“Lazy bastards don’t burn out”

I was part of a panel discussion last week talking about burnout and Lucyna Milanowska made this comment, “lazy bastards don’t burn out” and she’s right. I wrote an article years ago about who is looking after your top performers and said a similar thing, because it’s true. The ones who do the minimum, will not reach burnout.

A month or so ago I interviewed Denise Duffield-Thomas for my podcast and she’s a self-confessed lazy perfectionist, prone to burnout. When she talks about being lazy, she wants to make the biggest impact with the least amount of effort, and so she’s always looking for the quickest and easiest way to get her to her goal. We talked about the importance of boundaries, and when she pushes to hard and becomes exhausted, she’s prone to burnout, and this is a multi-millionaire with a lot of help and support, who also likes to do a number...

I was going to post a different article with you today, but this feels like the words that I need to share today. And I’m mad, frustrated, heartbroken, sad and overwhelmed by the messages I’ve received this week and the conversations I’ve had, so here goes.

Yesterday I shared that it was 9 years since I had the first of two operations in 48 hours as a result of the physical impact of my burnout in 2013, the burnout that almost killed me, and the burnout that I refused to admit to, working from my hospital bed because I didn’t want to let anyone down, I didn’t want to seem like I had failed, I ‘needed’ to be there for my team. And whilst I was recovering and numbing from the daytime TV I’d been consuming as I lay on the sofa, the day that my sons came home from school and I said to them ‘don’t worry Mum will be back at work soon’ because for me my ability to work or not seemed to prove how healthy I was,...

It’s Friday night, I’m sat at a rooftop bar in London and the building opposite has Progress engraved in it, and I begin to question the word. The building had no name or number that I could see, I have no idea what it stood for, but it’s left me thinking about progress. At the time that the building was built, was progress a mission, did they feel that enough was being made fast enough, was it a stamp in time in memory of progress that had been made – I have no idea.

This same weekend has seen the Queen celebrate 70 years on the throne. Family commitments, work and travel meant that I’ve not watched or participated as much as I might have done in previous years in Jubilee celebrations, and for the first time, I’ve really questioned whether a promise that was made 70 years to ‘reign until the day I die’ really demonstrates progress.

Until this year I’d always thought of it as honourable, this time round I...