Tuesday 4th Jan 2022 was the first time that I admitted something was wrong.
Feelings of being overwhelmed, overwrought, panicked (with no real reason), wrung out and a sense of emptiness had overcome me. My wife found me in heap on the floor crying. With no real reason to explain why I was in that state.
Throughout 2021, I had been telling myself that things would be fine and that I just needed to hang on until Christmas. After 2 weeks of Christmas break, I would return refreshed and reinvigorated. This was also not the first time I had lied to myself!
It was within three hours of returning to work that my wife found me in a heap, and I had no explanation. I was used to handling everything my role threw at me, but today I had no bandwidth for it.
Leaning on my pillars
Although for the first time I was admitting that something was wrong, even then my focus was work. In my head I was indispensable and could not let my team down. My team couldn’t cope without me and would crumble in my absence.
The reality was I was doing far worse, letting my family and myself down, the two things that should have been at the top of my priority list. I was a great colleague at work but at home I transferred my frustrations into my relationship with my wife and children.
To this end I took a sticking plaster approach, two weeks off and a couple of therapy sessions later, I was back at work.
Easter was filled with plans with friends, family, and fun (we had escaped to the UK since covid was at its peak in Hong Kong) and I just had to ‘hang on’ for three more months to get there. I was going through my days with no positivity or joy for the upcoming break. Inevitably, there was another collapse just before Easter. It took my father and my wife, the people who always had my best interests at heart to trigger meaningful change. It was a serious intervention, and I got the support and strength from them to gain a true awareness of the situation and quit my role.
Recovery and a search for meaning
Quitting my job meant finding out who I was. As an Executive Director, I had allowed myself to believe that that achievement was my identity. That was now gone and this led to feelings of anger and resentment. I felt lost and descended into a deeper depression.
I re-engaged with therapy knowing full well I needed to dig deeper, unpack things from my past, and come face to face with my limiting beliefs. My core belief was, ‘I am not good enough’ and my drivers were ‘Be perfect’ and ‘please others’. I was hijacking relationships – professional and personal due to unresolved issues and trauma. I don’t mean to say that I went through something horrific, but my experience impacted me and fed into and exacerbated everything that I then went through.
During this time, I took up hiking in the mountains or running round the pitches at Happy Valley. It gave me space which I would either fill with my own thoughts, something that could easily turn toxic but was still valuable, or by devouring of 100’s of hours of podcasts. Occasionally I was joined by others and the act of talking about my experience and learnings as well as listening to their challenges gave me perspective and another form of reflection. To further this, I took on 2 challenges to raise money for charity (firstly 1 million steps in a month followed a few months later by a virtual Lands End to John O’Groats) which gave me some purpose and meaning back. It raised a good amount of money for the ‘Cambodian Children’s Fund’ and if I am honest, it mainly and somewhat selfishly, enabled me to feel good about myself again.
Nuggets of Wisdom from my experience
Burnout and depression However, there are a few things that emerged from this experience, and I will continue to carry these as lessons.
- It is important to know the intention behind the things we do. The ‘why’ of it all. Due to certain circumstances at work, I had lost sight of my ‘why’. Why I was making the choices I had, e.g. to work long hours. Without that sense of purpose to power me I became disillusioned and cynical.
- I had no clear direction and a lack of awareness of my limiting beliefs. When I came face to face with the reality of things at work my need to feel validated and praised took charge. As I came across the message that I would not progress any higher in my current location or stream, I felt the need to take on more work just to feel like I was progressing. There was no questioning of the path I was taking, and I was not recognised for the workload that I had taken on and hence became further detached.
- It is important to remember that we have control over our decisions which lead us to the life we want and our mental health. The issue comes when we allow a lack of awareness and intentionality to make us lose sight of this control. My realisation of this led me to my new vocation of career coach and finding my purpose whilst enabling others to find theirs!
- My drivers of ‘be perfect’ and ‘please others’ had, for a time boosted the progression of my career. However, when the wheels started to come off, they became toxic. I no longer had the bandwidth to deliver as I wanted and rather than refine my approach I clung on to these drivers and the wheels came off as I lost confidence and sense of who I was. The qualities about me that helped me achieve progress in my career and relationships were now working against me. Awareness and active management are the key to it all.
- wellbeing was my responsibility I haven’t changed my intrinsic self. I am still a ‘people pleaser’ and I still need ‘to be perfect’, but I define what it means. Looking after my wellbeing allows me to be a better husband, father, son, relative, friend, colleague, and a leader.
A new day: A New me
Undertaking therapy helped me bring awareness to my inner workings and allowed me to accept that I am only human. Moving forward I know a combination of therapy and coaching is required to keep me on the right path – I see it as critical and not a luxury for me to invest in that. I uncovered what underpinned my challenges, the beliefs, the drivers, the biases and the experiences. But those are personal to me and hence my path out of burnout and depression is not yours. You need to invest the time and energy to uncover this for yourself. Today I am back to work after retraining as a coach and I am empowered by my purpose to be the best husband and father that I can be as well as helping others avoid the same pitfalls that I fell into.
One final suggestion that I would leave you with is to empower yourself to take some time out, a career break! Spend time doing things now for yourself and with friends and family that you perhaps won’t be able to if you wait for retirement. How I got there was horrible, but the upside was great! Do the same without the horrible bit, choose it, I’m confident you won’t regret it!
Photo Credits:
First image: ST.art
Second image: PeopleImages
Matt Adamson
About the author
Matt Adamson is a Career Coach running his own firm ‘Matt Adamson Coaching.’ He works with Mid-Career/Senior Professionals globally, but mainly in Hong Kong and the Uk. He focusses on enabling his clients to achieve sustainable success, steering you away from the burnout traps that he fell into in his corporate career! His expertise in guiding careers comes from 20 years in Recruitment/HR laterally as APAC Recruitment and Internal Mobility Head for UBS.
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