How I had to get worse, before I could get better. On healing, reprioritizing life, celebrating little successes and finding peace.

I have never before taken the floor at LinkedIn, or any other social media platform, to get personal. That’s not my style. At least not anymore. Ten years ago, you would see my posting countless pictures, sharing my thoughts, observations and emotions. Over the years however, I have found inestimable value in staying private. This time I will make an exception to that rule as I would like to share with you a story. Over the recent months I have been practicing my story telling skills on my little angel (most of times) – my sister’s child, who have made the perfect audience being so patient and loving. Let me put that to a good use now. Firstly, however, let us start with some fiction to warm up.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Tartalonia belonging to the kingdom of Mallagia, there was living a girl that went by the name of Florence. The girl was known for her dedication, kind heart, but also diligence, resilience and vast knowledge. The people in the castle knew they can always reach out to her for help. She was seen as a cheerful lady as she was always wearing the most beautiful smile. She remembers vividly how it all began. She was lured to the castle with a promise of changing the world. She was told that it is not a regular castle, nor a regular kingdom. People served with love as they were treated justly and with respect. The royalty acknowledged the fact, that the success of the kingdom’s expansion relies heavily on the work of the ordinary people and not their positions. They appreciated their subjects and were known to extend their gratitude to the people, and so people rejoiced in working for them or it should be said working with them. When Florence came to the castle, to her surprise, the stories turned out to be true and she was proud to become the part of this community. Years have passed since she first came to work in the castle and the situation changed dramatically. The old royalties were gone. New rulers came to take their place. They surrounded themselves with dozens of advisors, until people lost track who is advising on what domain. Within weeks there were more advisors to the rulers than subjects working to keep the kingdom afloat, handling the basic tasks in order to keep prospering. They worked relentlessly day and night to keep with the appearances and protect the kingdom’s reputation. Thanks to their hard work, from the outside everything seemed right, business as usual one could say, but inside it was a whole different story. The new rulers regarded the subjects as nothing more than simple servants, who were supposed to blindly follow the orders without ever questioning the decisions coming from the top. In time, there were more skeletons in the closet, than bodies on the local cemetery. Those who started raising questions were dismissed from their duties and expelled from the castle. More and more people started leaving the court voluntarily. The once joyous kingdom became a sad and dark place to live in. The mold started growing into the walls taking them inch by inch. The place become rotten.

On one, particularly gloomy day, Florence decided to share an information with her fellow countryman and subjects in the castle. She is leaving! She is leaving the castle, the position and the land. Although she has found it fulfilling and of utmost importance and value to serve her kingdom, she did no longer wish to serve the royalty as with time she has found the environment not only ill, but toxic. The royalty and people in charge of the castle became more into the personal gains than serving the kingdom and with the lack of relevant leadership and guidance her job became tougher and tougher, to the point it started taking its toll on her health. She couldn’t remember when she last had a proper night’s sleep or slept more than two hours. The nights became longer and longer, until the night became her second life. When all the subjects in the kingdom were asleep and the whole court was covered in almost deadly silence, she was wide awake. During the day her heart would beat so fast as if it wanted to jump out of the body. She would then sit down and stop for a while, taking deep breaths, laying her palms on her heart, whispering to it to calm down. It would help at first, but with time, even that tactic would fail. It was in the night, when her heart would settle down. She was living in a state of denial for quite some time now, ignoring all the red flags fluttering in the wind, but with time the crimson red started covering her eyesight. She had to make THE decision. The decision broke her heart, but she knew its inevitable and that one day she will be grateful for gathering the initial courage it took to made it. People mocked her for being weak, told her she will regret the decision. The royalty laughed at her. She ignored those who were unfriendly with her. She left everything behind and went back to her homeland where she found consolation in her family and friends, familiar landscapes. She withdrew from the life she once knew and focused on getting better, healing and regaining her strength. Time has passed as she became stronger and stronger, both mentally and physically, ready yet again to conquer the world. Deep down she knew she already won. She got her life back. Those who thought themselves as winners, those who mocked her, now stood alert as those who laugh last, laugh best.

