We are better than ever at being busy these days. And frankly, pretty p*ss poor at recovering from it. More tools, more platforms, more ways to be reached, than any generation of workers before us. And the data on burnout keeps heading in exactly the wrong direction... straight to burnout city!! Burnout isn't a personal failing, it's biology It doesn't happen to people who don't care. It happens to the highest performers, the ones most committed, who want to do the best job,

Beholden to my own energy As someone with ADHD, I feel ridiculously beholden to my own energy. My dopamine levels, my motivation, my focus, it's not something I get to choose. I cannot predict who I'm going to be on any given day. What I'll be able to focus on. What I'll actually be able to do. Some days I'm sat there, frozen in executive dysfunction, unable to do the simplest task. Nothing complicated. Stuff that should take five minutes. And I just cannot bring myself to do

Boredom can be a drag, sure. But I've noticed just how much I struggle with it recently. On a whim I put "I'm bored" into Google, expecting it to give me a fun mobile game I could play for a bit, but it brought up an explanation that made me feel a lot better. Why boredom can feel like torture It described how, when you have ADHD, boredom isn't just "ugh this is dull." It can feel like physical pain, like I want to rip my own face off pain. There's a term for it apparently. "

Back in April, I was having a really hard time. I've been dealing with anxiety for most of my adult life - it's a fairly standard part of my life experience. Sometimes it's irritating, sometimes it's just a whisper and sometimes it's really debilitating. The last four months had been particularly intense. The kind of anxiety where it feels like you're constantly about to jump out of a plane. Headaches. Bad sleep. Heart palpitations. Feeling ridiculously overwhelmed by the sim

I want to talk about the employees most at risk of burnout. Because they're often the last ones anyone thinks to check in with. The employees nobody worries about They're delivering. Meeting deadlines. Supporting their colleagues. Taking on more when others are struggling. From the outside, they look absolutely fine. Yes, maybe they're pushing quite hard and you aren't really sure how they do it all, but they're getting results, so let's not rock the boat, shall we? Until bam

When a close loved one dies, there is a lot of admin. I saw someone refer to it as 'sadmin' the other day, which made me laugh. When my mum died, one of those arduous tasks was clearing out her house. Our house. The house we grew up in. While clearing out her bedside table, I found something. Just a small piece of paper with a to-do list on it. Not some list that revealed a secret family or a bunch of passwords to bank accounts in the Caymans full of secret millions (unfortun

A while back, I gave up alcohol for good. I gave up the rose pinot grigio nectar forever. I hung up my drinking boots and stepped, kicking and screaming, into a life of sobriety. So here are eight insights from doing something I never thought possible. 1. I don't actually like socialising that much I used to socialise a lot. What I've since realised is that most of it was just a very good excuse to drink. Turns out what I actually love is getting into bed early with my dogs a

Awareness weeks and months come round again and again on the HR calendar. If you're in HR, you've probably spent a fair amount of time and energy making one of them happen. The talks have happened. The communications are sent. The app has been promoted again. The lunch and learn had a decent turnout. You've done what you can with what you've got. And yet. Something isn't shifting in the way you know it needs to. You're not imagining it. And it's not because you're doing the w

Not that long ago, I was having a really hard time. I've been dealing with anxiety for most of my adult life. It's a fairly standard part of my life experience. Sometimes it's irritating, sometimes it's just a whisper and sometimes it's really debilitating. There was a stretch where things got particularly intense. The kind of anxiety where it feels like you're constantly about to jump out of a plane. The warning signs I ignored Headaches. Bad sleep. Heart palpitations. Feeli

Psychological safety isn't a poster on the wall. It's not a value statement in the induction pack either. It's created (and destroyed!) in the small moments. The everyday ones. How you respond when someone admits they don't know something. Whether silence in a meeting gets noticed or ignored. What happens the day after someone's idea doesn't work out. I talk a lot about trust being built like marbles in a jar (an analogy stolen from Brene Brown). Every time you do what you sa

