I had been the marketing & communication director of an international brand for three years when I started feeling exhausted physically but also drained emotionally. Interestingly enough, it was neither the busiest time of the year at work or I haven’t received any new projects etc that might have made me feel under extra stress or brought in the need to prove myself… I was totally in my comfort zone, things were going fine and there wasn’t any visible reason why I was feeling so demotivated or tired.
Still, it was getting harder and harder to drag myself to work every morning. I was going in late but still doing everything that was required. But things have started to look meaningless; anything I did, I did with thirty percent of capacity. I was not even close to using my full potential and then I realized; I wasn’t finding joy in anything I did for the company anymore – and I was in the opening team of it which means we as a team have created its work culture, worked very hard as a great team to make the business work and had a strong loyalty and ownership for it…
Realizing this was both sad – how did I even get to this point? – and relaxing – now I knew why I was feeling so down. Looking closer in, I found out that the values of the organization were no more in line with my values and they were not the same values we had set while opening the business. With the change of times, conditions, executives etc. we have forgotten to remember them, reinforce them and somewhere on the way, while we were all too busy making money to achieve the annual budget, we have lost them. That was why I wasn’t feeling I belonged anymore and that anything I accomplished would actually “mean” something and add value.
When you don’t truly have faith in what you do, you cannot drag it for a life time, not for the sake of any financial benefit, you cannot hide it; from yourself or others. It just pops up at a point. So; this was my pop up moment.
I quit my job and started working on my own brand consultancy & culture agency with a long time friend as my partner. It was so much fun to think on what core value we could bring in for brands, what made us different, our own positioning statement, projects, the website etc. And although we didn’t have the luxury of getting monthly pay checks anymore until our first client was on board, I felt I was breathing again and full of live and creative energy again…
We are still far from being rich; but as writer Henry David Thoreau says; “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” And what I gave up was an uninspiring and dull 8 hours everyday! A lot of time never worth spending that way because it was my life I was spending so recklessly!
Although still trying to balance things, I confidently say now that it was the right decision for me. As the only right time to do something, anything is “now”…