How I knew I needed to take a break from work

I think a lot about how big problems all affect us as individual workers. What is the connection between being an overworked individual and bad quarterly earnings? What is the connection between an increase in interest rates and a decrease in your marketing budget? And, more recently, what is the connection between a bad economy and my muscle aches?

Stated here on paper, the obvious answer is “stress.” But when you’re experiencing it, sometimes the problems are so big you can’t see them. The problems you do experience are small, numerous, and can seem to come from nowhere at all. The risk here - when we can’t connect our everyday experiences to the much bigger forces we can’t control - is that we start to take responsibility for them, and even blame ourselves for them. 

This happened to me. It’s still happening to me. I was on the road to serious burnout, and I had to intentionally step off the path I was on by (somewhat) spontaneously taking two weeks off to do anything other than work. 

Here are the signs I paid attention to:

I was bringing way too much intensity to everything.

Just over a year ago, my VP took me out to dinner and encouraged me to apply for a new role. She asked me a question, “Do you want to be an observer or an owner?” and I felt that at this point in my career (the climbing part) the only answer was, “I want to be an owner.” I moved into a role owning an area of our business and immediately saw that expectations would not meet reality. It was a challenging year carrying the responsibility of a critical business partnership that was thick with feelings of failure, conflict, and confusion.

Since then I have moved roles again, to another area of the business that was less contentious but much more overwhelming in its success. In learning the new job, I spent several months just trying to keep my head above water. The amount of work was endless and I quickly began to overmanage every relationship, program, and individual task. I knew this business was asking me to be a leader, and in some respects I was able to step up and provide that leadership, direction, decision-making, and management, but in other respects I was just trying to get the work done. 

I couldn’t let things go, I couldn’t de-prioritize tasks, I couldn’t delegate. Every activity felt like it required a massive effort to accomplish (though, for what it’s worth, that wasn’t all just my perception, we have some very real operational challenges and barriers to execution). I was essentially controlling everything in order to cope, and micromanaging all the work. Without the graciousness and patience of my co-workers, it would have been an even messier situation. Ultimately, I knew that if I let this continue, I would start taking my stress out on those around me. 

I knew deep down that this wasn’t a recipe for success, but I couldn’t rise above the noise of the sheer amount of work, the pressure, and the chaotic environment to reassess my approach and find smoother roads to travel. 

I had tunnel vision.

Because of how overwhelmed I was, I didn’t feel like I had any options. I felt the only way out of this struggle was through. I didn’t expect to get more resources, I didn’t expect the expectations to reduce at any point, and I didn’t expect the business conditions to change anytime soon.

I couldn’t stop thinking about work - I was thinking about it around the clock. I lost touch with friends, I stopped doing things I enjoyed like taking the dog for a walk. I started hoarding my energy, subconsciously calculating how much energy it would take to meet friends after work instead of sitting quietly alone in my bedroom trying to decompress. 

I became a worker and a mom, barely a wife, and certainly just myself. I didn’t see a way out of this stress. I didn’t have the time or energy to look and apply for new jobs, but worse, I didn’t have a sense of inspiration about any kind of work. I felt as though all work was misery, and this was the best I could expect: a high salary for high stress and misery. 

Further to that, the tunnel vision was compromising my performance at work. I could only see the path as it was unfolding linearly before me, I didn’t have the creative thinking available to evaluate situations more strategically, work more efficiently (smarter not harder!), or look at problems from different angles. There was only the very next step, and the endless very next steps after that. 

I was manifesting physical symptoms of stress for the first time.

I was waking up most morning feeling nauseated, like I was going to throw up before work. I was getting more headaches. I had diarrhea…often. My back and muscles ached all the time. My hair was falling out. And most importantly, I wasn’t sleeping. I was up for hours all night. Sometimes I just couldn’t fall asleep, sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and remain awake, thinking about work, having invisible conversations, turning problems over in my head trying to understand them more deeply so I could solve them. 

Knowing that my body wasn’t okay, and know that it wasn’t for any reason other than stress, finally gave me the excuse I needed to disrupt the pattern I was in. It shouldn’t have come to that, but I wasn’t confident enough to take strong steps earlier until it was clear my this was harming me physically, not just mentally and emotionally. 

Most importantly, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a permanent solution or way out of this situation. I was on the verge of spontaneously quitting to the point where I’d warn my husband in the mornings that today might be the day. I had intense feelings of shame about my inability to “handle” a job with this responsibility, which relatively speaking wasn’t even that much. I felt ashamed that I was aware enough to see and recognize the problems, but powerless to change myself or those problems. I knew I wasn’t officially “burned out”, but as my therapist explained, I was well on the path. I didn’t feel darkness, hopelessness, or depression. I actually didn’t feel a whole lot of spiraling anxiety. I just felt a total absence of individual agency. 

What I haven’t mentioned here today are all the external factors contributing to the impending burnout: the poor economy, disastrous earnings reports to Wall Street, mass layoffs, extreme budget cuts, lack of executive leadership and decisioning, bullying, and constant restructures. I did know that I didn’t get to this point of stress all by myself, but I couldn’t control any of those things. Those problems are too big for me to solve, but I (along with all my coworkers) were living with the ramifications. 

After reaching back out to my therapist to check with her, I decided going on leave wasn’t an option as I didn’t meet the clinical definition of burnout for the FMLA. My therapist also told me that FMLA was very serious. I honestly didn’t think I was in crisis, but knew that if I continued the way I was, I could very well be left with no options. 

So, I threw a Hail Mary. I asked my boss for two weeks off (with three weeks notice), and told him I was scared to ask but that I needed a break. Once I looked, it turned out that had almost 9 weeks of paid time off accumulated between vacation and sick (that should have been a sign in and of itself). 

I was scared but deep deep down I knew this wasn’t me. I knew this wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. I also knew that no one individually was responsible for it, and the people around me were generally good and doing their best. I knew I wasn’t in an inherently bad environment or at an inherently bad company. I knew my behavior, my approach to work wasn’t who I am or who I wanted to be. 

I also reminded myself that I was entitled to this. I had the paid time off. The company regularly messages and advocates for mental health. It was certainly unorthodox - to take two weeks off, to not give months of notice, and to not be spending that time traveling or meeting family needs, but to simply spend that time doing anything except working. 

When I asked my boss, he said several things, but the one that I have held onto was this: “I need to do the same thing, but I’m scared to ask too.”