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How I burned myself out (again)

There’s a certain irony to being a mental health advocate, raising awareness about certain topics and yet somehow managing to burn yourself out. Yet here we are, it’s the start of 2026 and I feel on the fringes of burnout – I definitely ended 2025 burned out and I’m not out of the weeds yet. How did this happen, you might ask? Well, I ask myself the same question and I’ve realized that it seems to be the perfect concotion of my personality that means I have a tendency to push myself too hard. But first, let’s rewind.

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The truth about being a mindful entrepreneur

The path to entrepreneurship

About 6 months ago I decided to re-embark on the path of entrepreneurship by becoming self employed. This isn’t my first time – I did it in 2019 – but back then I had no idea what I was doing and had picked the option by default. Needless to say it was a very stressful period where I couldn’t fully embrace this status. In 2024 it was a completely different scenario: after careful consideration and wondering what I wanted to do next with my career, I decided I would give it another go.

With my 40th birthday on the horizon I asked myself: what do I want for the next 20 years of my career? Do I want to be in a corporate office job? The answer was no. I wanted to give myself a chance of pursuing the things I love and giving it a go – no regrets. Now I realize, 40 is still young and there’s plenty of time to do the things you always wanted to. 😉

With that in mind I decided to pursue my idea of becoming a life coach – something I’d been wanting to do since 2018. I thought that being able to blend my communications and marketing skills as well as being a coach would be the perfect mix. I also wanted the opportunity to pursue my artistic goals related to dance, and thus the journey started.

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Confessions of a recovering perfectionist

I’m going to be honest, until recently I was one of those people who called myself a perfectionist and would use it as my go to “weakness” in a job interview. But a few weeks ago in my coaching course, I was watching my fellow classmates worry about doing something right and I realized “I just don’t care”. From that point on I started to ask myself: am I actually a perfectionist anymore?

Truth be told, it’s not the first time I’ve heard people talk about their perfectionist tendencies and realized I truly don’t give a shit at all. 😂 And you know what? If I’m honest, I used to take pride in being a perfectionist, because it meant a job well done. It meant I went above and beyond, and held myself to ridiculously high standards no one else could meet, which ultimately made me “better”. As I write this I realize this sounds completely crazy, and yet it was true.

But today I think I’m finally free of perfectionism, I’ve reached the land of “I don’t care”, and I want to reflect a bit on this journey, and how it feels. I’m sure many of us out there can relate to the relentless life perfectionism creates.

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Burnout PTSD – what is it?

Not long ago I was talking to a friend who also burned out and she said something to me along the lines of “I didn’t know if I could work anymore, if work was even for me… I was scared of burning out again”. Suddenly a light went off in my brain and I realized – “oh my God she has burnout PTSD, and so do I”.

It really got me reflecting on my own experience and how my burnouts have affected me ever since. Particularly after launching the burnout checklist, it’s a topic I want to continue exploring. After all, you can recover from burnout thankfully, but what happens after that?

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The burnout checklist

The burnout checklist

Burnout remains a key problem in the workplace. Did you know that in the UK, one in four people (24%) said they felt ‘unable to manage stress and pressure in the workplace’? The issue is, we are not yet equipped with the right tools to help us know, and manage ourselves. We are told about “mindfulness”, are asked to meditate and “breathe” but we are not told why and lack context as to why this helps. So how are we supposed to meaningfully implement these tools?

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Myth: burnout is an extreme condition

Extreme burnout

I was recently speaking with a friend who is on sick leave from her job. She’s been through a lot in her personal life and finally her doctor decided she needed to take time off. When we met, she started asking me questions about my burnouts. I could sense she was curious and trying to understand more, perhaps trying to decide if she herself was burned out. And in this conversation several times she said to me “yeah but you were never on sick leave, right”? Or “yes but you never reached the stage where you couldn’t get out of bed, right”? And then it occurred to me: she was trying to check if I’d had a “real burnout”, where real burnout equated with an extreme condition in which you literally can’t get out of bed any more and have to take sick leave.

