When Success Feels Empty: Realigning Values in High Pressure Careers

This is part 2 of a 4-part series on leading through high pressure at work, with licensed psychologist Dr. Janna Koretz. Each episode explores a different theme—clarity, self-awareness, team dynamics, and workplace culture.

Ever climbed the career ladder—only to realize it’s leaning against the wrong wall? Dr. Janna Koretz explains how values misalignment—not lack of resilience—drives burnout in high pressure jobs. In this episode, we explore how self-awareness, flexible thinking, and small mindset shifts can transform your mental health, even when your workload won’t change. For leaders, professionals, and perfectionists wondering “Why doesn’t this feel good?”—this one’s for you.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: So I hear you saying that you have to get used to these things. You have to embrace certain things to be better in high pressure for yourself and for the organization. So what kind of mindset are you suggesting that people approach or embrace at least to better handle these high pressure situations?

Janna Koretz: I think flexibility is very key. I think a lot of people are committed to doing things in a very specific way. They have to get to B and they have to get do 1, 2, 3 to get to B. Well, you don't though, and maybe if you did 5, 6, 7, things would be a little bit easier for you. And I think, so flexibility is very important.

I think also expectations, I think people, a lot of expectations of eradicating negative feelings, which is not the goal, nor is it possible. And so the idea is not to feel really happy all the time. It's well, that you are in a tough job and you do things that are very hard and things are gonna be difficult, but how do we make that more manageable for you? How do we increase your distress tolerance? How do we give you some better coping strategies? How do we be making you more of a resilient person? And then figure out if this is actually the place for you. And those two things are different. So I think from a mindset perspective, I think flexibility, creativity are really important.

Russel Lolacher: Do you approach it differently for say, a leader or someone in an organization that is dealing with constant high pressure versus dips and valleys like valleys and peaks, I guess is the better way of saying it. Because it's not always like that, but other times, like an ER doctor, your adrenaline is always there.

It is always at that point. Do you approach it differently that way?

Janna Koretz: It depends. It depends on the person because also some people do experience the ebbs and flows as constant, even though they might not actually be literally constant. It might take people a while to recover from tax season or whatever it is. And I think there's, for some that constant stress is the way that they thrive best or it's what's most familiar to them. And so in some ways they gravitate towards that and taking that away is very difficult. And so it just really depends. I, so I don't think we necessarily approach it one way or another based on their self report in that way.

Russel Lolacher: Do you find that some people might not just be right for high pressure jobs, even though they went for it because it was the golden ring, brass ring, paid more money and like it was, to your point earlier, it was the next step in the ladder. That's what they need to do. And I'm kind of curious how they handle that information. 'Cause a lot of people, that's to your point also, it's their identity is to, I start here, I end here.

Janna Koretz: Right. I think. I would describe yes, but I would describe it differently. I would say that I think a lot of people's values are misaligned with their work, and so it might not be that they're not cut out for it. I think it's that what they're doing doesn't matter to them in the way that it needs to matter.

That is what makes the pressure and the constant working, that's kind of what beats them down over time. Is part of it is the values piece. And so we do a ton of values work for that reason. And that also helps people start to figure out, well, actually my identity might be something else. For internally.

So it's not like someone saying, well, this can't be your identity anymore. And then that's not really how it works, right. So I think that's how I would think about that question a little bit more specifically.

Russel Lolacher: When people are doing that self work. I wanna go back to the diversity piece we kind of kicked off with generations. Does it work for everybody? Because I mean, obviously everybody has a different approach, definition of high pressure, expectations from home. Because like you have to have the job. That pays for our rent, our mortgage, our car payments.

What do you mean you're gonna take a different, less paying job just so you have better mental health? We have a lot of different diversity when it comes to this.

Janna Koretz: Right.

Russel Lolacher: Do we have to look at things differently in, I mean, as a leader looking at ourselves and our self-awareness.

Janna Koretz: Well, I think you have to think about it also as just because the information is new and different and true maybe doesn't mean your actions have to be drastic and right now. Because a lot of what we end up doing is, helping people fi they figure out this path is not for them. They figure out, let's say just like classic example, I guess you have a partner at a law firm and they realize actually like community is really important to 'em and they're doing corporate law.

And so maybe they are thinking more about like community law or being a public defender or maybe something like that would be ideal. Right? But now they have four kids, they're taking care of their elderly parents, their kids are in private school, whatever, and so they can't necessarily do that.

