Ever had a moment where you look back on something and think “how did I not see it?”

I had plenty of these “should’ve seen it coming” moments when it came to burning out at work.

I’m talking about signs and clues like:

*** There was a clear point in my working life (April 2018) when my morning espresso pick-me-up morphed into slurping THREE double espressos a day (one in the morning, one after lunch, one at about 4pm) so I had enough energy to power through all the emails, financial models and conference calls without falling asleep at my desk

*** Every time I took a holiday I’d get struck down by some sort of bug or cold or flu. It felt like the germ gremlins were deliberately waiting until the exact moment I set my Out of Office to launch their next attack

*** I’d clock off from work having played whack-a-mole with 27 competing deadlines and having expertly steered various meetings, projects and people to where they needed to go with a ruthless and decisive efficiency. Then I’d get to Tesco to buy dinner and I’d walk around in a daze for 10 minutes, staring at all the food options and struggling to make ANY decision about what I wanted for tea

*** My hobbies (magic, chess, bridge, poker etc) stopped feeling like a source of fun and started to lose their sparkle. All the books I had on these hobbies got covered in dust, which was rare – I’d usually be fishing out at least a book or two each week to flick through and re-read a favourite section

*** I started compulsively daydreaming about (or longing for?) checking into a 14 day break at a wellness spa in Germany. I even went so far as to have the booking in my checkout basket, only to reverse course and book a three night stay at a golf resort near Faro in Portugal instead (not quite the same thing – I don’t even play golf)

Any of these by themselves should’ve been enough to tip me the wink that not all was hunky-dory in my working life.

But when I think of all these smoke signals together, it must’ve taken me a Herculean amount of willpower and determination to stick my head in the sand and plough on regardless like a hamster in its proverbial wheel.

Perhaps some of this stuff just felt normal. Like it’s meant to come with the territory in a banking job.

Maybe the fact I was still operating at a high level at work masked how much I was running on fumes too.

Or maybe I simply didn’t spot these signs, strange as that might sound.

Whatever the case, I certainly have eyes for this stuff a lot more now. If and when I notice any of this creeping in, I pay attention and do what I need to do to correct course.

That’s not to say I don’t still indulge in a couple of coffees some days or that I’m religious about studying my Queens Gambit Declined.

But I do have clearer sense of what’s going on underneath all that and this is a much nicer place to be.

If any of this feels a little too familiar and you’re thinking about course correcting before the smoke signals become a full blown fire, I can help.

I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt and made it out the other side.

Here’s where to go next if so:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com