Of course, above story is a purely hypothetical, made-up story to teach my niece to always stand her ground and protect her integrity and values, no matter the hardships she might have to endure on the way to find her purpose and happiness. She might be too young to understand what she wants from life now, but at least she will know, what she doesn’t want and that’s a start. Life is not a fairy tale. Life itself doesn’t always come with a happy ending though, at least not without a fight. Some say success comes to those who wait patiently, some say success comes to those who work for it. I would say it comes as a result of both attitudes. In today’s world it is not always easy to keep a moral spine when lured with money or other benefits. But it is not impossible. Good and righteous people are still here and for such, a salary, especially an attractive one, comes as a sign of doing the job right, not as a cost of selling your soul to the devil. Some might say things are not always so easy, life is not simply black and white. Of course, it isn’t. Wouldn’t even dare to claim so. Sacrifices are often made, especially in turbulent times, where there is a lot of unknowns and the uncertainty and turmoil cause people to adhere to the feelings of safety and stability more than anything.

Now let me tell you a true story. When I was three years old, I had an accident. One day in a kindergarten, I refused to join other children at drawing and coloring at the table and I climbed one of the cabinets trying to get a teddy bear. Unfortunately, instead of pulling the mascot I pulled the wooden shelf. I don’t know what kind of strength I had as a three-year-old, but in a split of second the whole set of cabinets crumbled to the floor. I was covered in kilograms of fallen furniture debris. That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the glass from the cabinet doors splitting through my face. I almost died on that day, but I wouldn’t go without a fight. Doctors said I was tough. I made it through with “just” a scar that would stay with me forever. With time, I learned to love my scar. Made me who I am. Made me thick-skinned. You can imagine it wasn’t easy for a child being surrounded by “normal” looking children and their brutal honesty. Kids laughed, some were looking at me with fear, but that did not last long. As soon as they got to know me, they would not care a dime about how my face looked like. It wasn’t important anymore. From that moment on, we were buddies and that was all that mattered.

Now fast forward thirty years. When nine months ago I announced leaving my post, I received many messages of people asking me where I am going next, expecting me to announce new position asap following my decision. My reply then was simple. Nowhere. There was no other job waiting for me and I was not looking for one either. We are often expected to continuously climb the ladder of career without time to rest, regain track and fuel up. We are expected to push forward, many times ignoring our health, our needs and wants. Anything outside the normal path is considered abnormal and we are constituted as being the outliers.

When I shared my plans with some of the closest people to me, some understood me. My former boss has invited me to come back to the company and promised to respect all the time I needed to get better first. I declined because I felt I won’t be of much use to the company in such state. But not everyone was supportive at first. Few of them have advised me against taking the break. They said it is not the time now. They said I should capitalize on the connections made and find the new post, maybe take few weeks off in between jobs. They said the break won’t do me anything good as career gap is not welcomed by job recruiters in general. At least when you have a maternity leave it is relatively easy to explain to the HR or your next boss, but anything else might sound suspicious and a lot of explaining would be expected from you. They probably would think you were fired and then couldn’t find a job for a prolonged time. When you take these into consideration, it turns out that people who were alerting me against taking the break were right, to some extent. Recently, I have had few interviews as I started preparing for the next big step. Everyone I talked with has referred to the gap. Some reacted in a very supportive way, even being jealous I was in a position to do it, some reacted with doubts and reservation, probably asking themselves, if I am not making things up. It all sounded unrealistic to them, as they couldn’t place themselves in my shoes, making the decisions I did. And that is all right. Not everyone is the same and because we all possess unique characters and personalities due to our cultures, upbringing, family, environment, context and many more factors, we are prone to making different decisions and follow different paths. There is more than just one way of doing things and certainly there is nothing wrong in living a life others do not understand.

But hey, let’s normalize taking the break. If your company allows you to go on a sabbatical, and you feel like you need it, and your circumstances let you take it, then go ahead and take it. If your company does not offer such perks, be the master of your own life and organize your own sabbatical. Get paid by yourself. Set a monthly allowance for a set period of time based on your budget and do not worry about not having a salary. If you prepared yourself an emergency fund before, you shouldn’t worry too much. Of course, I understand not everyone who would like to use such an opportunity has the actual privilege to go on a break. If its unpaid and you worry about credit, mortgage or college fees, you are most likely to keep working, current or different job. If you have family duties, such as your kids education, taking care of the elderly family members or pets your sabbatical would maybe be work-free, but busy nonetheless. Just different set of priorities, which is good as well. My point being, just because it was right for me, doesn’t mean it will be right for everybody. We all have to figure out our own way to rest and relax. Or heal.?

