A Year After I Quit & Graduated - Becoming After Burnout
✨ One year ago, I did two things that changed everything:
I quit a job that no longer aligned with me, and I crossed a stage with an MBA in Strategy & Marketing.
On paper? It looked perfect. Inside? It felt like grief, relief, and the dizzying question: who am I now, if not what I do?
🎓 Graduation, But Make It a Mirror: Career Pivot Reflections
This graduation season, I watched from the other end of the stage — as staff. Almost ten months into a new role in graduate admissions, life looks the same in some ways… but feels completely different.
Standing in front of the podium this time, I caught my reflection: someone who traded certainty for alignment; someone still learning what it means to live beyond burnout.
If you want to see what it felt like just weeks after I quit, here’s the raw piece I wrote back then.
🧠 Burnout Recovery Isn’t Linear: Accepting Duality After Hustle
When I quit, I imagined instant relief. And for a couple of weeks, that was true.
But relief faded. Doubt came back. Some mornings, I still woke up anxious, feeling behind — wondering if I had just made things worse.
Acknowledging my worth led me to walk away — I quit, recognizing I deserved more: more rest, more appreciation, and more room to grow. Letting go was tough, yet necessary for embracing brighter possibilities.
Like a mood ring, my decision‑making pendulum still swings on opposite ends. Self‑doubt is like a stubborn weed: it creeps back no matter how many times you think you’ve pulled it out. Some days, I feel brave enough to try something new… and then freeze because it feels too risky. I had never been a procrastinator until now, and it’s something I barely recognize in myself.
Yet this year, I’ve kept moving anyway — even small (hesitant) steps count. The proof is in the blog, funny enough.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a raw, emotional piece about trying to move forward — while carrying the consequences of abuse alone. It was bitter, resentful, yet still quietly appreciative (just barely) of how pain can be the soil for growth.
Now, I see it with clearer eyes. I’m still working toward where I want to be in my mental health journey, career, and life — but today, I feel a deeper gratitude for the pain that shaped me.
The biggest lesson? Good and “bad” feelings can coexist. Both are necessary to move forward.
Acceptance doesn’t mean excusing what hurt you — it means choosing, again and again, to stop reliving it every day.
✍️ Advising, Healing & Gaslighting Yourself
Ever the sentimentalist, I’ve been doing extra soul‑searching (clearly).
One thing I’m grateful for in both my past and current roles? Providing mentorship. Funny how a shy, self‑proclaimed introvert discovered advising as a driving value in my professional life.
Yet so many students have told me: “I didn’t apply because I didn’t think I was good enough.”
From where I stand now, it seems so obvious they are enough. Yet I still get it — because I’ve felt it too. Even on the “other side” of graduation, that fear creeps in.
No one really tells you how hard it is to juggle burnout from staying stuck too long while navigating a career pivot reflection. The insecurity that comes after years of gaslighting yourself first — so no one else can say it to you.
Part of healing from trauma and burnout recovery has been relearning how to advocate for myself. So when someone asks, “Well, what have you actually done?” I don’t freeze — I answer, not for them, but for me.
🔧 Restructuring My Life Like a Process Map
I went to a process improvement 101 conference recently.
“The only way to be efficient is to know where you’re headed, and then break down the steps to get there.” Or something like that- you get the idea.
My instinct was “Duh.” But in real life? I wasn’t doing that.
So I started asking:
What actually matters to me now?
What drains me vs. what fuels me?
Am I living a life I chose — or one I defaulted into? And hand-in-hand with that, how do I protect my time to focus on what aligns with me, both personally and professionally? (Newsflash: this requires saying “no thank you” a lot at work, which is still a cringe feeling).
Some answers surprised me; others scared me. But each answer helped me move from a wannabe jack of all trades to living more intentionally.
That clarity also helped me notice patterns from my mental health journey, including living with C‑PTSD — how survival coping showed up at work and in life.
Which BTW led to something kinda creative (don’t mind if I toot my own horn here). In an effort to deal with the lingering mind fog of burnout, I created an accomplishment tracker aka the Wins in Color Tracker.
