Sharon Yamut

Until about 3 years ago I - just like many people at Accenture – had forgotten about the person. I identified my identity with work and what I did for Accenture. And it just was at a point where, what I do, and the personal sacrifices that we have to do, they go 'Ah that's insane!' And I said 'It is insane! I am losing my sanity.' So it's about that. And then for the longest time, every time I took a vacation or time out for myself, I felt guilty about it. So that's the no apologies part. So I am no better at choosing sanity, choosing my sanity over work, and I just have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to apologize for that decision that I make every time to choose me and my sanity. C: Was that moment of your friends saying 'That's insane' a breaking point? No. I actually had through Accenture this leadership program called The Power of Self. It's a journey you go through, it's very personal, and it really just hit me that I have to make that decision for myself. Accenture won't make that decision for me. And that was two years ago. C: Tell me about the sacrifices that you make I used to work on weekends. If I needed to come in I would come in. I would not take vacations during Christmas, around the usual times when people would usually take breaks. Because I felt like 'Okay let my team take those vacations, I'll be in and then I can take those vacations some other time.' It's just so second nature to me because my family isn't in Manila, they live abroad. And when they come to visit every year they stay one month. And I take maybe four days off during that month to go with them. At first I wasn't feeling guilty about it, and then when it hit me that my mom is getting older, it was like 'Maybe you should be spending more time' – especially because she travels from abroad to be with me and I had to work most of the time. I have more of a social life compared to before. My weekends were all about work, I gave up yoga because I couldn't get up early in the morning [since] I worked late the previous night. So those things, you don't notice until you wake up one day and you have time on your hands and you don't know what to do with it because you have no hobbies, you have no friends – or you have friends but they have their own lives and you don't have a life outside of work. So that one big 'I forgot about me!' kind of thing. C: Now that you've chosen sanity, what do you do? I don't bring work home. I stay in the office late! [laugh] I used to stay in the office late AND work from home. So after the office I would still do more work. I stopped doing that. As soon as I leave the office I'm done. I don't work on weekends anymore unless, the seasonal release, weekend releases. And just little things – I am not going to stay up at unreasonable hours just because I have to take a call. I have to take care of me! […] I used to have boundaries but I never was consistent in making sure that they were respected. And I think the most important thing is that my team sees what I'm doing. I didn't like that they didn't think I was successful because I worked too hard or long hours. I didn't want them to think that that was the only way to move up, was to forget about life outside of work. So I was also doing it in a way to be a good example.