Are you being brilliant or are you burning out?

Remember being eleven? In 2022, are your year 7 classmates happy and content or burnt out and overwhelmed?

Here’s a thing - think about the kids who were in top set, who were striving for scholarships, crazy competitive on the sports fields – the ones fighting for success, obsessed with achievements, studying like ninjas

Do you know any of them now? Maybe it’s you? How did it work out?

Take a look around and you may see that a lot of the big themes we see around us – the burnout, the great resignation, the overwhelm - are themes often driven by feelings of deep insecurity, a striving for perfection and a lack of understanding of how to build real mental strength. Feelings and behaviour which started in year 7 (or even before)

Scratch our shiny surface and underneath, many of us, even if we are so-called successful, are in truth attacked by deep insecurity - a wicked imposter syndrome which started when we were small, often alongside a lack of tools to build mental strength. Indeed, our weekend papers and our social media feeds are full of stories of people who have even been hospitalised for burnout – from top-flight students in their final years at University, to directors at the top of their careers

We are exhausted from the constant striving for perfection, fearing that unless we achieve perfection, we will lose everything we have fought so hard for, since year 7. We are overwhelmed by the constant change, the constant uncertainty and the constant pressure to be brilliant even amongst the chaos

Let’s pause a moment

How sad is that? That most toxic, destructive feeling of deep insecurity and search for perfectionism? The feeling which destroys the quality of life of so many adults - a life of overwhelm, burnout, jumping from job to job to dodge the career-ruining psychopaths - actually starts from such a very early age. The feeling that if, for one reason or another, we don’t strive, if we don’t fight, if we don’t work our fingers to the bone – we are losers, we are not successful and we are not of value

So then, when we actually do burnout, when we actually do quit our jobs to save our health and our relationships, when we do start a new career - how do we do that brilliantly so we don’t burnout – again?

The thing is, what we really need are options, choices, and the tools for mental strength...

To feel that we can live life on our own terms, swapping perfection for progress

If we love our jobs – we want to be able to do them, do them well and do them without burning out – pacing ourselves and taking holidays like normal people

If we are passionate about our organisation – we want to choose to stay there, create value for ourselves and our business, on our own terms, working hard, yes, but working well - focussed, healthily, sustainably

If we decide we do want a change – we want to be able to make the change purposefully, mindfully, joyfully - on our own terms

Because we have value, because we have worth and because we are swapping perfection for progress, from a position of mental strength

Mental strength is the new zeitgeist. Learning on the fly, mastering ambiguity, bouncing back from adversity - rebalancing, reinvigorating and reinventing!

Sounds good eh? So how do we do that then?

The great news is to help us do this, Progressfull have created an Upskill (our name for a course/masterclass) called Mental muscles where we share content and tools to help you focus your energy and effort on the things that matter most. So you can manage your thoughts, regulate your emotions, and be truly productive, pacing yourselves, working well - focussed, healthily, sustainably and doing it on your own terms. This is mental strength 

Mental muscles gives you the practical tools and insights to mentally thrive - empowering, equipping and enabling yourselves with accountability and authority, "the power of change in your life lies in the simplest of steps" as Mahatma Ghandi framed

Tap the link HERE to discover more about how you can buck the burnout trend, be brilliant on your own terms and build mental strength