I used to think I was just responsible. Reliable. Someone people could count on. Looking back, I can see something else was happening beneath the surface.
Work stopped feeling guaranteed after being laid off early in my career. Once I started working again after 7 months of being off, I never really stopped long enough to grieve the job loss or process the hidden woes that sat like cobwebs — barely visible until you walked right into them. Instead, I did what many ambitious people do — I worked.
Desperate to prove myself, I never relaxed enough to enjoy any part of the experience. Work gave me structure. It gave me somewhere to put all the energy that had nowhere else to go in those 7 months. From the outside it probably looked admirable — I was even getting rewards and promotions. Inside, it felt scary.
I over-prepared.
I said yes before thinking.
I anticipated problems before anyone asked. (I went down more rabbit holes than I can count.)
I believed every mistake was my fault, from failing sales numbers to overspending.
I optimized every component of my work so I could take on more — demonstrating I was irreplaceable.
And that desperation showed up: I yelled in my car on the drive home. I cried in bathroom stalls. I ate lunch alone because I couldn't carry one more conversation.
Then I'd receive a bonus.
Or a great performance review.
A promotion.
And my brain would quietly conclude: "See? Keep doing this."
The very behaviors keeping me stuck were the ones being rewarded. And I didn't realize I was building a personality around survival. I thought that was just who I was.
Until one day it wasn't enough anymore. Burnout arrived. And suddenly the place I'd always escaped to, work, became the place I wanted to escape from.
That was the moment I realized something important. I hadn't lost my passion. I'd lost myself underneath survival — survival that went uninterrupted. I was tangled in the web of burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and now, ineffectiveness.
Looking back now, I can see how clearly I needed to first give myself permission to stop surviving inside the work I already loved.
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