Why do I keep giving my job more than I have left?
Something changed in you these last years. You know it. Your body knows it. Yet you still arrive each day and try to meet demands built for the person you used to be. This is not weakness. It is arithmetic. You have less now — less patience, less stamina, less to spend without cost. The job has not adjusted its price. You are still paying the old rate with a smaller purse. The problem is not that your employer asks too much. Employers ask; that is their nature. The problem is that you have not told them, plainly, what you now have to give — and what you require in return. Until you speak this, nothing changes. You will only grow thinner.
You are not broken; you are depleted, and no one will shrink the demands for you — you must. The job never renegotiated its terms after the years that changed you. Neither have you. That is the work now: name what you actually have to give, and say so, out loud, to the people asking for more.
What changes unlock by starting
- A clear, written list of what you can actually give right now.
- One specific demand renegotiated or refused within a month.
- A direct conversation had, not avoided, about what you need in return.
- A decision made about whether to stay, on terms you set yourself.