When Your Body Says “No"

I recently came across a post on Fishbowl that hasn’t left me. A woman in consulting wrote:

“Disillusioned about my career in consulting and don’t know if I can do it longer. However, after a 1 month break, I don’t know if I can do any job. My body goes into fight or flight at the thought of working my job or on something else interesting... I cannot get myself to go on further. What is happening to me?”

There’s a lot we could analyze in this — the internalized fear of leaving a “good path,” the panic response at even the idea of work, the belief that one wrong move could ruin the rest of her career.

What struck me most was the clarity of her body’s signal. Her nervous system had already made the decision. She just hadn’t caught up to it cognitively.

We often wait until we are in pain (or totally collapse) to investigate what's been off.

But why wait until this gets THIS bad?

When your body is telling you something, you probably don’t need a pep talk or a graduate program.

You need clarity. Not “find your passion” fluff or a checklist of accomplishments or transferable skills.

You need real clarity — about how you’re wired and why what once worked is no longer working.

Most career dissatisfaction comes from succeeding at the wrong things.

And when your nervous system starts revolting — when even a one-month break doesn’t bring relief — it usually means that you’ve outgrown your environment or you’ve been in a wrong-for-you environment to begin with.

If you’re reading this and some part of you is nodding — or wincing — I want you to know: you don’t need to push through.

You need to get precise.

That’s why I created the Pivot Precision Index™ — a free diagnostic that measures six key dimensions of career alignment. It helps you name what’s been off and trace what kind of shift could actually restore your energy — and your trust in yourself.

You need to understand why things feel off before you rush to fix them.

No one thrives — not even the smartest, most resilient among us — in systems that misread their wiring.

You can take the free diagnostic here.

Fishbowl is a closed community built by Glassdoor to facilitate candid anonymous conversations about work.