Emma was the definition of resilience. She’d spent 17 years in her industry, climbing from grad-trainee to a respected leadership role.
She was the one people counted on.
The one who stayed late.
Fixed the problems.
Held everyone together.
And for years, she believed that perseverance was the key to her success.
Because that’s what we’re taught, isn’t it? That if we just keep going, we’ll break through.
Except…
She wasn’t breaking through.
She was breaking down.
Perseverance is a strength – until it holds you stuck and steals your sleep at night.
Emma came to coaching exhausted. I saw strange time stamps on her emails – she’d been waking at 3AM, staring at the ceiling, replaying the same questions:
→ Is it me? Should I just try harder?
→ Why does this feel so wrong when I’ve worked so hard to get here?
→ What would it even look like to change direction after all these years?
And then she said something I hear more often than you’d think:
“I should be grateful. I have a good job. People respect me. Why isn’t it enough?”
There’s so much pressure to look on the bright side. And yes, the science of gratitude is strong – but not if it asks you to suppress your anger, anxiety, or sadness.
It’s always healthier to express the pain.
And when we did, Emma’s answers became clear.
She hadn’t fallen out of love with work.
She’d fallen out of love with this work.
And she’d outgrown the path she was persevering with daily.
It was a success trap:
Where everything looks great on the outside…but inside, she felt like she was disappearing.
So we did the work.
→ She stopped trying to fix herself and started questioning the system she was in.
→ She stopped chasing external validation and began defining success for herself.
→ She stopped waiting for permission and started realigning her next career chapter with purpose.
She’d be the first to tell you – it wasn’t easy.
Emma had spent years making excuses for not leaving.
But when she finally took that first small step – a speculative conversation with someone doing work she admired – something significant shifted.
She wasn’t stuck, despite feeling like she was.
Fast forward a few months:
→ She’s thriving in a career shift that fuels her instead of draining her.
→ She’s sleeping through the night.
→ And the best bit?
Her new role plugs a gap in the market that she’d felt frustrated by (and impotent to fix) for years.
Truth-bomb:
Perseverance is a virtue. But staying in a career that violates your values is not.
If work has started costing you more than it gives you – maybe it’s time to stop pushing forward, and start stepping back.
