Reality, Check

Prioritizing Well-being over Work

The Beginning

Let me tell you a story about how I changed my life. From being an ambitious go-getter, hungry for her next promotion to someone whose goals now have very little to do with climbing the corporate ladder. This is an introduction, a preface, perhaps, sharing my why and the necessity of this shift. My plan for this Substack is to talk about how I have de-centered my career, what I focus on instead, and what value those things bring into my life. The irony is that I don't think I’ve ever been a better product manager than when I am not optimizing for being the best product manager I could be. I’m more confident in my professional abilities than ever, and I think it is largely a result of living a more fulfilling, creative, and satisfying life.

Anyway, here is my story. A part of it, at least.

My Downfall

In 2021, I found myself in one of the darkest moments of my life. There was no clear and obvious reason for this darkness, apart from perhaps a global pandemic. I had a good job, a loving relationship, a great Seattle apartment, caring friends, a supportive family, and I was pursuing my MBA part-time. I thought I was doing all the right things, everything I should be doing to lead a successful life. But I never paused to ask myself how I defined success, and only later realized that I was working towards someone else's definition.

I looked to the end of my MBA program like it would be a major release—finally I would have time again! I’d be able to pursue my own interests guilt-free, my weekends would no longer be consumed with homework, I’d be able to help my husband with dinner on Mondays instead of sitting in 3-hour lectures after work! I couldn’t wait.

Instead, I crashed. Rather than having the time and energy to do all the fun things I wanted to do, I could barely get out of bed. I was going through the motions of my life, finding no satisfaction in my work or hobbies. I had work/life balance from a time perspective—looking back I sometimes miss how not busy I was—but I was bored and that boredom made me feel frantic. It felt like every day a hive of bees was buzzing in my brain, under my skin, seeking a way out, while my body was too depleted to release them. I was burnt out, and I didn’t even realize it.

My doctor was the first person to clue me in that something was wrong. During my annual wellness exam, I filled out a depression and anxiety screening questionnaire.

“Your results are concerning. Are you feeling depressed?”

“Isn’t everyone these days?” I joked.

“No,” she replied, not laughing.

She calmly and compassionately talked me through her concerns, laying out options for me to consider. Medication, a leave of absence. I resisted. I was fine. She was being dramatic.

Like so many things in life, once attention was brought to it, it became hard not to notice. I felt depleted by the end of the day, constantly critiquing myself for not getting enough done, shaming myself for my inability to keep up with chores, feeling like I wasn’t pulling my weight in my relationship. It felt like the only thing I was doing well was kicking myself when I was already down. I discussed it in therapy; I discussed it with my husband. We tried to keep tabs on my mental health, but I had become so accustomed to needing things to be fine that I was lying to myself about how not fine they were. Not to mention, the downward slide had been so gradual that I hadn’t seen it happening. Not until I was already close to the bottom.

A lot of what I was feeling was centered around work, my job, my career progression, what was expected of me, why I didn’t feel good about the work I was doing. I hyper-focused on finding a new job, feeling a frenzied need to get out of my current one. My closest friends knew how I was feeling, what my doctor had recommended, and tried encouraging me to pause the job search and focus on me. I didn’t listen.

One day, my fiancé (now husband) came home from work and found me curled up in the fetal position on our bed, no energy to do anything else. He came in and comforted me while I cried, not even sure why I was upset. I’d like to say that this was what made me take my health seriously, but it was only by the third time this happened that I knew something needed to change.

My husband blew my mind that day. He told me I could just quit. This honestly never occurred to me as an option. I was the breadwinner. I had worked so hard to attain a comfortable lifestyle. I needed financial security. Just quit? The idea was ridiculous.

“We can figure it out,” he told me. “Nothing is more important than your health. If we need to move to a cheaper apartment, we will. If we need to move in with my parents, we can do that. But we can’t keep doing this.”

I was shocked. I was just a little tired. I just needed to try harder. I was the problem; quitting wasn't going to solve anything. All the objections and lies bubbled up inside me, fighting for dominance against my husband's care and compassion for my well-being. Luckily, this time, they lost.

