Speaker 1: 0:01

Riding the employment roller coaster can be exhausting. Change fatigue is real. It becomes important to tune into yourself, set boundaries and recognize your limits. The risk is full-on burnout. There was a period in my career that I describe as I couldn't keep a job. Don't get me wrong my paycheck was issued by the same employer for those several years. It's just that we reorganized so regularly that my responsibilities changed every six to nine months. That fatigue brought me to a point where I felt I might spontaneously combust. Thankfully, another option appeared.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Hi, I'm Becky Fraser, an award-winning coach, author and entrepreneur. I'm also a leader shaped by decades of experience, inviting others on a journey towards adaptable leadership and fulfilled potential. Welcome to Short Story Long. Today is a novella. These episodes share the journeys between the inflection points. They still have growth, a little drama and insights, just in a smaller package.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Sometimes you find a rhythm of working and don't check in with yourself. Things can get a bit more off the rails than you think that they are. At one point I was working in a fast-paced and interesting workplace. Some of my best HR years were in this environment and I was learning all of the time. It was truly fabulous until well, until it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 1:38

The changes started coming fast and not always with clear purpose. If you've been listening to previous episodes, you've probably picked up that I thrive in times of change. Still, even I have a limit. So many organizational changes were happening and often came with soul-crushing layoff conversations. Those who remained were then figuring out how to do as much or more with fewer people. As one of the architects for designing these changes, my heart and soul were shrinking into tiny little pieces. The stress of decisions and a heavy travel schedule was taking a toll on me. When my business unit was put up for sale, I could have been part of building an HR system from the ground up. It would have been a heavily tactical role, but a whole new landscape for me. As an alternative, I had a chance to transfer to a different business unit into a far more strategic role. I chose the more strategic opportunity role. I chose the more strategic opportunity.

Speaker 1: 2:48

The transition certainly had its highs and lows, though once more I learned a great deal about the work and about myself. The appeal of the strategic opportunity was very strong for me because it was a chance to really define a role that had never existed before, and I was able to do project work with different business leaders and I was in that place of really driving business from an HR seat and that meant a lot to me. And when it comes to building structures and policies and procedures, that's really not my strength and my core capability. I'm really more of a big picture kind of thinker and coming up with ideas for how things might be done differently. And once it gets to those locked in elements of this is how we do it. My brain is already jumping to what else can we change?

Speaker 1: 3:45

What I realized as I made that transition was that contentment in your career means choosing based on what interests and energizes you instead of based on what you can do. What you can do is far broader than what you want to do. When two viable choices arise, letting your heart get more airtime in that decision-making helps you make a more powerful choice. I love a good spreadsheet and analyzing data, but I am not meant for getting down into the details and figuring out how things should work in the more detailed pieces of HR. So staying in place to set up an HR department would have been interesting, but not a source of joy for me. Going into that strategic role, as I said, really opened up my heart to possibility and I had to listen to that Speaking of connecting to your body and listening.

Speaker 1: 4:47

When I was in that role, before I moved, I was breaking out into hives from stress. It took me a long time to figure that out. Emotionally and verbally, I had to keep strict controls in place and I still had unintended outbursts that usually got me into a little bit of trouble at that time. At one point I actually mentally blacked out during a one-on-one with my boss. I remember sitting at my desk, having the conversation over the phone and apparently I left and drove home, but I didn't have any memory of doing that, of doing that.

Speaker 1: 5:35

That was a turning point for me. I realized that I was in a place, emotionally and physically, that needed me to change and take a different route. That said, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. There is no employment utopia greener on the other side. There is no employment utopia, though we can have seasons of it. I had to learn to tune in to how I was feeling so that I could guide myself, and that meant that I could influence and persuade other people with my best self and my best energy, and it took a little time for me to sort that out.

Speaker 1: 6:12

Looking back at that time in my career, I'm incredibly grateful that I made the choice that I did. I recognized what was important to me professionally and made the choice to pursue that. I was able to find the path toward healing toward healing, even though it took a really long time to fully recover from the stress-induced physical trauma that I had experienced. Naturally, since change appears to be my middle name, it didn't take long for me to attract another inflection point into my life. Once more, opportunity knocks and I had to choose how to answer, but that's another story. Thank you for listening to my story. My hope is that you will get insights for leading as you. If you know someone who would benefit from this episode, be sure to share it. Interested in connecting with me on LinkedIn, drop me a note telling me where you found me. The link will be in the show notes. Okay, bye.