work?

A manager I worked with cancelled her sabbatical twice. The third time she actually went. She came back after eight weeks rested, and within two weeks was working the same hours as before. Same emails at 11pm. Same restlessness on Sunday afternoons.

It puzzled her. The break had been genuine. The rest had been genuine. So why did the old pattern come back so quickly? Why couldn't she switch off from work, even when she finally had the chance?

Workload pressure or inner pattern?

I've seen this from both sides of the table. As a leader, I've absolutely given people more than they should have had on their plate. Workloads creep, deadlines collide, and you don't always notice until someone is drowning. When that's the cause, the fix is clear. Take work off the plate, redistribute, hire, adjust expectations. The relief arrives quickly.

But I've also seen people where reducing the workload didn't help. Where their managers genuinely tried. Where the calendar opened up and the pressure stayed. Where the person filled the new gaps with more.

That second pattern is harder. And it's the one I want to talk about here.

The doer identity

A study from INSEAD, recently published by Preeti Varma and Jennifer Louise Petriglieri, looked at knowledge professionals who described themselves as working excessively. The researchers specifically sought out people who said: I'm doing this to myself, at least partly, and I don't know how to stop.

What they found is worth pausing on.

Every person in the study carried what the researchers call a "doer identity." Being someone who is always doing something. Not for the money. Not for the promotion. The doing itself had become part of who they were.

And in almost every case, this identity has its roots in childhood, where the researchers identified three patterns.

Three roots in childhood

The first came from homes where doing was held up as the supreme virtue. Hard work was the family value. Nobody said "you must achieve." They modelled it, lived it, talked about people who didn't work hard with a small note of disapproval. Children in these homes learned: I am worthwhile when I am producing. Stop producing and something is wrong with me.

The second came from harder environments. Homes where emotions weren't safe, where children learned early that they were on their own. Doing became a way to escape feeling. Books, schoolwork, projects, anything to be functional rather than vulnerable. As one participant put it: work became a hiding place.

The third came from homes with explicit expectations. The 8 out of 10 that needed explaining. The grandparents whose achievements you were measured against. The recognition that came when you delivered and felt absent when you didn't. Children in these homes learned: I am visible when I perform.

None of this is about blaming parents. The researchers are careful about that, and so am I. Most caregivers in these stories were doing their best with what they had, often working through their own versions of the same patterns.

The point is what the doing did. In childhood, it worked. It helped a child manage distress, feel safer, feel seen, feel adequate. It was a genuine adaptation to genuine conditions.

But what works at six doesn't always work at thirty-six. The pattern stays. The need underneath it stays. And it puts you in workplaces where you produce constantly, achieve consistently, get praised regularly, and still can't relax on a Sunday. Eventually this may lead to burnout.

How to tell which one you're dealing with

So how do you know which one you're dealing with? Workload from the outside, or pattern from the inside?

A useful question to ask yourself: have you experienced this feeling only in your current job, or has it been a constant throughout your career? If reducing your hours, taking a holiday, or moving to a calmer team brings genuine relief that lasts, the pressure was probably mostly external.

If none of that fully works, something else is going on. The vacation feels uncomfortable. The praise gives a brief lift and then dissolves. A quieter week creates anxiety rather than relief. You catch yourself manufacturing the next thing to be busy with.

Most senior leaders I work with are dealing with some mix of both. The workload is genuinely high AND there's an inner driver making it feel even heavier. The job needs adjusting AND the inner pattern needs attention.

Why a lighter workload isn't always enough

Here's the hard part. If the inner pattern is part of why you can't switch off from work, your manager cannot solve it for you. A lighter workload won't reach it. Better policies won't reach it. They might give you breathing room, but the same pattern will fill it.

What does help, in my experience, is work that goes a layer below the behaviour. Coaching that examines where the doing comes from, not just how much you do. Honest conversations with people who can see what you cannot. Sometimes therapy, depending on how deep the roots go. Mindfulness and reflection practices that help you observe the need to constantly produce with a bit of distance, which is hard to do when you're caught up in it.

And underneath all of that, the slower work of disentangling your sense of self and self-worth from your productivity. Of learning that you are a person before you are an output.

It's slow work. But definitely worth it. For yourself, for your company, and your team. You start being able to do a lot AND stop. Which, for many of us, is the harder skill.

If any of this resonates, I'd love to hear what you recognise in your own story. For senior leaders looking at this pattern in themselves, executive coaching is the kind of work that goes a layer below behaviour. For organisations where this shows up across the management layer, management training can address the wider culture of always being on. Either way, if you'd like to talk about what tends to help, plan your free introduction here. Zero obligation.

The full research paper by Varma and Petriglieri is available here on ScienceDirect.