What Working Almost Every Single Day for Six Years Taught Me

For the women in their 30s who know exactly what this feels like

Nobody warned me. Nobody sat me down and said: "One day you'll look up from your laptop and realise six years have passed, and you'll feel equal parts proud and confused about all of it."

Lesson One

Hustle culture will take everything you give it - and then ask for more and then you'll probably answer the call, call it expansion and give more. More brain power, more drive and you'll call it ambition. But it's an endless cycle.

I used to wear my busyness like a badge. I answered emails at 11pm. I worked through weekends and called it "passion." I skipped brunches, missed weddings, said "I'll rest when things settle down" - and things never settled down, because the work expands to fill every gap you leave open for it.

Six years in, I've learned that the system is not broken. It's working exactly as designed. You are the one who has to draw the line, because no one else will draw it for you.

Lesson Two

Your body will send you the invoice whether you open it or not and it will be expensive with quadruple VAT % added to it

There came a point - probably year three - where I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix. That specific kind of tired that lives behind your eyes. My shoulders were permanently somewhere near my ears. I got sick every time I took a break, as though my body had been politely queuing up problems and finally got its window.

The body keeps score. You need to pay attention to it. Rest isn't a reward for finishing - it's part of the work. I know that sounds like something cross-stitched on a pillow, but I mean it. Keep repeating it to yourself. You cannot operate a depleted system at full capacity, no matter how much coffee or black tea you throw at it.

Lesson Three

Discipline is powerful. Identity built entirely on discipline is fragile

I became a person who could always be counted on to show up, deliver, push through. And I was proud of that. Still am. But somewhere along the way, working hard became who I was - and that's a dangerous place to live.

When you tie your whole sense of self to your output, a slow week feels like an existential crisis. A bad month starts to feel like evidence that you were never good enough to begin with. You are not your productivity. You were whole before you ever produced or built a single thing.

Lesson Four

The relationships you quietly deprioritise will eventually feel it

My friendships didn't end dramatically. They just... faded. Slowly, by degrees. One cancelled plan became two, became a habit, became a distance that felt awkward to cross back over. I was always going to call. I was always going to visit. There was always something to finish first.

At 33, I can tell you: the people who matter are not going to wait around indefinitely. Not because they don't love you, but because love requires showing up - and showing up requires time you have to choose to protect.

Lesson Five

You can build something impressive and still feel deeply empty inside it

I hit goals I'd dreamed about. I genuinely did. And I waited for the feeling - that warm, settled, I made it feeling - and it didn't arrive the way I expected. Or it arrived for a day, and then Monday came.

This isn't cynicism. It's just the truth about external achievements: they don't fill internal gaps. If you're running from something, work has the potential to run you right alongside it or run you to the ground. The question underneath all the ambition - am I enough? - doesn't get answered by the next win. It gets answered somewhere quieter.

Lesson Six

But also - I don't regret a single day of it

Here's the complicated part. All of the above is true, and so is this: working hard, building something, learning your craft by sheer accumulation of hours, expanding your skillset - it's one of the most genuinely satisfying things I've ever done.

Six years of showing up taught me what I'm made of. It gave me skills I can't un-know and confidence that wasn't given to me - I earned it, slowly, by doing the thing over and over until I stopped being afraid of it. I just wish I'd done it without sacrificing my nervous system in the process.

The lesson isn't "work less." It's "work in a way that you can sustain for the next thirty years - and still like yourself at the end of the day." Is that with the help of AI? Maybe. Who knows? But you need to keep trying to find a balance and prioritise rest and recovery.

If you're in your 30s and you're reading this on your phone at 10pm while technically "relaxing" - I see you. You're doing so well. You're also allowed to stop for the night.

Written by someone who learned the hard way, so you don't have to