THE 3 AM WAKE-UP CALL: WHAT YOUR CAREER ANXIETY IS REALLY TRYING TO TELL YOU

For me it happened around 3 AM.

You're awake. Again. Staring at the ceiling while your mind races through the same loop: the project that's going sideways, the reorganization rumors, the younger colleague who just got promoted, the mortgage payment, your kid's tuition bill.

And underneath all of it, the question you don't want to ask: "Is this really how I want to spend the next decade of my life?"

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. And more importantly, you're not broken.

That 3 AM anxiety? It's not your enemy. It's a messenger.

The Voice You've Been Ignoring

Here's what I've learned after two decades of leadership and coaching men through career transitions: anxiety shows up when something important needs attention.

Not always. Sometimes it's just stress or too much coffee or a bad news cycle keeping you up. But when the same thoughts keep circling back, night after night, week after week—that's different.

That's your internal system sending up a flare.

Most of us respond to career anxiety the same way we were taught to handle everything else: push through it. Tough it out. Buck up. Get back to work and stop complaining.

And look, I get it. We're providers. We've built our lives around responsibility. Our families depend on us showing up, performing, delivering.

So we ignore the signal. We tell ourselves it's just a rough patch. It'll pass.

Except it doesn't pass. It gets louder.

What Anxiety Is Actually Telling You

Career anxiety—the kind that wakes you up and won't let go—usually falls into one of three categories. And knowing which one you're experiencing changes everything.

Category 1: Situational Stress

This is the anxiety that comes from legitimate external pressure. A tough quarter. A difficult boss. A project that's underwater. Real problems that need real solutions.

The key marker? Once the situation resolves, the anxiety fades.

If you're losing sleep because your company is restructuring and you don't know if your role will survive, that's situational. It's uncomfortable, but it's logical. Your brain is trying to solve a concrete problem.

Category 2: Misalignment Anxiety

This one's trickier. Because everything might look fine on paper.

You've got the title, the salary, the respect. People would kill for your job. And yet something feels... off. Wrong. Like you're wearing a suit that doesn't quite fit anymore.

This is the anxiety that whispers: "You're capable of this, but is this what you're meant to be doing?"

It's not about the work being hard. It's about the work not mattering to you the way it used to. Or maybe it never really did, and you're only now admitting it.

The marker? External validation doesn't help. You get the promotion, the bonus, the "great job" email from your boss, and you feel... nothing. Or worse, you feel guilty for feeling nothing.

Category 3: Identity Threat Anxiety

This is the deepest one. The scariest one.

This anxiety shows up when you've spent so much of your life building a career identity that you don't know who you are without it. And now something's threatening that identity—a layoff, a demotion, a shift in the industry, or just the slow realization that the person you've been at work isn't the person you want to be anymore.

It's the feeling that if you lose this job, this title, this role—you lose yourself.

The marker? The thought of change feels like loss, even when you know the current situation isn't working.

Why Ignoring It Makes It Worse

I tried to outwork my own career anxiety for years. Early in my career, I convinced myself that if I just performed better, worked harder, delivered more, the unease would go away.

It didn't.

Because here's the thing about anxiety: it's not interested in your productivity. It's interested in your attention.

When you ignore the signal, your nervous system turns up the volume. The 3 AM wake-ups become more frequent. The Sunday night dread gets heavier. You start snapping at your family. You lose interest in things you used to enjoy. Your health starts slipping.

I've seen it in myself. I've seen it in dozens of men I've coached.

We think we're being strong by pushing through. But we're actually just delaying the conversation we need to have with ourselves.

The Questions Worth Asking

So what do you do when anxiety keeps showing up?

You stop fighting it. You start listening to it.

Not indulging it. Not letting it run your life. But treating it like data.

Here are the three questions that changed everything for me—and for the men I work with:

Question 1: "What part of my current situation is this anxiety trying to protect me from?"

Anxiety is a protection mechanism. It's your brain's way of saying, "Hey, something here doesn't feel safe."

But "safe" doesn't always mean physical safety. Sometimes it means psychological safety. Meaning. Purpose. Alignment.

So ask: What am I afraid of losing? What am I afraid of becoming? What am I afraid I'm already becoming?

Write it down. Don't censor it. Let the truth land on paper.

Question 2: "If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about my work life, what would it be?"

Not three things. Not a whole career overhaul. One thing.

Because often, we convince ourselves that the only solution is blowing everything up and starting over. But sometimes the issue is more specific than that.

Maybe it's your boss. Maybe it's the commute. Maybe it's the fact that you haven't used your real strengths in three years. Maybe it's that you're managing people when what you really love is solving problems.

One thing. What is it?

Question 3: "What would I tell my best friend if he came to me with this exact situation?"

We're terrible at giving ourselves permission to want something different. But we're pretty good at giving that permission to people we care about.

So imagine your closest friend or your brother sitting across from you, describing your exact situation. The sleepless nights. The sense of being stuck. The fear of change mixed with the fear of staying the same.

What would you tell him?

Would you tell him to just tough it out for another decade? Or would you tell him his life is too short to spend it feeling this way?

Now take your own advice.

What Comes After Awareness

Look, awareness doesn't solve everything. Knowing why you're anxious doesn't make the anxiety disappear.

But it does something more important: it gives you agency.

Because once you understand what your anxiety is telling you, you can start making decisions instead of just reacting to discomfort.

If it's situational stress, you can address the situation—or recognize when it's time to remove yourself from it.

If it's misalignment, you can start exploring what would actually fit better. Not tomorrow. Not with a reckless leap. But with intention.

If it's identity threat, you can begin the deeper work of separating who you are from what you do. This is the hardest one. It's also the most important.

A Small Step Forward

If you're reading this at 3 AM—or remembering last night's 3 AM—here's what I want you to do.

Don't make any big decisions right now. Don't quit your job. Don't send that email.

Just do this: write down what the anxiety is saying.

Not what you think you should say. Not what sounds reasonable or rational. Just what's actually running through your mind when you can't sleep.

Then tomorrow, when you're rested and thinking clearly, read it again.

And ask yourself: "Is this fear talking, or is this truth trying to get my attention?"

Because here's what I've learned, both in my own life and in working with men facing these same questions:

The 3 AM wake-up call isn't the problem.

It's the invitation.

What about you? When career anxiety shows up, what does it usually say to you? Drop a comment—I'd love to hear what you're wrestling with.