My Recovery

I scheduled a follow-up with my doctor the next day, explaining how I was increasingly unwell and wanted to further discuss what taking a leave of absence would look like. I emailed recruiters, thanking them for their time and informing them I was removing my own candidacy, which at the time, felt incredibly wrong. What if I was missing out on a huge opportunity? What if this was my only chance to find a new job? My brain tried very hard to come up with reasons not to focus on my wellbeing, but with the support of my friends and family, I pushed past the lies I was telling myself. I put what little energy I had into taking steps towards getting better.

I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to have a husband, friends, and to have had a healthcare provider who opened my eyes, cared for me, and pushed me to prioritize my own health. Even when it felt like failing, like weakness.

It was one of the most difficult, and most rewarding, things I have ever done for myself. I questioned myself every step of the way, downplaying my experience, shaming myself for using a benefit created for people with “real problems”. But I did it, I went on leave for three months.

The moment I realized I had made the right decision was a simple one. After lunch, I cleaned up and put my dishes in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink. I started crying. I had lost count off the number of times I had walked into the kitchen over the prior months, stared at the dishes in the sink, frozen in place, physically and mentally incapable of performing the simple act of cleaning them up. I immediately texted my husband the good news—I had cleaned up after myself, it had been easy, and it had felt so good. I never realized something so small could feel like such a big accomplishment, but I was so proud of myself. It was a sign that things were getting better.

Finding Meaning

Throughout the first two months of leave, I made a point to ignore anything work related, anything tech related, anything relating to product management. My only goal was to rediscover myself, understand my values, understand what brought me joy. Remember that I am more than a job or a promotion. I went on a hiking trip with my best friend to Utah. I taught myself how to sew, which I had been wanting to do for years. I started painting for the first time since I was a teenager. I worked out, I went on walks, I read books, I watched trashy TV shows. I started making myself the center of my world. I started prioritizing my relationships and my interests instead of my job.

It was only in the last month before returning to work where I pushed myself back into exploring product management and the evolution of my career. I started to understand two things:

1. I had been living a life that was largely antithetical to my values

2. I liked product management

I had often wondered over the course of the first two months whether a career change was in order. It was validating and healing to recognize that I had genuine interest in my chosen career. The values piece would take a bit longer to unravel, but what was clear was that the job I was returning to was no longer a good fit (if it ever was). I was tired of getting feedback to “be more technical”. I was tired of fighting for product-forward and design-driven thinking in the team (and constantly losing the fight). It was clear that what I wanted (to deepen my knowledge, skills, and experience in a product-led environment) was not aligned with the team and company culture of my current role.

These realizations unlocked new momentum for me. I felt like, for the first time in a long time, I was moving towards something. I knew what I wanted, and I could see what I needed to do to get there. I had learned to take better care of myself, and what the warning signals were when I stopped. I had a renewed sense of purpose, and genuine excitement for what was next.

I was able to interview with more discernment, accounting for what I wanted from my next role and not trying to fit the mould the company was looking for. I paid attention to how I felt after an interview. Was I more anxious than before it had started? Did I feel self-conscious about my responses? Was I excited to spend more time with the interviewer? Did we end up digressing and connecting on how we might solve problems together? Did I just get a good or bad vibe, even if I couldn’t put my finger on why? I, of course, also had a list of more tangible criteria with which I was evaluating opportunities, but for the first time I was also bringing my nervous system and its responses into the conversation.

And it worked. Within 4 months after returning to work, I was starting a new job that I was really looking forward to.

I’d like to say that that was that and all was solved, that I happily went on with the rest of my life. But that would be a lie. The truth is the biggest realization coming out of my leave of absence was that I needed to decenter work and productivity from my life. That I needed to build creativity into my life in a meaningful way. And that is, in itself, work. It requires vigilance, effort, support, boundaries. Many of these were extremely uncomfortable, many of them still are. It’s incredibly easy to convince yourself to compromise on your priorities when life gets busy, to procrastinate on things that don’t seem like a necessity when your to-do list is a mile long.

The posts that follow will document how I try to maintain balance, what I have introduced into my life to keep me sane, and how I find joy even when I’m stressed. It’s not easy, and it is not perfect, but my sincere hope is that even one person might take a moment and consider how they can take better care of themselves by focusing less on the “shoulds” and more on what keeps them fulfilled.

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