Tag Archive for: Burnout

The Capacity Equation: How High-Performing Women Sustain Energy and Clarity

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capacity equationModern leadership demands more than managing time and tasks. It requires being a master of personal capacity, and this is a matter of leading yourself first and foremost so that you can effectively and organically lead others, projects, or communities. For women in leadership, particularly in high-stakes industries like finance or law, the ability to protect and expand energy is a decisive leadership skill.

Female leaders are disproportionately at risk for burnout due to both visible and invisible labor (balancing intense workloads with emotional awareness, organizational care, familial responsibilities, and relationships). According to Deloitte’s survey Women @ Work: A Global Outlook, more than half of women in leadership roles report feeling burned out and for many, their stress levels are increasingly growing. The message is glaringly obvious that time management is no longer enough. Sustainable performance and success requires a new approach: energy intelligence.

Rethinking the Capacity Equation

Capacity can be thought of as the dynamic relationship between what fuels and what depletes. While time is finite and we cannot create more of it, capacity is expandable, but only with intention. When leaders continuously expend more than they replenish, they move into cognitive fatigue, emotional depletion, and eventually, diminished impact.

Neuroscience has long shown that chronic stress impairs access to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for focus, empathy, and decision-making. When leaders operate in constant overdrive, they are quite literally functioning with less of their brain available. In a chronically stressed-out state of being, loss of resilience and cognitive rigidity are symptoms that may arise in response to the mental overload. The cost isn’t just personal, it ripples into the culture of teams and organizations because it derails your capacity to show up as your best self.

The Myth of Infinite Output

In our societal constructs, the path to success has been built on proving worth and value through unrelenting output. Yet this model is not sustainable and no longer necessary. The most effective leaders today aren’t those who give endlessly, but those who replenish strategically.

High-performing women who learn to manage their capacity shift from running on adrenaline and overcommitting to leading from alignment. They understand that clarity, creativity, and calm are not luxuries; they’re the foundation for performance that lasts let alone their own fulfillment.

Three Shifts to Expand Capacity

1. Move from time management to energy stewardship.

Traditional productivity frameworks focus on optimizing hours and hacks. But energy is made up of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being, and it’s what determines the quality of those hours. As Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy argue in Harvard Business Review’s “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time”, sustained performance comes from rhythmic renewal, not relentless effort. Intentionality is critical when it comes to designing each day around energetic pulls (demands on your energy) and extends (where you choose to give your energy).

Energy stewardship starts with awareness. We can regularly ask: Which activities energize me? Which consistently drain me? The answers reveal where to realign work, connections, and personal times toward what fuels vitality and effectiveness. Over time, prioritizing high-energy activities, such as creative endeavors, mentoring, and strategic thinking, creates greater output with less depletion.

2. Replace routines with intentional rituals.

Routines are autopilot behaviors done to check a box; rituals are conscious choices done to refuel. When leaders infuse intention into daily transitions like beginning the day, entering meetings, or closing the laptop, they create micro-moments of renewal.

Small rituals, like three deep breaths before a presentation, brewing coffee or tea in the present moment without a phone in hand, or a five-minute gratitude practice at the end of the day, reset the nervous system and sharpen focus. Rather than look at intentional pauses as inefficiencies where we could be doing something else, we need to see them as self-leadership strategies and energetic hygiene. They enable leaders to meet the next challenge with more presence and grounding instead of reactivity.

3. Shift from proving to preserving.

The instinct to prove competence, reliability, or capability is deeply ingrained, especially among women who’ve navigated demanding environments. Cultivating influence is about preservation through protecting the clarity, energy, and perspective that empowers leaders to operate at their highest level.

Preserving energy is not a retreat from ambition; it’s how ambition endures through inner alignment. Leaders who set boundaries, delegate strategically, and integrate rest model sustainable success for their teams. They demonstrate that resilience isn’t built in exhaustion, rather it’s built in recovery.

The New Leadership Power

Sustainable leadership is not about doing less, slowing down, or being less ambitious. Instead it’s about leading differently, and redefining power as the ability to remain centered, clear, and effective under pressure. When women leaders learn to manage their capacity, they not only elevate their own performance but also set a new cultural standard that well-being and excellence are not competing values.

The next era of leadership will not be defined by who can push the hardest, but by who can sustain the longest. Energy stewardship is not a personal wellness tactic, it’s a professional strategy and alignment is the future of leadership.

By: Erin Coupe is the author of I Can Fit That In and host of the podcast with the same name.

(Guest Contribution: The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com)

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Op-Ed: Small Moves, Big Life – How to Reclaim Energy and Beat Perfectionism

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beat perfectionism small movesPerfectionism often masquerades as excellence. In high-stakes careers – finance, law, tech, medicine, consulting – it’s seen as a strength. You get praised for high standards, rewarded for over-functioning, and quietly expected to do more than most. But beneath all that output, perfectionism takes a toll.

It’s not just a mindset – it’s a tax on your time, nergy, and cognitive capacity. It chips away at your ability to delegate, pause, and make clear, strategic decisions. It steals presence and sustainability, replacing them with exhaustion and self-doubt. Burnout runs rampant. Morning Consult even found that half of employed women say they are feeling burnout at work, with younger women most likely to report burnout.

The good news? You don’t need to overhaul your entire life to reclaim clarity and power. You just need to interrupt the pattern. Let’s step out of performance mode and stop chasing balance – instead, let’s move into momentum and into a rhythm that actually supports your leadership.

If you’re a woman in leadership, you’ve likely internalized the need to be both exceptional and approachable, competent and warm, relentless and easy to work with. I’ve lived this pressure myself. When these double standards conflict, perfectionism often becomes the strategy to hold it all together. But it’s a brittle kind of control. Perfectionism doesn’t make you better; it makes you smaller. It narrows your focus to what’s missing or wrong, keeping your nervous system in a state of low-level threat. You don’t need to stop striving. But you do need to create space to lead from your whole self – not just the over-functioning version of you.

Micro-Movement and Breathwork as Cognitive Performance Tools

Your body is your most underutilized leadership asset. Movement and breath aren’t just about fitness – they’re regulation tools that directly impact how you think, lead, and recover.

Even short bursts of movement can sharpen your mind, creating real, impactful change. Physical exercise helps all sorts of issues, including anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. It can also improve memory, focus, and cognitive flexibility. Breathwork does the same. Short, daily breath practices reduce stress and enhance our moods – and anyone can do it! That’s not about mindfulness as a buzzword; it’s about giving your brain a reset switch.

This isn’t about squeezing in one more thing. It’s about strategic interruption. Small, intentional pauses that pull you out of survival mode and back into presence.

