Healing when your first job breaks your heart

My first professional headshot taken in 2018.

I published the below piece a year ago. It's one of my favorites thus far. Many of you are new here, so this week is a re-share with an updated ending. If you've read it before, I hope another read brings new insight.

Much love,

Isabel

Dear Team Joy,

I did the thing you’re not supposed to do. I fell in love with my first job.

I excitedly prepared for my first day of work like a first date with my long-time crush. I picked out a stylish silk, conservative dress, blew out my hair, got my nails done, and showed up as my best version of “professional.” Any threads of mess were neatly tucked and tied. At 23, I felt like I was playing dress-up as a business person, but I was eager to play the part.

I had worked my ass off to get this job (one of the most coveted on campus) and I was one of two Rice seniors to get one. I knew when I received the call to join McKinsey, my life had changed. I was going to work on the most challenging business problems with the best of the best. The people I had met during recruiting were kind, curious, smart, and deeply ambitious. All of the weekends practicing math were worth it.

I showed up overconfident, ready to work hard, and determined to find the elusive work/life balance everyone was seeking. I was craving growth, excellence, teamwork, adventure and respect: all things I knew this job would provide. The job required me to be moldable, ready to adapt quickly to any context, industry, team, or client. A blank slate with no specific needs or desires, aiming for perfection. I was game and ready to prove myself.

The world had already decided this job was exceptional. I was going to do what I needed to do to keep it.

What I didn’t fully conceptualize at the time was that at 23, I was also craving belonging.

This was my first “big girl” job. Would I make friends? Would I like my teams? Would I be accepted? Would I feel seen? Would I be good enough?

I soon discovered there was nowhere for those vulnerable questions to be explored in this professional environment, so I covered them up and kept them hidden. Secretly hoping the professional armor I had wrapped around myself was strong enough to protect me from revealing my humanity; lest it be used against me.

Shockingly at first, and then deceptively quickly, my job took over my life. I gave it my best hours, creative ideas, and suppressed tears.

I loved parts of it. I was flying all over the country and staying in beautiful hotels. Being with McKinsey meant organizations opened their doors to my curiosity. I had opportunities to lead qualitative interviews with leaders who were 20 years my senior. I got to work side by side with incredible clients invested in transforming their workplaces and lead workshops across their businesses focused on improving the way people worked together. The intense culture of mentorship and feedback meant I was constantly learning from the people around me.

I felt challenged, important, and engaged.

But the spectrum of valued behavior was too rigid for me. In service of being professionals, we closed ourselves off to intuition, creativity, empathy, and play. The rigidity and perfectionism not only instigated a highly anxious environment, it was also deeply boring to my soul. The mess is where the beauty and interesting bits lie.

Plus even with the intellectual problem solving, the lifestyle was all take, take, take. We were fed a steady diet of cortisol, urgency, and expensed meals that were too caloric to eat on a random Tuesday. We were missing connection, collaboration, and support.

I would close my laptop at 11 and find myself laying in bed buzzing, running through everything I needed to accomplish the next day. My job became a permanent fixture on the anxiety loop installed in my mind. I told myself I could stomach the long nights, intense days, and new block of stress now seemingly fixed on my neck.

It would all be worth it. It all had to be worth it…

I overrode my body and my instincts in the name of high performance and belonging to this elite group. I had always prided myself on being excellent and meeting the expectations asked of me. I wasn’t going to stop now.

Over time, my inner knowing slowly rebelled and forced me to set small boundaries. But even without working past 10:30pm, it was clear, my job was playing the number one love in my life.

I feared if I didn’t give it all of me, they wouldn’t want me at all.

Every year in my relationship with this job, we had “the talk,” where we evaluated how things were going.

My job had such impact on my self-esteem, that it felt like my entire personhood was being evaluated in these performance reviews. I anxiously awaited the news. Would they love me, or at the very least accept the me I had worked so hard to carefully perform? This was also the first time I was being evaluated as a full-time professional. I had a big desire for validation.

