In 2017, I burnt out. It wasn’t a gradual slide, it was a full stop.

I don’t usually tell the whole story. But I think it’s time.

How I got there

I’d been out of the Royal Navy for two years. I’d served for twenty-three years, and when I left I didn’t just leave a job. I left an identity. My self-esteem was shaky. I was trying to prove I belonged in the corporate world, and that need to prove myself drove a lot of what followed.

I took on a £600,000 sales target at PA Consulting. I’d never done sales before. I was deployed on client work at 85-90% utilisation when the norm was 65%, but still expected to generate the same level of sales as everyone else. So some of my work happened on the train. I had two hours each way, Southampton to London. I did my emails, calls, proposals, and line management. My commute wasn’t restful. The train became a second office, for an additional four hours a day.

For months, I wasn’t even based at home. Sometimes I was in hotels around the country. I was away from everything familiar working twelve-hour days, five days a week, with nothing left at the weekends.  And if you’ve done it yourself, you will know that hotel life is lonely.

I knew. I just didn’t know what to do.

I could feel it. I was chewing my fingernails, picking at the skin around my fingers. I was exhausted in a way sleep didn’t touch. I had no energy for anything outside of work.

I knew I was stressed. I just didn’t have a plan for what to do about it.

So I tried what felt right. High-intensity exercise like Body Pump and spin classes, that left me physically shattered on top of everything else. My body needed calm, and I was giving it combat.  Interestingly, someone I hold in high regard told me this.  I mean, I heard it, but I’m not sure I really listened.

I was doing the right thing in the wrong way. The effort was there but the tools were wrong.

The breaking point and the turning point

Eventually, my body made the decision my brain wouldn’t. I went to France for a month and then took another two months off. Three months in total.

When I went back to work, PA were very supportive and gave me a coach. That coach changed things for me.

They didn’t tell me what to do but they helped me understand how I’d got there. They helped me to understand what was really driving the patterns, not just the obvious stuff like hours and workload, but the deeper things. We considered identity and the stories I was telling myself about who I needed to be. We explored my relationship with status and proving myself.

Once I understood that, the rest started to make sense. I could see the boundaries that I needed to introduce. I understood the tools that would actually help. It wasn’t always easy, but it had become obvious.

I was fortunate enough to have a coach allocated to me and I know that not many people get that luxury. Even though so many of us need exactly that kind of help.

Where I am now

I’m not cured. I still chew the skin around my fingernails when stress creeps up. I still have weeks where I don’t take my own advice. The difference is that I see it coming earlier. Morning walks with my partner, a separate phone for work, closing my office door deliberately, trying to do a shorter working week and strict weekends are just some of my tools. None of them are revolutionary, all of them hard-won. All of them make a difference to my stress. 

What I wish I’d known

If I could talk to my 2017 self, I’d tell her this:

“Knowing you’re stressed is only the first step. Knowing what to do about it is a skill, not an instinct. The tools you reach for matter. The thing that feels like it’s helping might be making things worse. You don’t have to hit rock bottom before you take action.

Sometimes you can’t see the answer on your own. That’s not because you’re not capable. It’s because you’re too close. Getting help with that isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom.”

My experience taught me that stress is deeply personal. What was driving my burnout was completely different from what drives someone else’s. My triggers, my patterns, my needs were mine. The generic advice, the “top ten tips for managing stress” articles, the one-size-fits-all wellbeing workshops, they didn’t touch the sides because they weren’t designed for me. They were designed for everyone, which means they were designed for no one.

That’s what my coach helped me see. The solution had to start with understanding what was going on for me specifically, not applying someone else’s formula.

After my experience, I built a framework around that principle. The S.T.R.E.S.S.™ Framework. It’s a structured way to do what my coach helped me do: understand your own stress from the inside out, diagnose what’s really driving it, and build a personalised plan that addresses your causes, not just your symptoms. Your stress isn’t the same as anyone else’s, so your solution shouldn’t be either.

I created it because I wanted to make that kind of guided, personalised exploration accessible. You shouldn’t need a corporate budget or a breakdown to get help.

I run a 2-hour online workshop based on the S.T.R.E.S.S.™ Framework. It costs about the same or less than one therapy session, and you walk away with a workbook and a plan. If you’re ready, book yourself in let's have a chat. No pitch. Just a conversation.