A defining moment in my life came after working for eight years in the corporate world at various advertising and communications agencies for many big brands. I’m a workaholic by nature, staring from when I was in school earning extra credit and ensuring I made honor role. When I began working, this mindset extended into my work as I didn’t stop till the work was done, which meant many many late nights. As a newly married gal who was barely seeing her husband, I started to get burned out and asked myself, “is this what having a career supposed to look like?” Was it supposed to leave me drained of energy and rob me of my joy for life?
I decided to join my mom’s interior design business as she was re-branding and moving to a new location. We combined her interior design skills with my graphic design + communications skills to create many new offerings such as Branded Spaces, Ambience Living Spaces and Ambienceexpress.com. I ended up taking my workaholic tendencies right along with me. When my son came along a few years later, I thought I could carry on with my work as I always had, completely underestimating the time and energy it took to raise a small child. Enter many more emotional breakdowns of “what was wrong with me?” and “why can’t I handle this?” that ensued in the years after he was born. The burnout was happening again. This struggle made me desire even more freedom and flexibility in my life so that I could still work at my passions while being there for my family.
Surely there were answers for me out there, and I was on a mission to find them. I listened to every podcast, watched every video and read every article that might help me find the answer.
I’ve learned that burnout can occur when your work is out of alignment with your values, when it’s not contributing to your long-term goals or when you are trying to figure out what you stand for. For me, building my personal brand was no longer a “nice to have” but a necessity for expressing my most authentic self. It is my intention to share my journey in the hopes that it will inspire you to find better work/life balance and design a personal brand that creates opportunities for more fulfilling work.
How can you tie your values and mission into your work? Start by creating your personal mission statement – what do you stand for and why? It will help give you a deeper understanding of what you find most important and what elements are missing in your life or work. There is much more along your personal journey, however gaining clarity is a wonderful starting point.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” -Rumi