Learning to Trust Effort Again After a Toxic Work Environment

So many people have been harmed by an authority relationship within a toxic work environment. But what often goes unseen is how deeply work experiences shape our tolerance for effort and our relationship to authority.

My first two jobs after college were in emotionally volatile environments run by leaders who were never trained to lead. Stress was handled like genuine danger, which causes everyone to associate effort itself with risk. Raised voices, slammed doors, public ridicule, and sporadic termination are normalized as “pressure,” “standards,” “a fast-paced working environment.”

At the time, I couldn’t see the situation for what it was: environments run by people who conjure up fake urgency and can’t manage their emotions. When you don’t feel in control of what’s happening around you—and it’s not safe to speak up about what needs to be challenged—that pressure doesn’t disappear. It turns inward. You start trying to control yourself more tightly. You monitor, criticize, and correct yourself in ways that mirror the environment. I internalized it, too. Maybe I’m just not competent or tough enough for the industry I worked so hard to enter. So, I finally left. Not just the company, but the industry entirely. And then I encountered the same dynamics again. Different setting, different industry. Same misuse of leadership.

I was unlucky to experience a concentrated dose of volatile leadership twice. Especially during a developmental window when I was especially ambitious, eager, and still forming my professional nervous system. Patterns that form early and sustain for several years run deep, and they take time to unravel.

Why it takes so long to recover from a toxic work environment

Toxic work environments taught my nervous system a few false narratives. It took nearly a decade to rewrite the stories my mind conjured up for self-protection.

Story: Authority = Scary
Reality: When emotionally dysregulated people hold power, fear generation is often their primary management tool. It can feel like their harsh reactions define you, but they actually define them. They’re not reliable judges of other people’s worth. They are fallible humans that lack the skills of relatability, self awareness, emotional regulation, and tactful communication.

Story: Mistakes = Danger
Reality: Mistakes met with yelling or intense repercussions is a symptom of poor management, not validation that risk shouldn’t be taken and truth shouldn’t be spoken.

Story: Calm = Temporary

Reality: When a regulated nervous system feels rare or short-lived, something in the environment is off. This is what gets missed in conversations about “quiet quitting” or younger generations “not wanting to work.” What’s being labeled as disinterest is usually a response to unstable leadership, not a lack of work ethic. “Regulated” doesn’t mean that nothing can ever be challenging. You can stay emotionally regulated even when the work is difficult. Just not in environments where messing up will lead to public ridicule or on-the-spot termination.

When the environment changes, but your nervous system doesn’t

I’m glad to report that since then, I have finally seen examples of true, stable leadership. I’ve even turned my past experiences into a successful line of work helping leaders improve their emotional intelligence and communication. But still, even in safe contexts, my nervous system can sometimes be an over-functioning threat detector. It repeats a cycle of anxious anticipation and relief. Here’s how that cycle plays out:

Anxious Anticipation (“Something bad might happen.”)
Preemptive Vigilance (over-preparing, mentally rehearsing)
Entering situations with a mindset of survival instead of inhabiting the moment (“Let’s get this over with” instead of “let’s seize this opportunity.”)
Relief After Performance (“Phew, I survived.”)
Repeat (“That danger passed. Stay alert for the next one.”)

I spent a lot of time minimizing the effects of toxic work environments and wondering why this cycle still repeats long after the experiences were over. But insight, reflection, not even success can rewire a nervous system. The body learns safety through exposure to repeated, non-catastrophic experiences. It’s asking for updated evidence about authority and effort.

And that only happens when you keep putting in effort (in the right environments). Especially when you feel the early warning signs of Anxious Anticipation and Preemptive Vigilance. Face new challenges consistently enough to prove to yourself that the outcome isn’t what your nervous system expects. This is the only way to break the cycle.

I talk more about reducing time spent in anxious anticipation in this post.

Rewiring your professional nervous system

You don’t need more analysis of what you’ve been through, or to wait to feel fully healed and anxiety-free. You rewire your nervous system by putting in the reps without the emotional storytelling. That means no prepping excessively beforehand, narrating the meaning of every little thing that happens in the moment, or playing things back on repeat when the moment has passed. These behaviors validate dread and anxiety, giving the thoughts they generate significance, relevance, and power by acting on them. Show up, do the thing, and move on quickly. This is how you redirect power inward. The more you act without resolving every worry, the quieter the mind becomes.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” -Epictetus