In my case, there was a lot of healing to be made, both physical and mental. It took time. It took getting professional help. When our physical health takes toll as a result of wrongly managed work, we don’t seem to have doubts while seeking help. Sometimes we don’t associate it with our work even. So, when you have heart palpitations, you go ahead and pay a visit to a cardiologist. That’s obvious. I did that. Just like seeking dental help when our tooth aches. Seems only natural then to visit a doctor. But, when it's our mind that isn’t right, when we have trouble catching a focus, we suffer depression, anxiety and insomnia that last months, somehow admitting that we need to seek professional help is not that obvious at all. Well, I did just that. I understand I am not an expert in everything. Far from being the omniknowing alfa and omega. I decided to seek help. Does admitting that make me weak? No. Quite the opposite. Seeking help when needed proves only your strength. Admitting to yourself, not only you don’t need to handle everything on your own in silence, but also that you shouldn’t when there are people who can help you is a power move. It’s bravery.

Getting better is our responsibility to ourselves and our bodies. Does that mean that right now I am unemployable, and I am worse that everybody else? That I am a risk for the future employer? Let’s analyze an example here. We have two potential candidates. One potential candidate has suffered physical and mental issues, sought professional help, spent time on getting better. The other suffered in silence, pretended to be all right in fear of being ostracized later in career. He/she is still suffering, but no one knows about it, he/she keeps pushing every day in order to survive and keep up with the appearances. As a future employer, which one of these two candidates would you hire? Of course, many of you probably answered: none, I would go for the third candidate, the normal one or the healthy one without any issues as one might prefer to call it. But, for the sake of the argument, let’s assume only two options are possible: candidate number one and candidate number two. Which one would it be? Candidate number two might look good on paper, a good sell, but I would always go for the candidate number one. Honesty, responsibility, bravery. I can think of many words that describe such person. Weakness, faultiness, incompleteness, defectiveness or of less value are certainly not amongst my selection of vocabulary. Call me subjective for choosing the candidate number one while actually being one. At least I am honest and while honesty is often unpopular, it is something I value both in private and professional life. I like myself better that way. I like myself better now and I no longer let my anxiety and bad mood impact those around me. I try hard not to hurt people who just want to help me, even if I have done it before unintentionally. When the time comes and I will accept a job offer, I will offer my services as a fully productive team member, and I will expect to be treated like one.

Now I know, I feel, that I am getting close to the end of this stage of my life. My break is coming to an end. For what its worth, my “break” was and still is actually a pretty busy time and that “nowhere” I mentioned before actually ended up being so much more than just the next place on the journey to the destination. It is where I found myself again, where I found gratitude. I have resigned from something in order to gain more. I took time to heal, to self-actualize, to grow. I took on new hobbies, started learning a new language, travelled and spent time with the people closest to me, whom I have neglected over the years, prioritizing work when I shouldn’t have. ?

Some say comfort is the enemy of growth. While I was uncomfortable during the last years in my job, it provided some stability. By resigning from it I got even more uncomfortable at first. Lost and unsure. I was undergoing a change. And it was damn messy. When you read about stepping out of your comfort zone or are advised on changing your life on various social media accounts, the focus tends to be on the last phase or even the first phase of the new stage. Everything sounds perfect and motivating. Easy too. Well, first, to play the devil's advocate, let me say, not all changes and big moves like “leaving the shallow waters” end with success. In fact, many do fail. But failures don’t sell. Rainbows, unicorns and butterflies sell. Second, even if you succeed, the process probably wasn’t easy at all. Dog’s life. A miserable existence. Emotional roller-coaster, where everything seemed foggy and far from reach. While I can’t be certain now how my story will end, be it success or failure, I do hope for some kind of success. I do trust the process and wait for the clarity days to come. I trust that good things are coming. You know why? Because I am working hard for it. I am not simply expecting it to fall from the sky and strike me.

