About 3 years after my wedding – there is no other way to put this — all hell broke loose. On the upside, our leadership coaching and training business was booming. We were growing in staff, clients and revenue every year. On the down side, I was full-throttle back into over-work mode: travelling constantly to work with clients, co-authoring a book, and trying to co-lead a firm while realizing that my business partner and I had fundamentally different strategies and approaches. My work — once a source of fun and fulfillment — was a now place of growing conflict and stress.
On a personal note, my husband’s company came within a hair’s breadth of laying him off, three different times within an 18 month period. My father was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. And my husband and I were struggling to address and heal my younger daughter’s life-threatening depression.
I was working like a mad woman, day and night, and on the road constantly for business and to help care for my father down in Atlanta. My nights and weekends were filled with parenting and household responsibilities. As a result, I was so consumed by my list of to-do’s, and my fears of forgetting something or dropping the ball on something (or someone) important, that I literally never took a break. I was running on fumes for the second time in my life, with little sleep, no exercise, and almost non-existent play time with friends or quiet time alone with myself.
Long story short, the breakdowns started fast and furious – in my business partnership, my personal relationships, my own health, and in my ability to focus mentally and sustain the energy physically required to deal with everything on my plate. Bottom line, my attempt to take care of everyone but me completely backfired; the world I carried on my shoulders was literally more than I could control, or even multi-task my way through.
While the circumstances around my lack of balance were different this time, I began to realize that the constant in this equation was me. I knew something had to change, and the only thing I had control over was truly my own choices and actions. (I certainly couldn’t control my dad’s cancer, nor my daughter’s depression, and clearly not my business partner.) I could keep falling apart or I could do this differently — not only for my own health and happiness, but so I could be there for the ones I loved the most. So I did the only thing I knew to do…
