Lack of sleep ended my career

Going back a few years I was deep in a stressful job, emerging from the pandemic with dreadful anxiety and I dived deeper into work to try and hide from the crippling stress of being a senior woman, change leader and Mum.?

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After a round of compulsory redundancies that sliced through my team, the team I’d built from my vision, hand picked the right mix of people and was super proud of…I felt utterly broken.?

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Struggling on for 9 months after that, crawling into work everyday having navigated physical and mental symptoms, and still I put on a brave face.?

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I told my line manager and tried to take time off. On my first day off, that manager called an hour into the working day to ask me to solve a problem that any one of my team could have easily solved. I let that boundary be crossed - it was normal for her to do that. I was so very ill, and desperate. The requests and text messages kept coming, even though I switched off my emails.?Boundaries crossed repeatedly, and I let it keep happening. I was getting worse and worse.

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In the end though, it was lack of sleep that was the sucker punch.

I NEED a good 8-9 hour stretch to function at my best. I was falling asleep quickly, exhausted, but awake again within an hour or 2 - and then awake for hours every night. Making lists, endlessly trying to solve problems in my mind - some real, some just a product of anxiety.?And, so much fear. Fight or flight in overdrive, stuck in the ON position. The system that was built for human's to run from a bear, only I was running for months on end. No wonder I was exhausted.

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In the end, an irritable, less rational, not very good version of myself was showing up for work like a zombie. Saying and doing things in ways I wouldn’t normally. Gradually less effective and INCREDIBLY hard on myself for making even small mistakes.

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When I knew it was over? I took some of my team out to lunch to celebrate their promotion and couldn’t even keep track of the conversation. I was a burned out shell of a human being. I just sat there, so happy for them, but totally deplete and unable to feel anything but exhaustion.

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Lack of sleep was the end, and in hindsight, I am so grateful for that. My body was telling me, CONSTANTLY, that I was in danger. My chest hurt every day, like someone had their foot on it. My mind was racing to find answers and solutions and keep me safe from the threat that it perceived from all of that stress. It was utter torture, but eventually it was the thing that made me stop.

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I’ve always had vision, boundless energy in pursuit of what I believe in, and an ability to align others behind that to make a powerful collective effort. Leadership is natural to me. All of that diminished because I was so exhausted.

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My brain had completely shut down the visionary part of me, allowing me only to see how to survive. It’s clever like that, it’s protective - access to vision was shut down because there was no energy left for it.?

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So, whilst it was torture and it hurt such a lot to have to stop, reassess and change direction. That inability to see the light, and be forced to STOP was a gift. Without it, I’m sure I’d still be struggling on living a half life.?

I asked for help and it didn’t come, but ultimately I had to be the one to help myself. Eventually I did. I wish I had done it earlier.

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Our minds and bodies are telling us all the time what’s best for us.

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We just need to learn that language and listen.?

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If you are stressed, burning out or unclear on what’s next for you – drop me a message. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’d love you to benefit from mine, rather than struggle on like I did.

I used all of that experience and everything I know about learning, leadership, being a Mum and coaching to contribute to the solution. To genuinely help others stop and reassess. It doesn't mean you have to leave your job, but you may need some new tools and a mindset shift.

I can help you do that.

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Love

Nicky