I’ve just quit one of my jobs, and without doubt it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.
I am a self-proclaimed people pleaser. I hate upsetting people. I hate letting people down. I like to do things that make others happy.
“Can you do this for me?”
“Yeah, of course I can.”
Except… I couldn’t. And for a long time, that way of living led me down a very dark path.
At the time, I had three jobs, a partner, a dog, and two teenage girls. That alone is a full-capacity life. School runs, pick-ups, drop-offs, feeding, nurturing, and providing emotional support keep us constantly connected to teenagers in this day and age. One of my daughters was struggling at school, and everything already felt heavy. For anyone else, adding anything extra would have been unrealistic.
But not me.
I was cleaning two full days and two half days, doing marketing one day a week, and fitting marking in whenever I could. I worked all day, came home, did what I could for the kids, then worked on the computer late into the night. I was exhausted … but always available.
The marking job was relentless. I couldn’t get a solid block of time to sit down and focus because I was constantly up and down with the kids or picking up extra bits for my marketing job. That job was supposed to be one day a week, but because of who I am, I’d do “just one more thing” for clients.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course I can.
But I couldn’t.
For almost a year, I became a machine. Even when I was socialising, my head was elsewhere. Thinking about what I needed to do when I got home. My phone never stopped. Emails. Messages. Even when nothing was urgent, it all went onto a never-ending mental to-do list.
Work and personal life completely blurred together because how could they not? When people say “I don’t have time” and you quietly scoff… I genuinely didn’t have time. And it was entirely self-inflicted.
People-pleasing crippled me.
I was exhausted. I had no time for my partner and no emotional capacity for my kids. The girls would ask for something small, and I’d feel stressed. Not because of them, but because it was another thing on my list. They didn’t know it, but I was overflowing.
My partner tried to help. He really did. But it was like using buckets to empty a sinking ship that was filling twice as fast.
I lied constantly to myself.
“I’ll get caught up.”
“It’s just one job.”
“They’re not taking advantage.”
But I never got caught up. It wasn’t just one job. And the truth is … yes, some people were taking advantage, even if they didn’t realise it.
Something had to give.
My close friends could see me breaking. My best friend once commented that she was glad she wasn’t as stressed as me, and it really stuck. We even fell out over something petty. Not because it mattered, but because I was at full capacity.
My daughters were losing their mam.
My partner was losing his fiancée.
My family was losing my personality.
My friends were losing their friend.
And most importantly … I was losing myself.
I felt useless to the people who actually mattered. I felt like a robot.
This went on for nearly a year. Wobble after wobble. I kept blaming the wrong things instead of admitting the truth: something had to give. I knew I needed to quit one of my jobs but all I could think about was who I would upset.
Two of my jobs were straightforward. I started, and I finished. One wasn’t.
That job involved someone I loved. Someone who took a chance on me. Someone who genuinely tried to keep me happy at work. But it wasn’t just one boss … it was clients. Endless clients. Endless needs. Endless problems. Tech never ends. The work is unforgiving and invisible, and nobody really understands what it takes to keep everything running.
And because of who I am, if a client messaged, I’d respond. I couldn’t stick to a schedule, and this is partly because of how my brain works, but mostly because interruptions and people-pleasing always won.
That was the job with the biggest mental load and the most people attached to it. And that’s exactly why I couldn’t quit.
The people who unintentionally caused me the most stress were the very people I couldn’t bear to disappoint, even if it meant sacrificing my family.
Why????
I kept putting my “big girl pants” on and cracking on. Until one day, I couldn’t.
I went to the supermarket, drove into the car park, saw how busy it was and couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face people. If my phone pinged, I felt sick. I went to a smaller shop instead, thinking I’d be okay.
I wasn’t.
I sat in my car, and my body wouldn’t move. I was stuck. I rang my partner, who talked me round, and I went straight home.
In my first ebook, I talk about how for me to quit something, I have to hit lower than rock bottom. I was tired of feeling terrible because of drinking. When it came to vaping, I was tired of letting a tiny device control me. With binge eating, I was sick of feeling trapped in my own body.
This time, I was sick of people-pleasing.
I knew what I had to do: upset the most people.
I overthought the conversation all day, but I did it. I had the difficult conversation. I drafted the email to clients. Many told me they didn’t want me to leave. Some offered me ways to stay. The need for financial security and approval nearly pulled me back in.
But I didn’t.
And I was so unbelievably proud of myself.
I had to upset someone I love deeply. Someone in my very small circle. I had to put myself first because I was broken.
Was I being selfish? Maybe. But also, absolutely not.
Because I wasn’t myself. And when you’re not yourself, nobody gets the version of you they deserve. Not your family, not your friends, not your clients.
If I’m being completely honest, both my boss and my clients deserved better. I wasn’t at full capacity. Someone else could have done the job properly. My kids deserve a happy mother. I deserve to be able to give them that.
People-pleasing broke me. Genuinely.
I won’t go into detail here, but my partner ended up taking time off work to keep an eye on me. I wasn’t suicidal, but I was constantly on the edge of a breakdown. I couldn’t breathe. I felt trapped.
What helped me decide to make the difficult decision to quit my job was walking myself through worst-case scenarios.
What’s the worst that could happen if I leave?
What value does this job actually add to my life?
The money wasn’t worth it. It never is. The clients didn’t add value, but the friendship did, and I trusted that it would survive honesty. If it didn’t, then it wasn’t what I thought it was.
And the best-case scenario?
Freedom. Actual freedom.
This decision has forced me to start setting boundaries across the board. I’m not perfect. People-pleasing feels like an illness, but I’m learning. I had to hit the bottom to rebuild.
People-pleasing is a disease, and sometimes it needs cutting off completely.
Ask yourself the worst-case scenario. Is it really that bad?
Now ask yourself the best-case scenario.
I can almost guarantee it’s worth it.