But how do you find that community piece somewhere else? Could you maybe do, for example over time, not necessarily tomorrow, but thinking about, okay, what's in the middle there and how would we get there slowly. Could you maybe go in-house somewhere and then in the time that you've now found, because you're not at a big law, you can, volunteer at church or something, right?

Or like where else can you find those values? Can you get a little more of it at work and then get it somewhere else if that's what you need to do financially for your situation. And if that's the case if a shift is possible, how do you do that slowly and mindfully so that you're not just, like dropping off the planet and, taking 50% pay cut or whatever it is. There's a lot of ways, and that's why I say creativity and flexibility is important and this, I think people are really interested in, I need the information and I need to make the change now. And it has to be right now and it has to be all at once. And that's just not how life works. Right? I mean, I wish it did too, right? For my own self. Like that would be wonderful, but it's kind of a slug, you get the information, then you gotta slowly make a plan. And then you have to figure out what the timeline of that plan is. And sometimes it is quick depending on your situation, right? But sometimes it's not.

But there's always a way to improve your situation, even if you have financial constraints or location constraints, debt, whatever it is. There's still lots of ways to do that.

Russel Lolacher: I love that you talk about shifts. But even more so that I think there's a self-awareness piece where a lot of people will shift through their careers and don't want to admit it. Like for instance, they'll do a values exercise in their early twenties. I. And they're 45 and going, those are my values.

I'm like, you have not reassessed.

You have four kids now. You live in a different city, you or a small town now. But they don't take the time to reassess who they are as people and their responsibilities and they're, because they're, so, this is what I want to be when I grow up. This is my identity. They don't look at the ecosystem around them and how it's changed who they are. So their priorities might be different, but they're still focused on the brass ring.

Janna Koretz: All the time. All the time. And I think because we don't live in a culture where people are expected, told, given permission to think about their values at all, right? People just assume the values of those around them. They assume the values of their workplace. They just, this is what I'm doing.

And to your point over time, right, people change, like life happens to them, they gain perspective. That's what like age and wisdom is, right? They, you gain this perspective, you gain information. Like a lot of people will talk about like these traumatic events that happen to them over time and how that changes their perspective of what's important, right?

So when you're 20, you can't possibly have all of the same values that you have when you're 45. It just, it's almost impossible. Some of the core stuff will still be the same, right? Because it's who you're as a person, but a lot of it is different or can manifest differently 'cause there are a lot of things that happen in life that really change people forever. So I think that's a really great point and I wish that people had more permission or even knew to do that at all.

Russel Lolacher: And not think lesser of themselves because of it. Like having that idealistic approach to the person they want to be, not realizing that foundationally it can change to the person they want to be, could be different as well. But yet we feel like we're failures if we make those shifts because we didn't get that thing we wanted. We didn't get to be the cowboy or the astronaut. We wanted to be, when we were eleven.

Janna Koretz: Yeah. Or even on a smaller scale, I can speak to this personally too, like I lived in a pretty homogeneous place growing up and, everyone sort of was a certain way. And when I, it wasn't until I went to college and I met people who were really different than I was. It's oh. I might actually believe that instead. And like sort of reconciling that and realizing you can still be a good person, have different beliefs than your family of origin. And lots of good people exist who believe all kinds of things and like discourse is important and all of that stuff, right?

But so even on a smaller scale, it has nothing to do with work. That is a transition that a lot of people go through anyway. And then if you add like the layer of, and complexity of like achievement and work and all of that gets very complicated.

Russel Lolacher: And it's much better to do the work progressively, as you mentioned earlier, than it is as a shocking you burnt out, you got fired, your identity's so wrapped up, and you have an existential crisis of who you wanna be now that you're not, you're allowed to be that person you thought was the that high pressure person, successful person. You're working with people through their journey. So it's not like to your, to you, as you mentioned, this is not a checkbox exercise. This is journey that they are having to deal with high pressure situations, high pressure work. So how are you with your clients and those in high pressure jobs when they go back to the workplace?

'cause they have to interact in the same high pressure environment that is not changing even though they are. So what are you recommended when they go back day to day, week to week, month to month, that they approach their environment now as they're going through the journey.

Janna Koretz: Well, I think it happens kind of organically because as people gain insight, I. As they realize they have options and as they get excited about what those options could be because they realize they're important to them, the stress at work is different to them. It feels different. And so yeah, we talk a lot about how to just cope with difficult coworkers and communication and missing promotions and the logistics of being in a place like that, but it tends to naturally start to be more manageable because it doesn't, it becomes a little further away from them.