Three Daily Small Moves for Energy and Follow-Through

You don’t need a total lifestyle change. You need easy ways to show up with full energy. You need consistent rituals that ground and energize you, not exhaust you. These three practices are simple, evidence-based, and designed to support you in even the most demanding roles.

1. Start with Breath Before Screens

Give yourself five minutes before opening your inbox, calendar, or Slack. Try box breathing (4-4-4-4) or even just slow, nose-only breathing with your feet on the floor. It’s not about finding peace; it’s about claiming presence. This short ritual sets your brain up for clearer decisions all day long.

2. Use Movement as a Reset, Not a Workout

Instead of planning hour-long gym sessions, insert movement in between meetings, emails, and strategy sessions. Focus on mini workouts – small bites, not the whole pie! A few pliés at your standing desk. Spinal twists before a call. Even a 10-minute walk boosts energy and clarity. You can improve your mood and reduce fatigue without disrupting productivity or even leaving your desk.

3. End the Day with Recovery Rituals

Leadership requires recovery, and a big part of letting our brains and bodies recover is getting quality sleep. Even 10 minutes of downshifting like gentle stretching, breathwork, or a hot bath before bed helps close the stress loop and tell your body it’s safe to rest. Shutting off those screens can’t hurt either! High performance doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from knowing when to pause.

You’ve likely spent years mastering how to be productive. What you may not have practiced is how to feel well while doing it. Instead of pushing harder and harder, try staying connected to your body, your breath, your values, and your energy. Small moves in your day-to-day rhythm can unlock bigger changes than any new planner, time-blocking app, or performance metric ever could. It starts with 30 minutes throughout your day.

By: Andrea Leigh Rogers, celebrity trainer, entrepreneur, and founder of the global fitness brand Xtend Barre. In her new book, Small Moves, Big Life: 7 Daily Practices to Supercharge Your Energy, Productivity, and Happiness (in Just Minutes a Day) (BenBella Books // October 7 2025)

(Guest Contribution: The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com)

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Spacious Presence: The Power of Self-Exploratory Writing

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spacious presenceIn life and work, when you feel depleted, overwhelmed, contracted, or lost, what you may be craving is connection—with yourself.

Whereas when you feel spacious in your presence and perception, you are more capable of holding the whole of life: the ups, the downs, the words and behavior of others, the changes of emotional weather within, and the ever-shifting waves of life.

You’re also able to act from a wider vantage point and feel more energetically centered at work and home. You are less reactive to circumstances, not allowing them to dictate your sense of yourself or the world. Instead, you are grounded in your inner truth.

One simple tool for returning to that truth is self-exploratory writing—a practice that invites clarity, emotional spaciousness, and inner alignment.

The Underrated Value of Simple Practices

The habits that serve wellbeing and inner harmony are so basic, so mundane, and so immediately available, we tend to overlook them—good sleep, anyone?—in search of a magic fix or a peak moment experience. Culturally, we undervalue what matters the most.

Burnout is a consequence of a culture, or internalized culture, that does not prioritize wellbeing. Managing burnout becomes a coping strategy. Within that context, self-alignment and self-care are the origin points of a woman who knows her innate value and that the paradigm won’t change unless how you regard yourself does.

Inner spaciousness can be cultivated through practices such as meditation, breathwork, mindfulness, contemplation, myofascial release, dance and movement practices, grounding—and reflective and expressive journaling.

Writing To Support Emotional Wellness

Author Natalie Goldberg wrote to the power of spontaneous writing to access your first thoughts: “The aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel.”

When we recognize that emotions are energy in motion, we can get curious about them on the page, which can also help clarify what motives are at play in decision-making. Exploring your feelings, especially the ones you often resist, can deepen your self-understanding, expand your emotional bandwidth and resilience, and point you toward aligned action with your values and intuitive knowing.

Reflective and expressive journaling, which focuses on what’s truly on your mind and heart, has been shown to increase emotional awareness and emotional wellness while enhancing your overall outlook. Ultimately, it becomes a practice in emotional intelligence.

Cultivating An Orientation of Gratitude

People who orient in gratitude experience lower levels of stress and depression and better relationships. With practice, you can improve your ability to tap into the state of gratitude, elevating your “set point” of perception.

Practicing gratitude enhances wellbeing—for example, supporting better rest, less inflammation, and peace of mind while reducing symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Writing to express gratitude can help shift attention away from rumination and heavy emotions, and train the brain to more readily access appreciation. Not only this, but the positive effects on mental wellbeing compound like interest, creating accumulating benefits over time.

Processing Complex Emotions

Writing can also help to unwind and process trauma caught in the body’s cellular memory.

When we feel safe, writing about traumatic events or emotional experiences can help to organize chaotic thoughts, release locked-up emotions, and facilitate mental clarity and resilience long term.

Expressive therapeutic writing has also been shown to support physical health and immune function across a range of conditions, while reducing stress, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD.

Visioning Yourself in Growth

Expressive writing which focuses on self-reflection, gratitude, and imagining a positive future increases experiences of life satisfaction and happiness. In one study, people who journaled for 15 minutes a day felt significantly less anxiety, distress, and depressive symptoms.

When you uncover and explore a new insight on paper, remember a gift that’s gone dormant, or admit future visions or goals for yourself, you are bringing them into your awareness to galvanize energy towards them.

Neuroscience has found that when it comes to goals, people who very vividly describe or picture their goals on paper (men tend to do so more) are significantly (1.2-1.4 times) more likely to achieve those goals. Part of the reason is writing them down improves the biological encoding process by which your hippocampus drops a pin and says, remember this.

Creating Spaciousness Through Reflection

When you put what is inside on paper through reflective journaling, you create spaciousness—within yourself and between you and your thoughts. Often, you can discover how you truly feel through writing and increase your self-awareness.

When you are honest on the page and guided with revealing questions, you have the ability to externalize and explore the narrative, examine triggers, reveal thought and behavior patterns, recognize values, and reveal truths. Increasing your self-awareness, you can begin to see where you are locked into the past, or into thoughts and emotions, so you can come back to presence.

As Goldberg writes, “When you are present, the world is truly alive.”

Start Now: Five Prompts For Embodying Self-Respect

Why not start now? Here are five journaling prompts related to embodying self-respect that you can write to today.

  • What is one way you are keeping your word with yourself? How does it feel? What supports you to honor your intention?
  • What promise to yourself are you bending—or breaking? How does it feel?
  • What nurtures your sense of self that you regularly nourish?
  • What nurtures your sense of aliveness but you are not prioritizing it?
  • What is one thing you ache to give more attention and energy to? What are you doing instead that is a lower investment in your fulfillment?

In the practice of yoga, more than half the task is getting onto the mat. With expressive or reflective writing, more than half the task is getting onto the page.

So often, we stay stuck in the same mental and emotional energetic loops, but self-exploratory journaling in response to powerful questions can open new doors of awareness which allow us into more of ourselves—and more of our lives and our unique leadership.

Aimee Hansen is co-author of This Book Is a Retreat: 101 Soul-Nourishing Questions to Reconnect with Yourself to be released on August 22, 2025 (prior to that, available for pre-order), a co-creation with USA Today bestselling author, Marianne Richmond. She is the founder of Storyteller Within and has led the Journey Into Sacred Expression women’s retreat on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala for the past ten years. As a lover of the questions that open us, she’s inspired hundreds of women in writing their hearts into expansion.

(Guest Contribution: The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com)

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Own Your Energy: Seven Keys to Honing Your Personal Power

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own your personal powerOne power dynamic we rarely speak explicitly about is the one with yourself. Yet it’s arguably the most powerful relationship impacting your work, your leadership, and your life.

Are you still perceiving power as the ability to exert control over others – or to be subject to another’s control? What if you began to define power instead as the energy you cultivate when you move in alignment with your truth as you navigate the choices of your days?

In any given situation, do you remember to re-orient yourself towards your axis of personal power? Are you aware of how you leak power? Are you aware of how you build it? No matter the situation, you hold power. How you perceive and steward that power – especially with yourself – matters most.

Leading and empowering others begins with your ability to authentically lead and empower yourself. Here are seven ways to step into greater energetic mastery of personal power.

1) Disrupt the urge to dominate yourself.

In the patriarchal paradigm, achieving outcomes often means using pressure and domination inside of a hierarchy. When you internalize this, you dominate yourself to meet external demands – often at a profound cost to your well-being.

If you laud force over yourself to make things happen, you push beyond your limits, override your embodied truth, and live in chronic stress and anxiety, priming yourself for burnout. As Stephen Covey illustrates, you err when you prioritize the golden eggs (production) over the goose that creates them.

Empowering yourself means honoring how you treat yourself – mentally, energetically, and physically – rather than devaluing yourself. When you stop normalizing self-dominance, it become harder for others to dominate you and easier to discern toxic environments.

2) Start moving from where you stand now.

Often we displace our power to some future, idealized scenario.

You tell yourself that when you reach a certain title, goalpost, or milestone, you’ll finally manage your time better, assert yourself, relax, or set boundaries. If only something were different, you think, or if you attain that one qualification, then you could make the leap.

But any notion that displaces your personal power to a future scenario blinds you to the power you presently hold. It may even create a false story about what is necessary to move toward what you want, suspending your ability to act here and now.

Your ability to affect your experience never lies in the future. It is available in this moment.

3) Stop seeing giants around you.

“If a person continues to see giants, it means he is still looking at the world through the eyes of a child.” ― Anas Nin

In patriarchal culture, we are conditioned to see authority as external to ourselves. No matter how far you are in your career, do you still find yourself projecting disproportionate power onto certain people, especially those with prestigious titles or positions?

True power exists within you – it’s how you manage your energy and choices in every interaction. It can neither be granted nor taken away. It has nothing to do with role, reputation, or permission. It’s embodied from within.

When you see giants around you, you subtly give away your power. If you stopped, what might you be willing to speak, do, or risk?

4) Get honest about what holds power over you.

Unconscious thoughts and behaviors drive most of our daily interactions. More than any person or institution, you surrender your power to beliefs, patterns, stories, habits, and cultural norms. What you repeatedly activate infuses your energy. The narratives you tell yourself shape your lived reality and how much power you have.

When you react rather than respond, you are not in your power. Certain interactions, people, or thoughts can trigger you to lose regulation, unplug your energy, or activate fear-based behaviors.

Bringing these dynamics into your conscious awareness allows you to investigate how you lose power, such as:

  • What beliefs, patterns, and habits unplug your power?
  • How do you silence or diffuse your own voice and possibilities?
  • What story are you telling that disempowers and limits you?
  • Where and how do you abandon your values?

Where you lose power impacts upon your ability to show up authentically in leadership. As the saying goes, the calmest person in the room holds the most power.

Working with an executive coach can help you to reveal and recalibrate the power battles you face within.

5) Practice discernment and boundaries.

“Energy is power. And it is your responsibility to monitor how you manage it.” – Caroline Myss

Navigating your “yes” and “no” is energy management and has consequences for your clarity, health, and sense of power. When you cannot say “no,” you victimize yourself.

Boundaries matter. Not every invitation requires your attention. Not every conflict merits your engagement. Not everyone has free access to your energy and time.

Practicing discernment can strengthen your energetic field, so you are not scattering energy or leaking power. You sense intuitively what is in alignment for you. Sometimes this means action; other times, withdrawing or letting go.

Every time you say “yes” to a clear internal “no,” you chip away at your personal power. It is far healthier for you to disappoint others than to betray yourself. When you manage your energy, you radiate an authenticity and leadership rooted in self-esteem and self-respect.

6) Keep your word with yourself, first.

Trust is a foundation of leadership, including self-leadership. When you deeply trust yourself, you build the inner wholeness essential to personal power. But as Martha Beck writes in “The Way of Integrity,” lying to yourself – even in small ways – wreaks inner havoc.

  • What are you doing that you know hurts you?
  • What are you not doing that it hurts to not be doing?
  • Where are you fibbing to yourself or breaking your own word?
  • Where are you being unfaithful to your truth?

When your thoughts, energy, and actions align, you come from inner coherence. Power rooted in real integrity speaks through your presence, energy, and actions, far more so than power rooted in title, performance, or external validation.

7) Calibrate your presence from within.

The ultimate power you hold is your perception and ability to define your inner experience. Most people live in reaction. Because of X or Y or Z, we must shrink or be afraid or lose trust. But circumstances and meaning are two different things, and context does not dictate response.

You can default to reflecting the environment, or you can anchor your tone from within. You decide whether to mirror chaos and fear and victimhood or to choose calm and groundedness and trust. Personal power happens when you no longer default to unconscious reactions but instead move from conscious choice, sourcing your stability from within.

If there is one power dynamic you master, let it be the one you hold with yourself. This will transform the way you move through every challenge, opportunity, and relationship – and it will redefine the quality of your leadership.

By: Aimee Hansen.  Alongside years of writing on leadership, Aimee Hansen is the founder of Storyteller Within and leads the Journey Into Sacred Expression women’s retreat on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Her upcoming event is July 26th – August 4th, 2025. Follow her at thestorytellerwithin.com, on instagram, and via Linked In.

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Being a Professional Woman: Managing Stress and Avoiding Burnout (Holiday Edition)

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leadership coachIt is the end of November, and we are closing out the year thankful the U.S. election cycle has wrapped, yet still reeling from natural disasters, several wars, and mind-bending news regarding sex trafficking allegations from rap music to US politics. Here in the U.S., it’s Thanksgiving—a holiday that can be joyful for some, somber for those mourning the loss of loved ones, and stressful, especially for professional women juggling hosting and cooking responsibilities.

With only so many hours in the day, being a professional woman in the sandwich generation—juggling the care of both children and aging parents—is undoubtedly one of the most challenging roles in today’s society. Balancing the demands of a career with the responsibilities of raising children and providing for elderly parents can lead to overwhelming stress, fatigue, and even parental or professional burnout. Women burn out at a higher rate than men due to many societal and organizational factors – including “broken rung” issues whereby women still get paid and promoted less than male counterparts during the entire span of their careers. After almost twenty years of exploring extrinsic elements and cultural enablers and disablers for advancing women at work, we can conclude that progress is mixed at best. This article, instead, focuses on how to thrive—rather than merely survive—the onslaught of the holidays as we can reflect on progress during the annual Year-End Review.

Prioritizing Self-Care

One of the most important things to remember is that taking care of yourself is not selfish — it’s essential. Nutrition and exercise are long term strategies as we know that you cannot pour from an empty cup. When you prioritize self-care, you are better able to care for your family and meet the demands of your career. We have all heard the ways to practice self-care which can include scheduling “me time” such as walks, baths, massages and anything that falls into the recharge category. This can be a little boost and certainly worth doing while also understanding that these “fixes” are temporary and usually short lived. Think of it as an “app” – it is great to use apps, and they can be helpful, but looking at the operating system and seeing what needs to change in how you approach your life generally, is really key to getting the longer-term support and rejuvenation you might be seeking.

Without sounding trite, maintaining a balanced diet is a crucial part of self-care—but anyone managing a busy schedule knows how challenging it can be when you’re constantly on the go. Right now, my children are outside my office door, and I will be required to stop typing and rattle some pans soon- sound familiar? Be aware of prepared meal services as they are an under-regulated industry and often high in sodium and other hidden unhealthy or even toxic ingredients. Physical activity is a proven stress buster. Somatic exercises that involve shaking can clear stress and trauma. Even a short daily walk can help clear your mind and boost your mood while building you bones and heart health for decades to come. Exercise also helps sleep and along with some new habits regarding phone and screen boundaries, you could feel the benefit of this change before 2025 even begins. Look for the wins. Social support, journaling and breathing all has been reported and researched as useful.

Setting Boundaries — At Home and at Work

As a working mom, one of the hardest things to do is say no. You may feel guilty about not being able to do everything for everyone, but learning how to set healthy boundaries is essential to avoiding burnout at work and home. If possible, communicate your needs for flexibility and remote work. However, be aware that in organizations lacking trust and supportive cultures, such requests may be met with resistance or even penalties. Assess your work environment carefully and understand your manager’s approach before addressing these needs. Despite news saying otherwise, only 33% of companies are requiring a full return to office with pundits indicating this could rise to 50% by the end of 2025. Hybrid is here to stay it seems. This is a fraught topic with more and more (white male) CEO’s mandating face time back in offices.

Even with remote work, the workload itself can feel like an impossible mountain on a daily basis. Organization and productivity hacks can be helpful in managing these demands. Dan Martell’s book Buy Back Your Time introduces the DRIP matrix, a tool that helps you identify not only what to delegate, but also what you can “replace” yourself on—tasks that seemingly only you can do. The deciding criteria for evaluation for keeping a task or hiring someone to do it is simply posing the question to yourself: ‘does this activity have high impact (production quadrant) and light you up?’

Not everything needs to be done today. Prioritize your most important tasks and break them into smaller, more manageable chunks. Recognize that it’s okay to let some things go or to reschedule less urgent matters. Use an Eisenhower matrix or a similar tool to help you parse the strategic from the important and the important from the urgent but not crucial. Play with time—it is a commodity that you can trade.

The same goes at home. If possible, divide household responsibilities among your partner, children, and even extended family members. Don’t shoulder all the caregiving alone. Your partner may not know what you need unless you clearly communicate it.  Other tactics include using outside help—if it’s feasible, consider hiring help for household chores, childcare, or even caring for your aging parent. If this isn’t in your budget, explore community resources or family support to lighten the load. Try to remember to ask for help. Eve Rodsky is really the most enjoyable author to turn to regarding “Fair Play” and she has a podcast and even a set of cards to use as a practical tool with your spouse. Early holiday gift? The mental load is real and even happens in LGBTQ families.

Give Yourself Grace

Over the holiday, leave the dishes for a while and see if others step in. Spend time with your children or elderly parents doing mostly things you enjoy. Laughing together, playing games, and sharing meaningful moments can help replenish your emotional reserves.

Being a working mother in the sandwich generation is undoubtedly challenging, as is being a professional woman without kids as the constant to-do list is there always. By setting boundaries, prioritizing self-care, practicing time management, and seeking support when needed, you can manage the stress and responsibilities that come with your multiple roles. Remember, you are not alone in this journey. Embrace strategies that work for you and allow yourself grace as you navigate the balancing act of family, work, and caregiving. Taking care of yourself isn’t just important — it’s essential for your long-term well-being and the well-being of those you care for. We need a better system but, in the meantime, let’s win where we can?

Happy Holidays from theglasshammer team.

Nicki Gilmour is the Founder and CEO of theglasshammer and is a coach and organizational development expert. We have several vetted qualified coaches specializing in different areas from career navigation to leadership development- please click here to book a time to speak if you are an HR professional looking to hire us for leadership development or a professional woman looking for a career coach proactively, we work with varying levels from VP to SVP/ C- suite.

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Four Reasons Leaders Need to Look After their Well-being

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leadership and well-beingLeaders tend to feel more pressure than most to work long hours and sacrifice their well-being. For some, this is in hopes of inspiring team members to work hard, and for others, it’s simply due to a desire to reach and exceed goals.

Many professional women often feel additional pressure to prove themselves hardworking, especially when leading in male-dominated industries. However, problems can arise when we overwork ourselves so much that our well-being suffers and the ability to lead effectively diminishes with it.

Here are four important reasons leaders need to protect, not sacrifice, their well-being.

Rest is essential for protecting mental and physical well-being

Good quality sleep is essential for maintaining physical and mental health. Sleep deprivation can inhibit cognitive function, meaning that you can’t perform at your best when you’re tired. Plus, chronic sleep deprivation can lead to depression, anxiety, and stress, all of which can affect work.

Stress is both a cause and symptom of poor sleep, so it’s common to become stuck in a cycle of stress leading to insomnia, leading to further stress, and so on. This cycle can only be stopped when you consciously adopt a healthy sleep hygiene routine and incorporate positive stress management tactics into your day.

Work is a leading cause of stress and subsequent sleep problems, with around 80% of workers in the USA experiencing work-related stress. Those in leadership positions are particularly susceptible to excess stress because they carry more responsibility and are ultimately accountable for their team’s work.

Make sure you put firm limits on your working hours and avoid working late into the night to give yourself time to switch off from work. Many leaders find it helpful to gently unwind before bed by doing gentle exercise, meditating, journaling, taking a bath or reading a book. Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day can also help your body find its natural sleep rhythm, meaning you’ll find it easier to fall asleep.

Self-care habits can support productive routines

When you schedule self-care habits into your daily routine, you’re likely to become more productive overall. Our minds can become overwhelmed with lists, tasks, and issues, which may make us reluctant to make time to exercise, indulge in a creative hobby, or prepare a healthy meal.

However, it’s important to take regular breaks from work and allow yourself the time to write down all your to-do’s, make a plan, and take a moment to breathe. Prioritizing self-care is essential for alleviating stress, and when you schedule specific self-care activities in your breaks, you’re less likely to skip them.

Many self-care habits help you to refresh your mind and return to work with greater focus. For example, art and craft activities boost dopamine levels, which aids the creation of neurons in order to promote focus and aid productivity. It might sound counterintuitive, but working less could help you to achieve more if you replace work with activities that nourish your well-being.

Protecting well-being prevents burnout

Burnout is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion that occurs after a long period of chronic stress. It affects focus and productivity, and it tends to generate an uncharacteristic sense of apathy toward work. When someone feels burned out, they can’t function professionally to their full capacity. If they continue to push themselves at work despite experiencing burnout, they run the risk of developing depression or anxiety.

Burnout seems to affect women more than men, especially for those in managerial and leadership positions. A 2021 study found that 49% of women in senior leadership roles reported feeling burned out, as opposed to only 38% of men in similar jobs. This means it’s particularly important for professional women to protect their well-being and create clear boundaries between their work and their personal lives.

Modeling healthy habits inspires team members

A workforce with good physical and mental well-being is likely to be more productive and require fewer sick days than a workforce that is stressed and physically unhealthy. As a leader, it’s your job to support your employees’ well-being to ensure your team operates to its full potential. By prioritizing your self-care, you can lead by example and encourage your team members to look after themselves, too.

Good leaders inspire their teams, and although it’s important to inspire hard work, there’s a fine line between hard work and overwork. If a leader works incredibly long hours with few breaks, their team members might feel pressure to do the same – despite the damage, this can do to their mental health and well-being.

When you encourage a healthy work-life balance and create a culture of self-care in your workplace, you help your team feel inspired to look after their own health, making them more able to perform at their best.

Prioritize your wellbeing to become a better leader

When you take care of your physical and emotional well-being, not only do you protect your ability to lead successfully but you also become a better, more effective leader. Make sure you get plenty of rest and stack up your healthy self-care habits to lead your team to great heights of success.

By: Lucy Ranger is a business development executive who has acquired more than 15 years of experience in the industry. Away from her remote office, Lucy is passionate about sustainability, and regularly volunteers in her local community to help with various clean-up projects and initiatives.

(The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com).

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Mental Health Month: Racism and Women of Color at Work

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women of color at workIt is no secret that the workplace has been completely transformed since the global pandemic and racial reckoning that swept 2020. Some of the disruption has been good for business, forcing an agility on companies who must learn to be more responsive in a rapidly evolving marketplace. It has been good for people, too, with remote work offering the increased flexibility we’ve been wanting for years but were slow to implement. For women at work, flexibility is becoming a stake in the ground instead of the benefit it once was. For women of color, however, the story is much more complicated.

According to a recent survey by Fairy Godboss and nFormation in 2021, one third of women of color planned to leave their workplaces in the next year, with burnout being the leading factor at 51%, followed by different career/greater purpose and salary/benefits tied at 47%. When we dig deeper, “burnout” for women of color is fueled by multiple competing ideas: more work with less appreciation, more discussions about racism without meaningful and effective mitigation of its effects, and greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion softened by little measurable progress.

Despite statements about commitments to diversity, the same survey revealed that nearly two thirds of women of color aren’t satisfied with their company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, with 60% saying their companies are not properly prepared to handle racist incidents in the workplace.

Is it no shock then that merely 3% percent of Black knowledge workers want to return to full-time on-site work, as opposed to 21% of their white peers, and that Asian and LatinX also prefer a hybrid or fully remote work environment.

Many are wondering why, with dominant assumptions centering on the ability to manage home and work harmoniously. While flexibility has in fact brought unintended benefits to many women, especially those with young children, the pandemic has given women of color another gift that’s growing more valuable with time: psychological safety.

According to McKinsey and LeanIn’s 2021 Women in the Workplace study, women of color are far more likely to be on the receiving end of disrespectful and othering behavior, which includes race-based insults or inappropriate comments. These microaggressions, or subtle acts of indignity that communicate to outgroups that they do not belong, can range from judgments about attire or hairstyle, to ignoring one’s presence in a room, to discounting input or decisions, and even tolerating overt acts of racism or gender discrimination.

During the pandemic, Black and brown women enjoyed a respite from race-based offense and trauma. Working from home meant the avoidance of harmful people, conversations, and spaces while still receiving (most of) the critical information they needed to do their jobs.

Racism wears women of color out, literally and figuratively. The emotional and psychological weight associated with bracing for offense, overthinking whether and how to respond to offense, feeling unsafe in the world and consequently at work, and knowing you must work harder to achieve half the credit and opportunity is not only burdensome, but extremely damaging to the mental and physical health of women of color at work.

We can’t afford to dabble in healing. For businesses that desire to thrive into the future, the path forward is multi-dimensional and urgent.

Be courageous and compassionate.

As a leader, you have an opportunity to “show up” for the people with whom you work in ways that help and heal. When harm is inflicted upon their communities, engaging women of color at work with curiosity and compassion helps them feel seen by you. We want to be seen at work, and ignoring racial trauma makes people feel their pain is invisible to you. Failing to make compassionate connections during times of emotional need also chips away at psychological safety, which is key to creativity and innovation, and a precursor to true inclusion. Another way to show up for people is to intervene directly and immediately when you personally witness race-based offense.

Beware of overwork and undervalue.

Many women of color feel overworked and undervalued. In a LinkedIn poll I conducted earlier this year, the comments section overflowed with anecdotes about this very imbalance. Black women have long felt they must work twice as hard as their white peers—a feeling that is validated by Gender Action Portal research that revealed they are evaluated more negatively than Black men, white women, or white men. This “overwork” requirement stands in sharp contrast to the underrepresentation of women of color, who enter the workforce at 17% but hold only 4% of top jobs. Clearly, it is not paying off in greater opportunity. It’s every leader’s responsibility to ensure they are not requiring more proof, more effort, and stronger results from women of color than from others at work, and that you are not seeing some as perpetual “doers” and others as “leaders,” the definition of which is often based on white male models.

Build bridges.

For every practice or process we interrogate, we should build a relationship across difference. Relationships are the great accelerator in the workplace, and while systems matter greatly for sustainable impact, getting to know the people on your team – what they aspire to, what they’re good at, what their concerns are, what great looks like to them – is a powerful way to open doors for others and make them feel they truly belong. Belonging is an antidote to the isolation and trauma racism creates in any given environment and is foundational to racial equity. Your women of color need to know they are not alone, yes, but also that they are an equally valuable member of the team. Women of color, and especially Black women, aspire to higher levels of contribution. The inability to realize career aspirations can erode general optimism and taint one’s belief in their career possibilities.

Racism has long been a destroyer of people and places, and work is no exception. It divides us, harms us, and prevents us from working collaboratively in life and in business. Every leader has an opportunity and responsibility to better understand the roots of racism and how it manifests in your given work environment. Assessing your employee experience is a critical first step. Then, take responsibility for what you learn, and commit to a safer, more equitable future. This is the workplace culture your women of color, and all your employees, deserve.

By: Tara Jaye Frank is a sought-after Equity Strategist and author of The Waymakers: Clearing the Path to Workplace Equity with Competence and Confidence (May 3, 2022). Tara has worked with thousands of leaders at Fortune 500 companies to help solve culture-based and leadership problems. Before founding her culture and leadership consultancy, Frank spent twenty-one years at Hallmark Cards, where she served in multiple roles, including Vice President of Multicultural Strategy and Corporate Culture Advisor to the President. Frank’s work, fueled by a deep belief in the creative power and potential of everyone, focused on equity and building bridges between people, ideas, and opportunity.

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Will Companies Value the Leaders Who Invest In Inclusion?

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DEI leadersWhile women report being both increasingly burned out from the pandemic years and vulnerable to leave the workforce, they are also most likely to be rising up to embody the leadership our times ask for.

Will companies begin to put their money (financial and career trajectory rewards) where their mouths are? If not, allowing women to disproportionally shoulder the “unpaid work” of empathetic management and DEI is a strategy for losing the leaders who are tapped in and more valuable than ever.

Our Times Call for Compassionate Leadership

Amidst the pandemic, leadership has become more oriented towards supporting individuals as a whole person, not just as employees, with qualities such as emotional intelligence and active listening. As written in Forbes: “One of the key lessons young people can take from today’s successful executives and leaders is the value of taking care of your people.”

According to Catalyst, employees who report their leaders are empathetic are far more likely to feel engaged, respected and valued, are more likely to stay in their place of work, be innovative and feel a sense of inclusion. When people sense their leaders are empathetic, they also feel more able to navigate the demands of work and family life.

People who see their leadership as empathetic in decision making are also likely to be collaborative and empathetic themselves. And when leaders are more empathetic, it fosters better levels of mental health in their organization. Using empathy as the catalyst for leading with more compassion (not ‘I feel with you’ but ‘I am here to help,’ as we are inherently interconnected) creates even more effective leadership.

As Tracy Bower, Ph.D. sociologist and the author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work, writes in Forbes, “Leaders don’t have to be experts in mental health in order to demonstrate they care and are paying attention. It’s enough to check in, ask questions and take cues from the employee about how much they want to share” – and this drives positive relationships, engagement and organizational results.

Women Are Leading The Deep Cultural Work

According to the Women in the Workplace 2021 Report – a collaboration between McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org collected from over 423 organizations and 65,000 employee surveys – women are more likely to be carrying the torch of the “deep cultural work” necessary to transform workplaces “healthily and sustainably” in these times.

Women managers are consistently more likely to be supporting employees in their work lives (making the workload manageable, navigating work/life challenges, preventing and managing burnout). Women are also much more likely to be checking in on employee’s overall well-being and supporting them emotionally. In essence, employees are reporting that their female managers are showing up more with the active compassion of ‘how can I help?’

Also, women are more likely to be doing informal DEI work, beyond formal job responsibilities, and spending substantial time doing so. Compared to their male peers, senior female leaders are twice as likely to be making DEI work a part of their weekly work flow (1 in 5 vs 1 in 10). Women are also likely to recruit from and support underrepresented groups, be allies to women of color, to educate themselves, to speak out again discrimination, and to advocate for, mentor or sponsor women of color – although it’s important to note there are still big gaps to bridge in embodying the allies people would most value.

Ultimately, the work women are doing is driving better outcomes for everyone – because employees who feel their managers support their well-being, or who feel DEI is a priority and strong allies are present, are significantly happier, less burned out and more likely to stay around.

Women Are Stepping Up, And Burning Out

Yet while women managers and leaders are heeding the leadership call of our times, they are also undeniably overburdened themselves, with many not only carrying the double-shift of childcare and work, but also feeling the expectation to be “always on” in the absence of clear work/life boundaries in the remote and hybrid workplaces – another issue companies can help to address.

In 2021, 1 in 3 women were thinking about downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce, up from 1 in 4 women a few months into the pandemic in 2020. 4 in 10 women were looking to leave their company or switch jobs. 42% of women felt often or almost always burned out in 2021, a big jump up from 32% in 2020, and compared to 35% of men. That burnout feeling escalates with responsibility level. Among senior women who are managing entire teams, 50% were often or always burned out, and 40% were considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers.

Valued in Words, But Not In Actions

Companies are espousing that DEI and employee well-being are important to them. But while 87% of companies say that supporting employee well-being is critical and 70% say DEI work is critical, only about 25% are formally recognizing this work – and even fewer are rewarding it.

Despite stating gender and racial diversity as top priorities, only two-thirds of companies hold senior leaders accountable for progress on DEI goals, and less than one-third hold managers accountable, who are essential to creating cultures of inclusion. Among those who hold senior leaders accountable, fewer than half factor progress on diversity metrics into their performance reviews and less than a quarter build in financial incentives for progress on performance goals – meaning ultimately, the work is overlooked.

Right now, these highly sought leadership behaviors are adding up to be the new “unpaid work” highlighting where companies need to put more value. That women are disproportionally carrying this is a dangerous liability for employers during the Great Resignation. According to the report authors, “Companies risk losing the very leaders they need right now, and it’s hard to imagine organizations navigating the pandemic and building inclusive workplaces if this work isn’t truly prioritized.”

The authors urge organizations to treat DEI like any business priority, including following goals through to assessing effort and progress within performance reviews, and relating that to career advancement and compensation.

It’s Time to Recognize and Reward The Work

Right now, women are feeling burned out while taking personal leadership initiative on collective responsibilities. Companies are sabotaging progress on what they allege to be business priorities by not threading that priority through to enacting accountability, monitoring results and rewarding effectiveness.

“Companies need to incentivize and reward the things that women are doing to create these better working cultures,” says Jess Huang, co-author of the report. “This helps all employees because if it’s rewarded, more leaders will do it.”

Going further, she suggests: ”One solution companies should consider is incorporating criteria into performance reviews that recognizes the work managers are putting into supporting their teams and DEI efforts. Companies should use upward feedback provided by employees on their managers to help take this into account.”

It’s not enough to talk about valuing DEI and supporting the well-being of your employees. More companies need to demonstrate they value the work it takes to make it happen – to retain the leaders that are doing that work.

By Aimee Hansen

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OP-Ed: International Women’s Day 2022: Burnout, Sustainability and What Matters?

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International Women's Day 2022Many companies focus myopically on International Women’s Day. This year #BreaktheBias and
 gender and climate are the annual themes, depending on your source. But, as founder and fifteen 
years in here at theglasshammer, it is hard to believe that these slogans and themes that come and
 go every year create any change at all. People wants Acts, Not Ads from companies, and
 professional hard-working women are tired of the lip service and want to see the talk, walked.

As 
we enter year three of the global pandemic, with so many of us doing extreme amounts of work, 
and some of us also still balancing childcare with covid related closures of daycares and schools, 
isn’t it time to ask ourselves how can professional women and men (and especially anyone who 
has second and third shifts with kids and aging parents) do balance and self-care, better? What 
matters? And what role do firms have in creating the workplace of the future that we are ready to 
be in, now? This International Women’s Day, the manifesto should be to take a day off.
 Tomorrow the work will still be there!

Overwork and Burnout


There is work and then there is overwork. Chances are if you are reading this article, you have 
spent at least some of your career in the overwork zone. You probably work in financial, legal or
 professional services, in technology firms, big pharma, manufacturing, media or Fortune 500.
 You are probably a go-getter, highly ambitious and very successful. You probably have engaged
 some of the usual methods and possess some of the characteristics often needed to get to the top, including old fashioned hard and long work, a
 competitive nature, cognitive smarts, higher than average EQ to read the room, and a belief that
 improvement is always possible. Possibly three generations of professional women are reading 
this article with similar, yet evolving, culturally programmed definitions of success regarding wealth, status
 and career ladder climb concepts.

Is the extreme achievement mindset in sync with your life
goals, your health and mental wellness? Is overachievement about meeting other people’s 
standards or earning your worth?


Dr. Devon Price, like many of us, came to his senses regarding extreme productivity after a health
 emergency. He insists that we should stop valuing ourselves in terms of our productivity at
 work. In the book, Laziness Does Not Exist, he affirms that ‘we don’t have to earn our
 right to exist’ with overwork and endless achievement.

Advice includes to listen to your body and to forget grinding away all the time to meet arbitrary
 standards. By reframing what being ‘lazy’ means, versus the allure of validation through
 achievement, a healthier, happier you can emerge.

“Laziness is usually a warning sign from our bodies and our mind that we need a break.”

In an interview with NPR, he discusses why we rationalize working so hard, and how asking for 
help, and helping others to helps us, prevents tiredness from overwork but also facilitates us to be better
, due to feeling less exhausted as “our brains take micro-naps either way.”


It isn’t just you.

In several recent studies, isolated overwork came up as the most demotivating factor and biggest
 reason people are quitting jobs. This isn’t new news. Back in 2017, Inc magazine reported on employees 
quitting when leaders overwork people, show zero empathy and don’t respect time when people
 are out of the office living their lives, but it is further accentuated by the pandemic. 
Microsoft conducted an employee indexing survey of 30,000 that resulted in a study called
 “The Next Great Disruption is Hybrid Work – Are we Ready?”

By looking at trends including 
desire for flexible work and hybrid structures, the study reiterated what their CEO Satya Nadella 
called the hybrid work paradox. This study reveals that while people want more flexibility and remote 
options, they also seek deep human social connection. The same study reveals that high
 productivity is masking employee exhaustion and overwork. It states measurable uptick over the
 course of the year –  February 2020 to February 2021 –  on volume of emails sent, 66% increase on 
people working on documents, and meeting usage on teams increased in volume and time on
 meeting applications.

Uncovering your own Competing Agendas

Isn’t it time you figured out what you want for you? Start with your values. Take a look at what
 matters to you on this worksheet – literally, pick ten words that mean the most and then rank them
 1-10, with one being what you value most. Are your actions matching your values? Are you
 living a humdrum existence while your top value is adventure? Are you spending fourteen hours 
a day at work when your top value is family? Now is a great to re-evaluate what matters to 
you. Be yourself, everyone else is taken as the adage goes.

If you had trouble thinking about how all of this meets reality, or deciding what your values are
, or felt conflicted, that is part of the journey too. Hyper achievement and superhuman
 productivity are sometimes part of deep developmental gremlins that have made their way into 
our heads over time, so we can’t see any other way to be, making them our base operating 
system with everything else being an app on top. Kegan and Lahey, Developmental 
psychologists at Harvard, really have a superb method in their book, Immunity to Change, to 
help you figure out what your unconscious mind is doing to you while you happily goal set in
 your conscious mind all day long regarding work, fitness and home life. We are all a product of 
whatever beliefs and paradigms that we have accumulated throughout our life and if your
 granny/dad/mother/friend told you words to live by, chances are you are doing just that, 
implicitly following some guidelines without even knowing.

What are your saboteurs? There is another easy way to find out what is going on inside your own 
head by taking this short quiz on “How we self-sabotage” by Positive Intelligence. It is key to
 understand what is going on with yourself and what your self-talk is likely to be telling you.
 Let’s start with the gremlins. If you have something like hyperachievement as your top saboteur,
 then it is likely you will justify the overworking with sentences like ‘I must be effective and 
efficient, and ’emotions get in the way of performance.’ Or if you have a high control saboteur,
 you might be telling yourself things like, ‘well if I don’t do it, who will?’ Or, that people need
 people like you to get the job done. Show yourself some compassion and a great book to
 understand how to even begin to approach such a daunting task is Radical Compassion by Tara
 Brach. It is normal to feel your feelings and that includes joy.

In short, honor yourself on International Women’s Day by taking stock of what matters to you now, and how closely your own life feels aligned to that.

We are starting a Spring coaching cohort in May for sustainable success in 2022. Cost is $3,999 
per person and includes a yearlong program with 6 sessions of executive coaching, peer coaching
 and career development training. Limited spots, contact nicki@theglasshammer.com and write
 spring coaching cohort in the title of the email.

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com

Nicki founded theglasshammer in 2007 to inspire, inform and empower professional women in their careers. We have been the leading and longest running career advice online and in person media company in the USA for professional women in financial services.

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OP-Ed: The Three Personality Traits Most Prone To Burnout

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burnoutFirst, let’s get one thing straight: burnout is not an individual problem; it’s an organizational problem that requires an organizational solution. Self-care has been the prevention strategy du jour for decades. And yet burnout is on the rise. Why? Because we’re ignoring the systemic and institutional factors that are the real causes of burnout – things like workload, lack of control, poor relationships, and other root causes that cannot be solved with yoga and vacation time.

If you are feeling burned out, know that it’s not your fault. But focusing on what we can do to help ourselves is the part we can control in a world full of the uncontrollable. And if you happen to exhibit one of the following personality traits, you are more prone to burnout.

Neuroticism

Neuroticism is one of the “big five” higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. If you dig into the definition, it makes sense that this trait correlates to higher rates of burnout. Individuals who score high on the neuroticism scales are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. People who are neurotic respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult.

In her 2018 dissertation, “The Relationship Between Big Five Personality Traits and Burnout: A Study Among Correctional Personnel,” Sharon Maylor of Walden University found that neuroticism was the only personality trait that was associated with all three dimensions of burnout.

Conversely, it’s important to see the value in this personality type. We tend to give personality traits like these a bad rap, but there are upsides. People with the neuroticism trait tend to be:

  • Highly analytical and hyperaware of threats or dangers
  • Cautious and less likely to make impulsive decisions
  • More accountable and will take personal responsibility for errors

There are obvious potential benefits to tending toward neuroticism on the team, but you need to be mindful of the downside to avoid burnout.

Introversion

It is a myth that introverts fear or dislike others and are shy and lonely. This is not the case. They simply have nervous systems more suited to spending time in a calm environment with one or a few friends.

Although their nervous systems may be dissimilar to those of extroverts, that doesn’t mean that introverts aren’t just as effective. “Extroverts are routinely chosen for leadership positions and introverts are looked over, although introverts often deliver better outcomes. They’re not perceived as leadership material,” says Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, and a frequent speaker on introversion and extroversion in the workplace.

According to Cain’s research, the power of introverts can be identified in the following behaviors. They:

  • Tend to be more productive than extroverts and less likely to become distracted
  • Explore subjects in more depth
  • Are great listeners, which helps them in problem-solving scenarios
  • Are often creators; writers and artists are more likely to identify as introverted
  • Have a strong capacity for empathy
  • Are moderators and can calm stressful situations
  • Are more cautious and better at managing risk

However, since the physical office can be a highly social place, research suggests that introverted people are at greater risk of developing burnout than extroverted people.

Introverts working virtually in most situations, minus a global lockdown, are removed from the noise, the hustle and bustle of a buzzing office, the potential disruptions that cause a lack of psychological safety, and the pressure to conform to those office norms. What if we made workplaces free of these kinds of strain?

Just ask Cain, who shared in our interview, “The best workspaces allow people to move freely between solo and shared spaces. Sometimes we want to work alone. Sometimes we crave company. Sometimes we want both of these things in the space of a single morning. Why not design around these natural preferences? Radically open office plans don’t actually increase collaboration or decrease loneliness. On the contrary, they create giant rooms full of worker bees wearing headphones.”

Perfectionism

If you’re prone to perfectionism—specifically, perfectionism concerns— you run a high risk of burning out. Broadly defined, perfectionism is a combination of exceedingly high standards and a preoccupation with extreme self-critical evaluation. Scientists Joachim Stoeber from the University of Kent discovered that our desire and subsequent efforts to achieve perfectionism are acceptable as long as we can emotionally handle scenarios when we don’t achieve it. When we start to believe that everything we do must be perfect and anything less means a failure, or that others may judge us as a failure, then this becomes detrimental to our mental health.

Someone who struggles with perfectionist concerns may exhibit the following traits:

  • Maintaining a rigid self-evaluative style that looks at events in all- or-nothing terms, for example, you’re either a winner or a loser.
  • Overgeneralizing negative events by making a rule after a single event or a series of coincidences. For example, someone is passed over for a promotion, and the narrative is now, “I will never move up in this company.” These “always” or “never” statements frequently appear in a perfectionist’s vocabulary.
  • Ruminating about past failures. Being unable to let go of mistakes and assuming they will come up again in the future.
  • Having a strong need for self-validation, for example, always questioning their self-worth. In some situations, they will subconsciously seek out ways to prove they are “right.” They believe their self-worth is constantly threatened.

According to researchers Andrew Hill and Thomas Curran in their article “Multidimensional Perfectionism and Burnout: A Meta- Analysis,” “Perfectionistic concerns are associated with considerable strain that render individuals vulnerable to the accrual of stress and subsequent burnout. In summarizing current understanding of the perfectionism–burnout relationship, then, it is the harsh self-evaluative processes central to perfectionistic concerns that are understood to fuel the perfectionism–burnout relationship, rather than perfectionistic strivings.”

Authors Mick Oreskovich and James Anderson suggest that we need to consider the following, if we experience perfectionist concerns:

  1. Identify the difference between power versus powerlessness over people, places, things, and situations; if we stop trying to control everything, we will find more joy. It may be a challenge to surrender, but it is necessary to prevent burnout.
  2. Understand the differences between self-knowledge and self-awareness (self-knowledge is what we believe to be true about ourselves; self-awareness is seeing ourselves as others see us). These insights are rarely the same yet are equally important.
  3. Accept help.
  4. Take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others.

Jennifer Moss is an award-winning journalist, author, and international public speaker. She is a nationally syndicated radio columnist, reporting on topics related to happiness and workplace well-being. She is the author of THE BURNOUT EPIDEMIC: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It.

{Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It by Jennifer Moss. Copyright 2021 Jennifer Moss. All rights reserved.}

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