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Real life mental health stories: totally burnt out

Totally burnt out

Who are you, and why did you decide to share your story?

I am a woman in my mid-thirties and I work in the humanitarian sector. During a recent long-term field assignment, I experienced what I later discovered to be burnout. At the time I had little knowledge about this mental health issue, so for a long time I simply ignored the signals my mind and my body were sending me. 

By sharing my experience, I’d like to shed light on burnout, its symptoms and its consequences. In my sector there is still a lot of stigma around it, so I think that reading about others’ stories may be of help to those going through (or suspecting they are going through) the same experience. 

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Is “me time” selfish? taking care of your mental health

Is me-time selfish? Taking care of your mental health
On top of the dune du pilat

When it comes to good mental health, hopefully by now you know the importance of looking after yourself. This will look different for everyone, but I believe it’s a key element to staying on top of your sanity and being able to give your best in all areas of life. But as I was having conversations with friends and family over Christmas the question dawned upon me: is me-time selfish? Spoiler alert! In my opinion: absolutely not. Me-time is of utmost importance and is practically sacred.

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What is burnout trying to tell us?

What is burnout trying to tell us

There’s a lot of information out there about burnout, but have you ever stopped to think about what it really means? What is the message being sent to you from your mind and body when you burn out?

We can talk a lot about the circumstances that lead to burnout and in fact it’s easy to blame others, particularly employers. They overwork us, they don’t see us for who we are, etc. etc. But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves what the burnout was trying to tell us. This is something we don’t talk about so often, and yet it’s crucial if we want to be better able to understand and prevent burnout.

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A decade of mental health

A decade of mental health

With the ushering in of a new decade, naturally I started thinking about what I had accomplished in the past 10 years. There were many different things and it seemed more sensible to break it down into categories, which is when I thought of the last decade purely in terms of mental health.

What happened, and what has it represented to me? I wanted to take the time to reflect and put “pen to paper”. After all, “That’s mental” wasn’t born out of thin air.

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My last burnout

burnout
Image by Lattice

Or should I say, the last time I burnt out. I really hope it was the last but you never know, these things creep up on you… Nevertheless, I’d like to share the story with you and I took to video again to do so.

Once again, it was the the usual “end of year breakdown”. Sad that’s actually a thing, but it was. And I’m sure many of you can relate, in most industries Q4 is pretty intense.

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Being busy as a badge of honor – perceptions of work and how it affects our mental health

Busy as a badge of honour

In a previous blog post I talked about how we define success at work, and the impact this can have on our mental health. It’s a long and complex topic which could be debated for hours, but I think it’s super important to take a closer look at it and ask ourselves some hard questions.

The truth is, burnout and other mental health issues can be induced by toxic workplaces and other problems that stem from the employer, but sometimes we also bring it upon ourselves. That’s why today I want to take a closer look at the concept of being “busy as a badge of honor”, and what this does for our mental health.

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How we define success at work, and what this means for our mental health

How we define success at work
Success

A topic that’s been on my mind for a while is our definition of success, particularly when it comes to our professional lives. Ultimately, I believe it’s the source of a lot of stress, and can end up being the cause of burnout and other mental health issues we experience at work.

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Real life mental health stories: burnout was the catalyst

burnout

This blog post is part of an interview series for mental health awareness week. In this series, different people give their perspective on living with a mental health condition.

In certain cases as with the interview below, people have had the courage to reveal their identity. This is brave, as it can be difficult and daunting. Congratulations to them!

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What happens when your trust is broken at work

When your trust is broken at work
Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

In my previous blog post, I wrote about the importance of trust in the workplace. I did so because I wanted to explain how challenging it can be to not have trust at work.

In fact, I’m not sure I really expressed how dire the consequences can be if an employee’s trust in their employer is broken. Of course, if an employee breaks their employer’s trust it’s not good either, but that’s not the focus of this article.

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