Are you in a toxic (work) relationship?

The sparkle and excitement of the early days. The anticipation of what adventures lay ahead of you. What you’ll experience, the possibilities for the future.

Settling into your stride. Enjoying each day. Embracing every new chapter. Meeting new people along the way. Navigating challenges. Learning and growing. Having fun!

This is what falling in love - with my career - felt like.

Like a great friendship or romantic relationship, our relationship with our work has the power to make us feel energised, valued, confident, happy and fulfilled. But… things can change. Things can take a turn. This happened to me.

?A career I once loved, morphed slowly, incrementally into something that was leaving me drained, exhausted, questioning my value, confused about how I’d got there, knowing I was unhappy but not knowing what to do about it. ?

My relationship with work had turned toxic…

It was draining all my energy

The pressure to consistently perform faster, bigger, better, and live up to the standards I’d set left me physically and emotionally drained. Time to recharge was not the priority – working was.

?

My self-worth was wrapped up in it

My self-worth became dependent upon producing? output and results. If something I delivered wasn’t perfect (in my view), I wasn’t good enough, I was a failure. If I wasn’t managing to ‘do it all’ like I should be able to, I wasn’t capable or competent. I lost sight of other parts of myself and their value.

?

It was feeding my inner critic

Instead of seeing everything I had accomplished and how much I’d grown, I was focused on where I hadn’t done a good enough job, where I needed to do better, where I still needed to prove myself to feel that I was worthy of my role. Beating myself up became more common than building myself up.

?

It was causing me to detach from other relationships

I would cancel on friends, renege on commitments to my partner and my family for work.? When I did see them, I was there physically but not mentally as I was whirling through the lists of what I needed to do, rehashing decisions I’d made, replaying conversations I’d had, wondering if I’d done the right thing.

?

My identity had become inextricably linked to work

Being ‘hard working’ was who I was. If I wasn’t hard working – who was I? If I wasn’t the person that ‘gets things done’ and ‘delivers the results’– who was I? If I step away from this career, who even am I?

?

If you recognise any of these…there is the good news.?

It does not have be this way.

Just like in any unhealthy relationship, it’s easy to feel stuck, but there’s always a way out. If you’ve ever distanced yourself from a friendship or relationship that was no longer serving you, you already know how liberating it can feel to reclaim your sense of self. The same applies to your career.

?You CAN get unstuck and get back to having a career that you love. Where you're not just surviving but thriving, both personally and professionally. You have the power to change your story.

?This may involve:

• a role, or career change, or
• learning how to fall back in love with your current career.

But what is certain is that for things to be different, a major shift in how you approach what you do is needed.

This shift isn’t easy, like any big change. But I do know it’s possible – because I’ve walked this road myself and helped others do the same.

?One of my previous clients for example, was in this space where she knew something was fundamentally wrong but nothing she was doing was making it better. She was stuck in a high-stakes role that consumed her life. With coaching, she regained clarity about what she wanted from her career, the value she brought and learned to set guilt-free boundaries that allowed her to reclaim her energy and not only excel at work but fully enjoy her personal life. She is now calmly and confidently thriving, in love with what she is doing at home and at work. You can be there too.

If you wouldn’t tolerate a personal relationship with someone that brings you down instead of building you up, prevents you from being present for the other people in your life that matter, feeds into negative narratives about yourself, and does not allow you to be you or see your value outside of the relationship then do not choose this relationship with work.

?You deserve a career that brings out the best in you and complements your life rather than consuming it. You can thrive again. The first step is choosing yourself — and that future — today.

If you are ready to choose yourself but don’t know where to go from there let's talk.?

Together we can get you from lost, stuck, exhausted and overwhelmed to re-energised, confidently in control of your career and life, and thriving personally and professionally. You deserve it.