01/06/2026
Bad decisions at work often start the night before. Here is why............
A senior leader came to me three months ago. Her brief was confidence.
She was a sharp thinker, well regarded, good at her job. But something had changed and she was struggling. She was second guessing decisions that she would previously have made without hesitation. She was shorter with her team than she wanted to be. She felt slower and not herself.
We spent the first three sessions not talking about confidence at all.
We talked about her sleep. Which turns out was four to five hours on a good night. We talked about the fact that she hadn't taken a proper lunch break in months. We talked about what she was eating and when, and that most days she wasn't drinking enough water.
By week six, before we had even touched her professional confidence in any structured way, she told me the decisions were coming more easily. She was less reactive. She had more patience with people.
None of this is mystical or complicated. When you're running on that little sleep and that little fuel, your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for reasoning, emotional regulation, and decision making is operating at a fraction of its capacity.
Her confidence problem was, in large part, a physiology problem.
I am definitely not a neurologist. But I've seen this pattern enough times to know. If a leader's performance is dipping, the first questions I ask are not about strategy or mindset. They're about sleep, food, and movement.
Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is treat yourself like a whole person and look at your lifestyle.
If this sounds like someone you know, or someone you recognise in yourself, please know my door to help you overcome this is always open.
Message me if you would like to discuss your challenges, behaviours and lifestyle.
