When high pressure became normal

I remember how it started.

Taking the CEO phone calls in the evening to discuss something on their mind.

Agreeing to early morning meetings as there was no other space.

Delaying leaving the office at night as someone said they needed a “quick” word.

Taking the Friday night phone call about an urgent issue which had come up.

I remember more clearly my response to it.

“I’m a director. This is what I get paid for.”

“I’m senior and experienced. I should be able to cope with this.”

“I want to protect my team, so I will deal with it.”

Always in my mind a rationale to take the phone call; do the extra meeting; come in a bit earlier or stay a bit later; work from home on my day off.

Always saying to myself that I’d say no next time; I’d take back the extra hours I’d worked and not work on my day off to catch up.

But I never did those things. I always said yes. I always did the extra. I always put work first.

I started to feel the physical repercussions of never properly switching off from work. My sleep suffered; I became more serious and less fun and eventually I started having chest pains.

Actual chest pains.

But I never really thought I was under stress.

I just thought I wasn’t good enough for the job and working harder and longer would mean that I would get by.

I didn’t listen to the warning signs, because I didn’t have the time to take a step back to listen to what my body was telling me.

There wasn’t an option to step back; because that would have been failure.

So, I kept on and on. Running after something I could never quite catch up with.

I was lucky. I was given a way out and I left that job.

I was able to take some time out and slow down.

The chest pains disappeared almost overnight.

It took a while for my brain to slow down, but it did.

I took a step back and looked at my life and what I actually wanted it to be like. I started retraining as a counsellor and a coach.

That space led me to realise that I wanted to use my experience of living with high stress to help other people experiencing the same thing.

So, I joined forces with two other ex-NHS colleagues and we co-founded The Thriving Life Consultancy because we’d all seen — and felt — what happens when the pressure becomes too much, and we wanted to help people find healthier ways to live, lead and work.

Looking back, what strikes me is how normal that stress felt at the time.

I always found a way to justify doing a bit more. Taking on just one more thing always felt reasonable. I never really stopped to notice what it was all adding up to.

Work took more and more of me, but I always thought that I was the problem.

I wish I’d had the self-awareness to know what was happening and what the chest pains actually meant.

I wish I’d had the courage to say “no” and to reset boundaries which would have left more space for me being me.

I wish I’d had the confidence to speak up and ask for more help.

But in the same breath, if I hadn’t have gone through all of that then I would never have co-founded the Thriving Life Consultancy. We help people understand their responses to pressure, but we also work with teams and organisations to look at the expectations, habits and ways of working that keep that pressure going.

Because until we understand what’s causing us pressure and the impact it’s having on us, then we can’t make the changes we need to help us come out from under that cloud.

You don’t have to have it all worked out when you talk to someone; you definitely shouldn’t leave it until you get chest pains – you just need to find the words to talk to someone you trust by saying “I’m finding this harder than I’ve let on.”

That’s the first step…