In the beginning, I used journaling as a way of handling my emotions and dealing with the past. Everything, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, the important, the trivial, I put on paper. I wrote and wrote and got to hundreds of pages without realizing it. It helped. It freed me, helped me look at things from a distance and from other perspectives. Helped me to deal with demons of the past. I was writing while travelling, sitting in a small coffee shop around the corner, laying on the hostel bed, sitting on the bus or waiting to board an airplane. I distanced myself to recharge. I was travelling with healing in mind. Not putting any agendas or pressure, not making plans. Simply following what the body and heart desired at the moment. To my surprise, of all the places I have visited I found most comfort in the cold, even rough sites of Iceland, Scotland and Ireland. The weather conditions didn’t spare me. I got snow, rain, thunderstorms and winds. But then I got to witness beautiful rainbows over Reykjavik and Loch Ness, which reminded me about the journey I was on. I felt every struggle, but then I deeply believed, the sun will sooner or later come out and all of those struggles will be worth it. And then, every blessing will be valued and appreciated, not taken granted for. ??

Later, aside from following doctors’ orders, trying to keep a healthy lifestyle, which includes healthy eating habits, being more active and putting attention to my sleep quality, I decided to take on Spanish classes. Found a great tutor from Madrid and scheduled weekly classes on Zoom. I spent time on staying not only relevant in my work field, but also to constantly develop my knowledge and skills in new areas. Last two months were especially focused on the matter. While it was very difficult still to stay focused, while many things fought hard to keep me distracted, I have achieved loads. Sometimes it required me to reread the same page a few times before being aware of what I have just read, but I did read it or watched it as many times as needed.

I have finally managed to sign up for the PMP exam, which I passed on the first attempt after many months of studying and preparation. While it is not shown on the certificate, I have passed the exam with Above Target annotation in all domains. I took time to prepare because my goal was not to just pass, but learn, pass and remember. I spent extra time on areas that were of particular interest to me, areas and notions that were not clear to me. I gained actual knowledge in project management, which was very different from the experiences I had in previous roles. Even though my previous jobs required me to conduct project management on regular basis, they never provided me with proper training. Projects were executed based my skills, experience, and with the resources I had. No theory, just practice. Not always the right one, as it happens. Job was done nonetheless, and projects were executed successfully in the end. They “had” to, but time could have been saved, communication could have been easier etc. etc. From now on I can combine the theory with practice, being a proud owner of the PMP certificate.

But I didn’t stop there. While learning the basics of Agile during the PMP prep course, I decided I wanted to know more on the topic. I signed up myself on two courses on AgilePM, focusing on DSDM on two levels: foundation and practitioner. Finished the courses over five days, read the guide and passed both exams at first attempt. Then, I left project management area for a while to gain knowledge on change development, which took another six days, a six hundred pages guide and two exams to finish. Knowledge, I feel I can use not only in professional life. Next, was the user experience domain knowledge, which I decided to pursue through the courses offered by the Interaction Design Foundation. Well written, diversified in forms, with practical exercises and assignments I find them very satisfying. They do answer my needs and preferences both with content and the way they were built.

To sum the above during the past few months I have:

• Obtained the PMP? certification;
• Passed the AgilePM Foundation and the AgilePM Practitioner exams;
• Passed the Change Management Foundation and the Change Management Practitioner exams;
• Taken courses from the Interaction Design Foundation: Become a UX Designer from Scratch, User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide, Journey Mapping;
• Wrote a 500 pages’ journal on personal experience and growth;
• Travelled, mostly solo, to 10+ countries;
• Learned Spanish on a conversational level.

Plan for the next month/s:

• Obtain a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing by Digital Marketing Institute;
• Continue learning Spanish;
• Finish courses from the Interaction Design Foundation: Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide, Agile Methods for UX Design, UX Management: Strategy and Tactics;
• Travel;
• Adopt a senior dog.

The rest will clarify with time as it usually does in life. For now, I feel really proud of the progress I made and of what I was able to achieve over the last months. While getting better remained the top priority, focusing my mind on things that matter and raise interest, were without a doubt, most helpful. If you are struggling, know that our struggles don’t define us, but they can refine us. Know that things do get better with time, but don’t simply wait for that to happen, go make it happen. As an Agile saying goes, fail often, fail fast (but end up achieving the best). I sincerely wish you all the best, however cliché that might sound to you.

All right. I think I got carried away with writing… Let me stop here.

TBC

With love, peace and respect, which we could all use a little more in today’s world, Michalina