The feedback came back just OK. The job wasn’t sure I was marriage material but assured me it was still excited to see where things could go.

I was crushed. ALL THAT FOR THIS? I cursed myself for giving this job all of me. What was the point of all this contorting and hustling if they weren’t even sure about me?

My pride was big.

Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough? Maybe if I got to the right content, or person, or client, (the elusive unicorn), this whole job would click for me. My competitive spirit whispered, “This job won’t beat you.”

So I kept fighting. I kept trying to mold myself to make the relationship work. But multiple years in, the wheels came off.

I was functioning as a highly competent professional, yet finding myself in random places overwhelmed and needing to cry— a hertz bathroom, my hotel room, the drive to the client. At a conscious level I was ignoring my needs, but my body was working overtime to signal that something was really wrong. The tears would pour out of me as I desperately tried to pinpoint my misery.

I felt empty. That emptiness was slowly becoming despair.

It would be another two years before I understood the consequences of ignoring my body, but at 27, to my shock I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.

I had literally developed ulcers in the lining of my colon.

I felt shame.

I had failed myself.

Grief. My healthy body (and my identity as a healthy person) seemed to be crumbling.

Pain. I was physically uncomfortable most days.

I understood without even being able to understand, that my life would never be the same.

If you go on a date with someone and they are not for you, it’s easy to walk away. But when you have invested years of yourself in a relationship, when you have fallen in love with the potential of what something could be, it’s hard to leave. When it’s your first love, it’s terrifying.

What if walking away means I am unlovable? What if I never find anything like this again? What if this is as good as it gets?

What if this is failing because I am just not trying hard enough?

You realize that when you walk away, you have to let go of what could be.

There’s no more fighting. It will never be what it could have been.

It just is, what it always was. 🤯

Even with the illness, leaving broke my heart.

I said goodbye to amazing colleagues and mentors, a wonderful paycheck, and everything that could have been.

I left angry. For all the times I didn’t feel seen, was encouraged to override my own instincts, or was scolded for wanting to slow down, listen to more perspectives, or push something off to the morning. For the times I advocated for telling the truth or seeking balance and was ignored.

Why did I need to be the one to leave? Why couldn't they change?

Falling in love again

Waiting on other people (or organizations) to change is a failed mission. They may surprise you and change on their own, but they never change on our timelines.

I was working for a company that had comparison, perfectionism, and scarcity in its bones. They wouldn't change for me.

If I wanted a company that values authenticity, experimentation, and abundance I would have to go find it...or build it.

I set about building it. 🥳

As an ambitious, insecure 25-year-old I thought my evaluation ratings would determine my future.

Now as a 30-year-old, I realize I do.

When I left, I decided I would rather lose this job than completely lose myself.

Since then, I work ever day on not letting myself go. 💚

I am not perfect as my own boss. Honestly when I started, I was a terrible manager, and let myself down a lot. Turns out sometimes it's easier to be angry at the system, then take responsibility for creating something different. I had a lot to unlearn.

I was used to getting things done by using my emotional intelligence to please others.

I was used to committing to ambitious, unrealistic timelines that were always right on the brink of failure...to stay high on adrenaline.

I learned that being a professional meant being invulnerable.

But with a lot of work, things have shifted.

Year after year my trust within myself, to treat myself in the way I want to be treated grows.

That young woman who tried on a dark business formal dress, with perfect blown-out hair, reassuring herself in the mirror she was believable as a business woman…is now just a woman who runs her own business…wearing pops of color, curves, and natural hair. 💜

Even though she makes mistakes, she’s building on her own terms. Her success is linked to her big ass brain, AND her full heart. It’s her job to delight in other humans everyday, and help them reimagine their success. It's her job to help organizations weave excellence AND empathy into the way they get work done.

Her creativity, empathy, intuition, and ambition are no longer her liabilities but her superpowers.

Heartbreak can be excruciating. But without this heartbreak, I wouldn’t have had the courage or conviction to fall in love with myself.

Sincerely,

Isabel

P.S. Resonate with this? Message me or schedule time here to chat.