Lean at

I don't want to 'lean in' to work anymore.

A True Life Built is a living photo essay on starting over and building a truer life. It’s for anyone, at any age, who is finding the courage to begin again. Subscribe for free weekly posts.

Flowers from a friend. February 2023.

In my new freelance life, I chat each week with other women who have left the corporate grind. Tell me how this transition goes, I say.

“When I left my corporate job, I was bone tired for six months,” one friend says.
“It took me a year to feel like myself again. I had no idea how exhausted I was,” says a second.
“Three different doctors told me I’d land myself in the hospital if I didn’t quit,” says a third.

These women are fiercely-competent executives and attorneys and social workers and educators. We were raised to believe that our generation would break the glass ceiling. We could do anything men could do—and more. We went all-in on work: we built businesses, ran teams, made money. We climbed the corporate ladder. We ‘leaned in.’

We produced and produced until, one by one, we hit a wall. The cost grew too high for our health, our family, our sanity. Sometimes there was a crisis, sometimes just the gravity of sheer exhaustion. But one day, all of us started to ask: What if there’s more to life than this? What if the point of this brief spin on this small planet isn’t answering email?

“I don’t want to ‘lean in’ anymore,” a girlfriend told me recently. “I want to ‘lean at.’ I don’t want my boss’ job. I want work to just… be work.”

Thank God it’s not just me.

In my last year at my full-time job, I did the best work of my career. I solved a daily barrage of hard problems and ran at the outer bounds of my capabilities, where the atmosphere grew thin and I struggled to catch my breath. In my last performance review, I was praised for being “whip smart,” “a complete force,” and “a flat-out communications monster that eats every challenge in her path.” Even at a high-octane organization, I was “burning super hard.”

I had earned that review with every ounce of my energy. But the sharp phrases, intended as praise, hit painfully close to home. It was the language of Godzilla and wildfires. Sure, I could devour a problem, but would you want Godzilla at a dinner party? Would you want a wildfire as a partner? At the end of each work week, I was burnt to a crisp, with nothing left to give to the people I loved.

I didn’t want to be a communications monster anymore. So I stepped off the top rung of the career ladder and broke up with full-time work. Then I looked down, like Wile E. Coyote, and realized there was nothing under my feet but thin air.

My friend’s dog, waiting for me to finish work and go for a walk. December 2022.

If you suddenly had extra hours in a week, how would you use them?

I’m currently working a light four-day week as a freelancer and my life is awash with time. I had imagined that it would be easy to write more, exercise more, make a healthy dinner more often. Instead, I take aimless walks, pat my friend’s dog, and watch the tulips break through the winter soil. Mostly I sleep and sleep and sleep, for ten-plus hours at a stretch, as if I haven’t slept for years.

I feel oddly flat, unable to summon the energy for simple things. It reminds me of the disorienting early days of divorce, the fixed walls of my life leveled by a self-imposed earthquake. My hours used to be tightly scripted, ruled by the color-coded calls on my calendar. Now they’re not. It feels like standing in the rubble of a ruined house.

In therapy we talk about my perfectionism and over-functioning: defining yourself by what you do instead of who you are. I expect excellence of myself at all times. I carry around a mental list of things I should be doing. My identity is so wound up with producing that my plans for doing less at work involve doing more in other areas: more exercise, more writing, more cooking. I have swapped one type of busy for another—and then I feel guilty about falling short.

“Who would you be if you didn’t need to be perfect?” my therapist asks.

I hate this question with the fire of a thousand suns. I am acutely aware of my perfectionist tendencies but they feel innate and impossible to unwind. I have been striving for perfection since my earliest days on earth. How do you change something that feels baked into your DNA? I may as well look in the mirror and ask my nose to take a different shape.

Frustrated, I buy a book on overcoming perfectionism that says, “Here are some warning signs of perfectionism as you grow and change: becoming overly zealous in learning everything there is to know about yourself and your family. You may find yourself looking feverishly for a simple explanation for everything that is wrong with you.” I highlight this line and enjoy the irony.

“So you’re going to be perfect at overcoming perfectionism?” a friend asks.

Bingo. This transition is going to be harder than I thought.

Existential waterfront wander with a friend. February 2023.

I’m six weeks into freelance life and halfway through my book on perfectionism when I get several unexpected gifts at my door: a small felt dog, a packet of seeds, and a bouquet of sunflowers.

The dog is from my mother, a perfect replica of my friend’s pup who I watch on Tuesdays. I’ve never had an animal in my pristine home before. Before leaving my job, I never had the time to go for walks during the workday or the patience to sweep the dog hair off the floor. Yet I have become unexpectedly fond of this gentle creature who flops at my feet and nudges me when I spend too long online. Godzilla would have shushed him to focus on work. Freelance Liz logs off so we can bask in the sun.

The packet of seeds is from a neighbor I’ve barely met. Last fall, after my summer of sunflowers, I sprinkled wildflowers to sleep in the barren street tree beds during winter and offered some to my neighbors. In return, she sent nasturtium seeds and a note that said “happy snowdrop season!” I was charmed by the unexpected seeds and shared excitement that the earth is waking. Godzilla didn’t have time for snowdrops. Freelance Liz cheers their tiny white salute to the promise of spring.

The sunflowers are from my friend, an impromptu thank you for supporting her during a recent funk. She is deep in the wilderness of midlife. “What is the point of life?” she muses on a recent walk. We watch the seagulls swirl along the shore and talk about the point of work, what we can expect of love, and whether we want children. Godzilla would have tried to solve her problems. Freelance Liz just listens.

The gifts are all so thoughtful and unexpected. It strikes me that I haven’t earned them by producing, but simply by living. I think again of my therapist’s question and hate it a little less. If I didn’t need to be perfect, I’d just be… more myself. Just because I’m hard-wired to produce doesn’t mean I need to go full Godzilla all the time.

Maybe I don’t need to reinvent myself, just recalibrate a bit. The less energy I spend at work, the more I have for patting pups and swapping seeds and showing up for friends. Dogs and snowdrops don’t demand excellence, just my attention. The less I rush, the more joy I feel—and the more I have to share.

I don’t need to ‘lean in’ anymore. I’m happy exactly where I am.

First snowdrops of spring. February 2023.

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One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!

Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn.