From Burnout to Breakthrough: How I Rebuilt My Life After Walking Away from a 6-Figure Career and My Pension

• Christy Rutherford left a successful Coast Guard career due to toxic leadership and burnout.
• She faced deeper burnout, financial loss, and depression after resigning from her position.
• Rutherford rebuilt her life and now helps other leaders recover from burnout and achieve success.

I started my career in the US Coast Guard as a college sophomore in 1996. After graduating, I was stationed on a ship in Charleston, South Carolina, chasing drug runners in the Caribbean.

I transitioned into crisis management and moved four times over the next 12 years. I responded to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and worked on Capitol Hill as a congressional fellow for the late Congressman Elijah Cummings in 2007.

I loved my career and learned from some exceptional leaders. I also had the misfortune of surviving a few toxic ones. I was one of 50 Black women officers out of nearly 50,000, and I felt my competence was questioned regularly. I worked 80 hours weekly to prove myself.

I worked from sunup to sundown

I studied for professional certifications at night and obtained several advanced degrees. Work-life balance seemed impossible, and no matter how many awards I received, I was never satisfied.

In 2010, I was promoted to the executive level and relocated to Port Arthur, Texas. The following year, a former toxic boss became my supervisor again, and everything started to unravel. Constantly handling emergencies while ignoring my well-being caught up with me, and my mental and physical health declined rapidly.

During one demeaning meeting with my boss in 2012, I started yelling at him. Feeling that senior leadership had failed to protect me, I resigned from my highly successful, six-figure career with only three and a half years left until retirement, forfeiting a full pension.

I knew that if I didn't make a change, I wouldn't survive another year.

I decided to move

I moved to DC and worked with a network marketing company selling coffee. My family and friends thought I was crazy, and they weren't wrong.

I was burned out and couldn't make rational decisions. Within 18 months, I had spent my six-figure savings.

I moved in with my brother in South Carolina in 2013, agreeing it would only be for a few months. I worked 16-hour days to recover my money, and a few months later, I mentally collapsed. It was catastrophic.

I was deeply depressed

It felt like I had fallen into a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon and then into the ocean's abyss. People often talk about hitting rock bottom, but I've learned that there are even deeper places of despair.

A government official completed my veteran's disability paperwork and noted I was eligible to receive several thousand dollars a month because my mental and physical condition rendered me incapable of working to earn an income.

I chose not to submit the paperwork because I knew I could fully recover if I worked just as hard on myself as I had in my career.

I pursued wholeness, and it took two years to heal physically, four years to recover mentally, and seven years to recover financially.

I did five things to recover mentally

I discovered the true meaning of self-care and made it a habit. I started meditating, working out, and walking at least three times a week. I also started sleeping eight hours a night.

I stopped watching the news. Since the news was primarily negative, it didn't make me feel good about myself or my recovery.

I took off my superhero cape and changed my phone number. I had to stop trying to save everyone else and myself at the same time.

I deleted social media for 18 months. I couldn't process all the information I consumed. I felt like I was lying about my life while watching everyone else lie about theirs.

I forgave my family. Being one of the first people in my family to graduate from college, I was terrified of failure. When my worst nightmare came true, and I failed and lost everything, I realized they didn't need to change; I did.

I also did five things to recover financially

In 2016, I was accepted into Harvard Business School with a solid past and a grand vision of the future, but a messy present moment of nothingness. The Program for Leadership Development helped me translate military language into corporate terminology, enabling me to market my leadership development services effectively. I saw my habits of exhaustive working and self-neglect reflected in my peers.

I published five books in eight months and started coaching my HBS colleagues on their careers and burnout. It was a natural transition.

In January 2017, I graduated from HBS and finally moved out of my brother's house. I invested in a business coach . However, 10 months later, I couldn't afford my rent and the coach, so I gave up my place and spent a year traveling, staying with friends and family while building my business.

In 2019, I started teaching leaders how to recover from burnout by appealing to their desire for career advancement. I had my first 6-figure year in 2019.

Today, with a team of eight, I've helped hundreds of leaders recover from burnout, alleviate stress-related medical conditions, retain their jobs, and reclaim their value in the market.

Looking back, there are three things I wish I had done differently

First, I would've prioritized my self-care sooner.

Second, I would've faced the truth that my relentless drive for achievement was rooted in the fear of failure.

Lastly, I would've slowed down to actually enjoy the life I was working so hard to build.

Do you have a story to share about recovering from burnout? Contact this editor at lhaas@ .

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