I worked my entire adult life to reach the C-suite. And I did it. I made it. I was "good enough." I was "smart enough." I worked hard enough. I had crushed my goals and was earning a great salary with an impressive title. And yet, after nearly seven years in a top leadership role, I was chronically unhappy. I felt trapped in a relentless cycle of what I can only describe as miserable success.
Every morning when I woke up and faced another workday, a thought echoed: This can’t be all there is. My life had become a daily battle—just getting through my job without breaking down in tears, losing my temper, or avoiding my coworkers to maintain their sanity and mine. After surviving a workday, I would go home, reply to emails, work on projects late into the evening, then crawl into bed and mindlessly scroll through social media and binge-watch TV. I was hiding from my family and the world, drowning in a level of depression I had never experienced before, and hopelessness felt like a permanent state. Some days, it felt easier to give up entirely if this was what life was.
But that sentence kept playing on repeat: This. Can’t. Be. All. There. Is.
Milestone birthdays had never phased me. But as I approached my 50th birthday, it felt different. My mom passed away at age 60 from breast cancer. It was her second battle with the disease that was first diagnosed when she was 50. Her initial treatment, at stage zero, included a lumpectomy, radiation, and five years on hormone-blocking medication, after which she was told, "There's nothing to worry about, this is more of a pre-cancerous condition and rarely spreads." But it did. And it shattered our world when we lost her just two years after a mammogram revealed the recurrence.
I thought, "If she had known at 50 that she only had eight good years left, what would she have done differently?" That question stayed with me as I dragged myself out of bed, fought through my workdays, and collapsed back into bed at night. Surely there was a better way to live.
And as it turns out, there was.
I had to get focused. I had to get brave. I had to make the decision to transform my chronic burnout after 25 years in healthcare leadership into something new—an opportunity for change.
I'm excited to share more in future posts about how I recognized the signs of burnout, identified its causes, and took control of my life. If you're reading this thinking, "This can’t be all there is," reach out to me. Let’s talk about how I can help you break free from burnout and start living, not just surviving.
~Stephanie