The Burnout Trap: From "What's Wrong With Me?" to a New Career

In this episode, Sarah talks with the "marvellous" Paul Bridel, a coach who shares his powerful and personal journey from a 20-year career in IT to a complete breakdown from burnout.

Paul opens up about his multi-year struggle in a project management role, where he lost all his energy, confidence, and desire to be at his job. He describes the awful feeling of being trapped —too exhausted and lacking the self-belief to even go through a job search.

This conversation is a must-listen for any professional who feels stuck, hopeless, or is asking themselves, "What's wrong with me?".

Paul explains how he finally found coaching and turned his "great experience" of burnout into a new mission.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Paul's Background: Paul spent two decades in IT, moving from support to project management. In the late 2000s, he began to burn out from the workload and pressure.

• The Burnout Trap: He shares the experience of being stuck in a loop of no energy and no confidence. The worst part was this sense of being trapped, believing he couldn't get another job and not having the energy to try.

• Discovering Coaching: Paul found coaching while devouring self-help books and after receiving some counselling. He was drawn to coaching's forward-looking approach, but he never actually hired a coach himself.

• The Long Road: Paul believes that if he had hired a coach, he would have "sorted himself out" much more quickly. Instead, it took him "years and years" to make progress on his own. He eventually left his job after being offered redundancy.

• The Stigma of Struggling: Paul and Sarah discuss why highly conscientious people with a strong sense of duty are often hit the hardest. In competitive corporate environments, people are afraid to be seen as "the one that's struggling" , which leads to isolation, loneliness , and a sense of shame.

  
  

• His New Book: Paul is writing a book based on his experience, with the working title "What's Wrong With Me". It's the book he wishes he'd had , written to help people in the thick of burnout understand what's happening to them and to show them that they are not broken.