If you've ever found yourself wondering what is wrong with you, because you really don't enjoy your job, but everyone else seems to, then Septembers blog will help you to see why this may be the case, and more importantly, why you're not to blame.
I was chatting to an ex-colleague recently about an organisation that we both used to work in.
We worked for the same manager, in the same organisation, at the same time. I loved it and thought it was a great company to work for, whereas she really didn’t enjoy it and ended up leaving.
I enjoyed the role, I liked the company and I felt I could do some of my best work there. The environment gave me the opportunity to use my strengths, do work I enjoyed, solve problems and make things happen. I felt trusted and valued, and the way the organisation worked suited me.
My colleague's experience was very different.
She found aspects of the organisation incredibly frustrating. Things that didn't particularly bother me mattered much more to her. She struggled with some of the people and behaviours around her and, importantly, didn't feel that her own values were reflected in the organisation.
How could we both have had such very different experiences of the same workplace?
One left me feeling energised and engaged. The other left my colleague wondering what was wrong with her and thinking she had failed because she wanted to leave.
This is what I explore in Septembers blog.
We each arrive at work with our own strengths, values, expectations, experiences and needs. An environment that allows one person to thrive can leave someone else feeling constrained or frustrated.
Autonomy might feel liberating to someone who enjoys figuring things out for themselves, but to someone who values greater structure and collaboration, the same environment might feel unsupported. A fast-moving organisation where things are constantly changing might energise someone who loves variety and problem solving, yet someone who values consistency, process and time to consider decisions may find exactly the same environment exhausting.
These experiences lead us to draw conclusions about whether an organisation is a good or bad one, yet neither is necessarily true because it depends on our personal experience.
Looking back, one of the reasons I enjoyed that particular role was that I was able to spend a lot of my time doing things that came naturally to me. That doesn't mean the job was easy, didn’t have bad days, or that I was good at everything, but there was enough alignment between what the role required and where I naturally brought value.
When we do work that aligns with what we are naturally good at and enjoy, we can feel more engaged, confident and like we’re really contributing in a positive way. We have more capacity, enthusiasm and energy to apply to our work, and that comes across to others we are working with and maybe trying to influence.
The opposite can happen when a role requires us to spend too much time adapting.
We can do it, and experienced leaders become very good at adapting, but being capable of something doesn't necessarily mean it is sustainable or enjoyable.
Values create another thing to consider.
My colleague's frustration wasn't simply about whether she enjoyed the work. There were things about the organisation and the people within it that didn't sit comfortably with what mattered to her. The values affected how the team worked together and how aligned she felt within that team. With that mismatch, she really didn’t feel like she fitted and so she tried to fit.
But working against yourself becomes unsustainable over time.
Our values are personal and, again, they shape how we experience the very same environment and how we personally feel about it. Over time, those differences can create internal conflict.
As leaders, we like to think that we treat everyone in our teams with fairness and equity, but no matter how hard we try, there will always be some bias towards the people we connect with more easily.
The people we naturally connect with can be easier to work alongside. So it’s only natural that our individual experiences at work will also differ depending on the relationships we have with others. If we don’t feel that we ‘fit’ and we try to, that’s when we start adapting our behaviour and that impacts how we feel.
There's another part of this that I find particularly interesting.
It isn't only that two different people can experience the same workplace differently. The same person can experience the same workplace differently at different points in their life and career.
What worked for you five years ago might not work for you now. Your responsibilities, priorities and what you need change. Perhaps you've been through years of organisational change where your workload has gradually increased and you've had less time to recover between difficult periods. Perhaps the things that once gave you energy have slowly disappeared from your role.
Someone else thriving doesn't mean you should be thriving too. It may simply mean that the system you are operating within might not be right for you at this time.
This, for me, is the important part. If someone feels alone in how they are experiencing their workplace, often they will look to themselves to understand what they may need to do differently. They privately wonder what is wrong with them when everyone else seems to enjoy it, wondering what they need to change.
Less often, they look at the mismatch between the organisation's environment and what they need to thrive.
Sometimes it’s because they don’t know what they need. Other times, it’s because they have spent so long trying to fit into the wrong environment that the self-blame is deep rooted. They are exhausted and in survival mode.
Leaving can feel like failure.
Perhaps the first question shouldn't be: What is wrong with me? But instead “What do I need now?
This is one of the ideas I explore in my forthcoming book, Exhausted, Not Broken.
It's written for experienced, capable leaders who are still delivering and who other people probably still see as perfectly competent, but who have privately started to wonder if they are the right person for that role - either through misalignment, or because of a loss of confidence in their own capability and judgement.
It’s for leaders who are wondering if they are good enough, wondering what they need to do differently and wondering what is wrong with them.
In the book, I use a mix of storytelling, insight and practical activities to take you through firstly understanding why you may be feeling this way and then, through the NooWay®, my six-phase framework, help you work out what you need now in your career.
It will help you look at how to align your work with who you are and what you need, rebuild your self-belief and fall back in love with the work that you do.
Most importantly, it will help you understand what may be happening before automatically assuming that the way you feel means you are no longer capable or good enough.
Exhausted, Not Broken will be published in Autumn 2026.
Pre-register for early access: Exhausted, Not Broken
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