Vikki Pratley’s Story – From burnt out lawyer to The StressLess Coach

Vikki Pratley’s Story – From burnt out lawyer to The StressLess Coach

Vikki Pratley’s Story – From burnt out lawyer to The StressLess Coach

Previously a practicing solicitor, Vikki Pratley shares with us a story about how her mental health was seriously affected by workplace stress:

It was 2 minutes after noon on 9 November 2017 when I got the call that felt like a punch in the gut.

I put down the telephone, slumped forward and sobbed.

It was official. I was burnt out.

I was devastated. My life in that moment changed. Well, my realisation of it changed.

The reality was that it had been happening for some time.

It had started slowly. So slowly that I didn’t notice my performance and productivity declining. But my hours of work increasing.

That, unusually for me, physically I was feeling sluggish and generally unwell

all

the

time.

You know that feeling just before you get a cold when you feel so rotten, sluggish, woolly headed – well, that was me. Every day.

Every day felt so hard. Like I was wading through treacle.

My mind was not able to do my much loved and self-named ‘mental gymnastics’ as it previously had. Everything took me ages.

I just didn’t have headspace for anything.

Couldn’t get clarity.

Couldn’t make a decision.

And, of course, with all that going on it affected my behaviour – I was snappy and short tempered (or more so than usual if you ask my mum), my frustrations bubbling over.

These changes were tolerated by others (perhaps thinking they were being supportive?)

But really I was in need of help. Professional help.

Yet no one seemed aware, including me.

I continued to push harder and harder. Getting further away from this ‘work smarter not harder’ mantra that seemed to always circle around me.

Until THAT day when it all changed. Slumped over the kitchen counter sobbing. The day I realised how unwell I was.

But, here’s the thing, I wouldn’t change it for the world now!

It was the trigger to turn my life around before something bigger, worse, potentially fatal happened.

Am I being dramatic? No. The science and statistics are there.

You see, just the harm I was causing myself by not sleeping for more than 6 hours a night amounting to, as Sleep Scientist Matthew Walker puts it “low level brain damage”

Let alone having the stress hormone pumping through me all day every day leaving me constantly on edge, sweaty, clammy and on the path to disease.

So I worked hard on myself. With expert and peer support, which was key.

I focused on what I could influence. And first, I committed to sleep.

I learnt about nutrition; I learnt more about my mindbody connection; and I learnt more about who I am and how I wanted my career and my life to look; I learnt key skills of self-directing people to apply in the workplace; and I learnt about what causes me stress and most importantly, how to successfully manage it.

Pretty much all the really important stuff we don’t learn during our legal training; self-management!

And, do you know what happened? I realised that successfully managing our stress is key to creating the high performance many of us are working so hard to achieve.

But not high performance that causes you to burn out. It’s high performance that is healthy and sustainable.

It’s the key to how you can work ‘smarter not harder’.

Rather than waiting for the ‘perfect’ conditions, you can influence a lot right now.

And I can show you and your team how.

I’ve pulled all these puzzle pieces together so you don’t have to. And put them in one place; The StressLess Academy.

The Academy helps people like you in the legal profession to create change that sticks, so you and your team can achieve even better results without working harder.

Go ahead and complete the Skylark S.E.R.V.I.C.E wheel to discover your starting point in better managing your stress for higher performance by clicking here  and use reference CHRONICLELAW24.


About the author
Vikki is a once practicing employment lawyer turned burnout geek who simplifies how to manage stress and create healthy and sustainable high performance. Vikki works with legal professionals to create high performance that is healthy and sustainable for everyone. Clients benefit from Vikki’s insights from more than 20 years in the legal profession and training...