🌈 The Wins in COLOR Framework: Reflecting & Winning in Color
The tracker uses a simple but powerful framework I called Wins in COLOR:
C — Context: what happened? what challenge or moment are you capturing?
O — Objective: what was your goal or intention?
L — Learnings & Leadership: what did you do, decide, or change? how did you step up?
O — Outcome: what was the impact or growth, even if small?
R — Reflection: how did it feel? what aligns (or doesn’t) with your values?
Why COLOR?
Because it fits my Living in Color brand — but more importantly, it reflects how real growth isn’t black & white. It happens in gradients: doubt and courage, setbacks and progress, burnout and becoming.
I tried to find one that worked for me, but everything felt too focused on technicalities — and, sorry, too ugly (looks matter here, okay?). Also, it tracks not just tasks, but reflections: moments of growth, alignment to values, emotional energy, and even proudness levels — because healing is as much about noticing the small wins as it is about big milestones.
What I really needed was a way to recognize what I am capable of doing, and also a tool to self-reflect and redirect when needed — because it’s too easy to fall down the people-pleasing rabbit hole vortex. And let’s be honest: that’s how some of us end up with burnout as our shadow.
✨ Want it?
You can download the Wins in COLOR Accomplishment Tracker by subscribing to the blog.
It’s pretty (who doens’t love Canva), functional, and built to help you:
Track your wins and your learnings
Reflect on alignment with your values
Re-center when perfectionism or self-doubt shows up
Why it matters:
Creating it reminded me: burnout recovery isn’t just about resting — it’s about reframing how we see our worth. Because even on days when self-doubt whispers loudest, there is something worth capturing, even if it’s tiny.
💍 What Goes Around Comes Around: Love & Risk
P.S. I’ve kinda been too busy living life — apologies to all two of my followers.
In an ironic twist of timing, as I closed one chapter, I started another. Flashes new bling — guess who’s engaged? Hope I didn’t blind you *wink* #sorrynotsorry
“What goes around comes around” used to sound like karma. Now, I see it differently: how God can spin pain into purpose.
When I first started my MBA, my 10-year on-off relationship unraveled through a traumatic experience that changed not only the relationship but my identity. Two years later, I found myself asking: Can I love again without losing myself?
It was a cold night on January 3rd when we had our first real date- anticipation building like the frost on the windshields every morning.
At first, it felt terrifying to be real about what I wanted — to actually say it out loud instead of hiding behind passive requests and resentment. But like grad school, I realized the only way out was through. Painful, messy, but necessary.
In what felt like a whirlwind, I found myself in a secure relationship that, ironically, made me feel insecure — because vulnerability was new. And with time, stumbles, and an infinite pool of patience, we got to the other side. And loved each other more for it.
In both love and career, choosing alignment meant risking rejection — but also inviting something more true.
🌿 Burnout’s Lingering Shadows & Re‑growth
Burnout doesn’t exit cleanly.
I’m still forgetful, like an older computer that freezes when too many tabs are open. New stress — like wedding planning — still brings shutdown.
Post‑graduation, I thought life would snap into place, like magic. Now, I feel what I once only knew: good things take time.
We’re all little plants: staying grounded, pruning old growth, lifting toward the sun.
I’m also learning to rebuild my professional voice. Nine years built it; doubt and dismissal nearly erased it. MBA leadership awards be damned, apparently.
☕ Bitterness, Acceptance & Becoming
Some lessons tasted bitter:
Letting go of a job I once loved to embrace a new identity and healing.
Accepting that recovery takes longer (and messier) than expected.
Facing days where anxiety still speaks louder than hope.
But there was sweetness too:
A new job that aligns with my values, values me, and gives me more opportunities.
Engagement and new beginnings.
A clearer sense of what truly matters (on most days).
🌸 One Year Later: Beyond Burnout
This isn’t a how-to guide for quitting. It’s a reflection on becoming:
beyond burnout
beyond perfectionism
beyond fear
If you’re somewhere in between — doubting, rebuilding, grieving — you’re not behind. You’re becoming.
And while I’m still warming up to my new normal, I’m choosing to find my still moments: being present for what I’ve lost, grateful for what I’ve gained, preferably over a cup of tea.