Every May, organisations do something interesting. They put up posters. They share resources. They remind people that it's okay not to be okay. Some even bring in speakers (hello!!). And all of that is good. Awareness matters. But here's what I notice, year after year, working with organisations across almost every sector: the awareness hasn't translated into action. Not the kind of action that actually prevents people from becoming unwell in the first place. Because the acti

I ran a masterclass recently on survival mode and sustainable performance. And the question that got the most vigorous nodding reactions was all about de-prioritising. Not your priorities (and FYI, "priorities" was never meant to be plural. You're supposed to have ONE priority. But I digress.) Your depriorities (not a real word, should be). The things you're going to stop doing. The projects you're going to park. The meetings that could be an email. The good idea from three m

We are more digitally connected than ever We are more digitally connected than any generation in history. Our phones deliver a constant stream of emails, messages, notifications and updates. Collaboration platforms keep teams in touch across time zones. Artificial intelligence is accelerating how quickly work can happen. And yet many of us recognise the experience of: Losing track of time on our phones Feeling the urge to check a notification immediately Being distracted by d

Many organisations say they want a healthy workplace culture and sustainable high performance. Yet the way work is designed often creates the opposite effect. Constant meetings, unclear expectations and always-on communication can keep employees in a state of stress that eventually leads to burnout. Back-to-back meetings. Constant notifications. Unclear expectations. Leaders changing direction without warning. Everything framed as urgent. No real space to think. No clear sign

By now, most organisations accept that stress impacts performance. The problem isn’t whether stress matters. It's how we try to fix it. The default response to pressure I see this pattern everywhere. Teams are under pressure. People are stretched. Decision quality drops. Tension rises. So organisations respond by giving individuals tools: A mindfulness app A resilience workshop A reminder to “take breaks” Sigh!! Those things aren’t useless. But on their own, they’re not enou

We often tell ourselves - “I’ll just get through the week and recover at the weekend.” But if you’re spending most of your working week in survival mode, the weekend isn’t recovery. It's collapse. And collapse isn’t the same as rest. Survival mode was never meant to be permanent Survival mode is designed for short bursts. Deal with the threat. Come back down. Rest. Repeat. The problem is, most workplaces don’t operate like this. Instead, people are exposed to constant pressur

We’re in the depths of January and, if you’re honest, you might already feel like you’ve had enough. The inbox is overflowing. The calendar is chaotic. The only thing left in the Quality Street tin is the coffee creams (the horror!) And everyone seems to be running on fumes, desperately trying to summon some motivation. If that’s you, you’re not weak. You’re not lazy. And you’re definitely not broken. Biologically, this is one of the hardest times of the year to perform at y

My best friend Claire Weekes wrote this beautiful (and I hope inspiring) piece for Woman & Home magazine about our friendship, our extremely heavy drinking, and the journey we've taken into sobriety together. From boozy partners in crime...to people who now spend more time than is surely natural discussing out heated blankets! (the have their own names) I'm incredibly proud of her, and grateful for a friendship that has grown stronger (and healthier...mostly!) with time. Read

"When women share their stories, loudly and clearly and honestly, things begin to change - for the better." Lily Allen I heard (and loved!) this quote while listening to Lily Allen’s autobiography on audiobook a couple of years ago. It captured why these types of conversations matter, and why I wanted to create this series of podcast conversations. That’s What She Said is a series of conversations exploring the stories that shape us. Through honest, thoughtful conversations w

Recently I was reflecting on just how much energy it takes to show up in the world, especially when we feel we have to perform, adapt or fit in. This is something I see come up again and again in conversations about wellbeing, burnout and neurodivergence. I had just come back from three keynote talks in three cities, London, Zurich and Dublin. The sessions were brilliant and full of energy. One of the key themes I was speaking about was masking in the context of neuro-inclusi