Confessions of A Recovering Workaholic

I didn’t like high school. When I found out I could take my junior and senior year at the same time and graduate a year early, I jumped at the opportunity.

Merging two years of high school in one and working on the weekends as a barista was how I spent my days as a 17-year-old. For the following six years I worked full-time and made my way up the retail management ladder, while attending university classes at night. In my last semester of undergrad studies, I was seven months pregnant with my first child and after six years of working 20-hours a day between college and work, I threw myself into being a working mom.

I took eight weeks of maternity leave and went back to work almost as nothing had happened. At the time, I had a job that required me to travel and as a new mom, I felt the need to prove that having a child hadn't slowed me down. To maintain the "I can do it all" veneer, I would fly with my son on my lap to wherever I was supposed to be, and then fly my little sister to the same spot to watch him in the hotel. Asking for flexibility or missing meetings were not options I even remotely considered. I couldn't let people think I was on the "mommy track" or that I had lost any ability to perform at a high level.

 I was trapped in a stereotype that hustling and working endless hours was the key to success.

I kept myself so busy I had no real sense of how exhausted and stressed I was but signs started to emerge that all was not well. After the birth of my second child, I struggled with moderate post-partum depression. Instead of asking for flexibility or telling anyone at work, I soldiered on, silently. I felt comfortable talking about it after the fact as something I had conquered because it fit into the brand I had built for myself, a person capable of doing it all. Admitting I was struggling with depression in the moment and asking for help was something I didn't allow myself to do, I was simply too immersed in the pace of life I had built.

It was a missed opportunity. Had I reached out, I would absolutely have been supported. I had incredible leaders and an amazing work culture. Unfortunately, I was not in tune enough with myself or brave enough to fight the societal stereotypes I had jailed myself behind.

I just kept pushing. 

Besides, I was proud at what I’d accomplished. At 27 years old, I led a $130M business with responsibility for 300 people and had two beautiful kids – but felt I still needed to do more.

So, I added a master’s degree to my life workload. I believed that the MBA title was something I needed and being a working mum with a demanding job was not an excuse not to get it.

When things started to crumble.

On my way home from work one day, driving down Houston's many twelve-lane highways, I felt tightness in my chest. I was dizzy and couldn't catch my breath. I thought I was having a heart attack.

In urgent care I learned that I had suffered my first stressed induced anxiety attack.

The life I had created, worked so hard to build and wore like a badge of honour had made me mentally and physically sick

I sought help from my doctor, a personal coach and eventually a therapist and started on a multi-year journey to re-negotiate the way I was working myself.

To get better, I had to unlearn the behaviors I taught myself as a teenager. I had to unlearn and largely ignore how society glorified busyness and the false image of professional success. I had to get comfortable enough with myself to stop pretending that I wasn't human.

It took me several more years and many more anxiety attacks to learn what I needed to do to balance my life's stress. Through trial and error I built myself a tool I call “My Baseline” it is a list of things I must maintain in order to stay above the line. Living above my line means staying well and knowing when to reset. When I fall below my baseline for more than four weeks then I know it is time to change something. I use my baseline in a very binary way, rigidly holding myself to the things I need to do to take care of myself mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

Now more than ten years after my first anxiety attack, I am proud to say that I have continued to grow both professionally and personally while also learning how to take care of myself. I would never consider this journey complete because I believe we are always a work in progress, but I have built muscle and resilience that ensures I selfishly care for my wellbeing. But I am on a mission to do more.

A new beginning

Since joining Walmart Canada this past fall, I’ve been very intentional about introducing myself to my new colleagues as a recovering workaholic. I have done this for the following reasons: 

1. I am done pretending. I am showing up in my most genuine and authentic self, flaws, and all.

2 I am on a mission to create a wellness culture that ensures our associates know it is okay not to be okay. It's okay to take care of themselves. It's okay to ask for help and leaders like myself and others need to provide the cultural permission and prerequisites to make this possible.

3. I am on a mission to change societal norms and expectations around work to redefine success that doesn't include ignoring our humanity.

Which brings me to Thrive Global and the amazing behaviour change technology company Arianna Huffington has built. Unfortunately, Thrive and organizations like it didn’t exist ten years ago but today we are seeing more and more companies bringing education, awareness, access and solutions to wellness in simple and digestible ways. Companies like Thrive and others are also normalizing the conversation around mental health and wellbeing. I recently met Arianna and having followed and read her story through burnout it was a great moment for me to connect to another female leader who had gone through a similar journey. Which is what makes the partnership between Walmart Canada and Thrive Global so special for me personally.

At Walmart Canada we have identified wellness as a strategic priority and last week launched the Thrive Wellness challenge to 217 senior leaders across the business. Over the coming months, we will cascade the Thrive challenge to all 100,000 Walmart Canada associates embarking on a cultural movement.

By sharing each other's stories, we will not just evolve the narrative and experience of workplace wellness but contribute to a societal movement that changes the expectations and norms for everyone.

The other day, a female store manager reached out to me and shared her personal story of having a stressed induced anxiety attack. Her story inspired me because she demonstrated the strength and bravery to ask for help that I often didn't have. It also gave me hope because it’s a sign that the conversation has shifted.

I share my story so that leaders like her and others know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength; it is the epitome of strength.

In Partnership,

Nabeela