Blog - Kelly Swingler

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Women Are Doing More To Fight Burnout: And It's Burning Us Out

burnout wellbeing Feb 04, 2022

Why is it that so many women are doing more to fight burnout and yet, it's this that is contributing to us burning out?

From my experience, and from lots of work I've done with my clients, I think the key to this is the word, doing. We keep doing and we keep doing more, assuming that what we are doing is right for us. But by doing and doing and doing, we are adding more stress and more pressure to ourselves.

When I burnt out in 2013, as part of my recovery I wanted to understand what had gotten me to that point of burnout in the first place. And so I kept doing! I did so much stuff.

I learnt about burnout, I did my therapy qualification, I did my psychotherapy qualification and I was doing research. My daily tasks became overwhelming.

I had this massive list of things to do from journaling, to yoga, to meditation, to ensuring that I was getting outside everyday, to eating a healthy diet, to making sure I was getting enough sleep. I was...

Your Seat At The Table

leadership Jan 28, 2022

Today I want to talk about getting your seat at the table. I was working with a client the middle of last week and then I got asked a question on Friday along the same theme topic, both were about the seat at the table.

Both women have a lot of responsibility in their roles and they both manage large teams. They've both got big budget responsibility. They seem to be very well respected by colleagues and peers. They both do a good job (I’d say they both do a brilliant job). And they both help people from outside of their organisations with other things. They both act as a mentor for women in similar roles in different organisations helping them to grow and develop. And they've both been recognised for all of this.

Both of them however feel that they are underpaid and undervalued. Some of the people that they're both helping in other organisations have bigger roles than them and bigger job titles than them and much bigger salaries than them and they both...

Can The Four-Day Work Week Prevent Burnout?

burnout Jan 22, 2022

With BBC News reporting trials beginning in the UK for the Four-Day Working Week the main focus is on whether this will increase productivity and yet this isn’t the only benefit that the four-day week provides. True four day working works on the premise of the 100:80:100 ratio. 100% pay, 80% hours worked and maintaining 100% performance.

In 2014 when I founded The Chrysalis Crew, even before I had a business plan, I knew what the purpose and values would be. I’d burned out in 2013, the toxic environment, backstabbing by the Exec team and prolonged stress broke me. I’d ignored the signs of burnout for months and the physical symptoms became overwhelming. I knew there had to be a healthier way to work and a more ethical way of consulting.

In 2018 I wanted to reward the team at The Chrysalis Crew, provide them with a different sort of benefit, and yet with big investments into the business, I didn’t have pockets of cash. So, what could I...

Too...

wellbeing Jan 21, 2022

Have you ever been told that you are too…?

I’m sure that many of us, I know I have, have been told that we are too something at one point in our life and career.

Too…

tall

short

fat

thin

old

young

experienced

inexperienced

confident

good

bold

colourful

brave

self-confident

emotional.

All of these times that we've been told that we are way too much.

Too…

fierce

strong

masculine

feminine

loud

quiet

talkative

bossy.

All of these things that we've been told over the years I was for more years and then I care to remember really. If I think back to childhood and the times that I was told by my mum that I was too bossy. And then I was too shy, then I was too fat. I was too ambitious. I was too driven. I was trying to do too much. I was too much. I was too nosey, too curious. I was told by colleagues that I was too successful. That I was working too hard. That...

Goals for Core-Led Women

leadership Jan 14, 2022

This week I’m talking about goals. It’s the time of year isn't it where many of you may have intentions you may have resolutions you might be thinking about goals if you are in a leadership position or in an organisation where your financial year is finishing in April, you might be really looking at your goals for this quarter. You might be looking at goals for the year as a whole calendar year, financial year, whatever it is that you're looking at.

Years ago, I was surprised when I attended a leadership conference for women and we were introduced to the notion of goals and sadly, how very few of us as women set concrete goals. I've always got goals I'm always achieving goals but this research kept coming up. It came up with some work that I was doing. And I think a lot of the time when I speak to clients about goals and even sometimes when I'm still setting goals I can still be a little bit woolly with some.

Sometimes the goals are vague, like I...

Wellbeing For Core-Led Women

wellbeing Jan 07, 2022

This week I want to focus on wellbeing.

As we know the last couple of years have been somewhat challenging in lots and lots of different ways. I know through the clients that I've spoken to I know from some of my own personal experience that the last couple of years have maybe added a few COVID curves to us all and that our health may not be at its optimal.

I know that for some of us the last couple of years have given us an opportunity to really think about the work that we want to do, to think about setting new boundaries and to really dig deep and in some ways to ask ourselves is this it?

Is this it is this what I want out of life is this the work that I want to be doing?

And in answering some of those questions, we've really started to think about who am I?

Who am I?

What do I want?

Who do I want to be where do I want to go?

What direction am I heading in?

And I suppose...

Feeling The Fear

Uncategorized Nov 30, 2021

Fear can drive you, motivate you, slow you down, stop you in your tracks or push you to keep going, and I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all had times of fear in our lives and certainly over the last couple of weeks.

When lockdown first hit, I, as with many of us, assumed it would be initially just a few weeks of working from home. As things escalated and became more serious, I remember the overwhelming sense of fear about leaving the house, my family, my business, my income, my clients.

Fear is a common topic of conversation with my clients. Fear of not being enough. Fear of not being seen. Fear of being seen. Fear of burnout. Fear of not being liked. Fear of letting people down. Fear of change. Fear of not changing. Fear of the known. Fear of the unknown. And much more besides.

This year I laid a lot of new foundations, got complete clarity on the work that I want to do, rebranded and relaunched a business and left the day to day...

There Are No Rules

burnout wellbeing Nov 01, 2021

Its Monday, it’s the 1st of November, and already my social media is filled with posts about how with only two months left of the year we should all be smashing our goals and people asking if it’s too early for Christmas songs yet.

Let’s get the Christmas songs out of the way first, I love them! Play them as much as you want, do what makes you happy. If getting in the festive spirit is what you need right now, do it. If other people don’t like it, they can scroll on past or walk away. We have this ever year don’t we? Asking other people’s permission to do things that make us feel good. Why? Because we don’t want the criticism or the negativity of others. So we wait, we ask permission and when it feels like it’s acceptable to others for us to do something, then we go ahead.

What if there were no rules? What if you want to listen to your favourite Christmas song in September, or April? If it makes you feel good do...

Burnout | Recovery vs Healing

wellbeing Oct 15, 2021

Earlier this week I had a bit of a wobble and found myself in a place of doubt and fear. I’ve got some big plans for the next 12 months and over the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting everything planned, sharing everything with my team and ensuring that everything will happen when it needs to happen. And honestly, these plans are pushing me outside of my comfort zone. But as I’ve always believed, it’s on the other side of our comfort zone where the real growth occurs.

After weeks of planning and creating and delegating and feeling the excitement build, earlier this week I read a blog that sent me spiralling into fear and doubt.

The blog was by someone in my network and it listed a long list of things that they were hoping to achieve, before their coach told them not to do it as it was all too much, all for the wrong reasons and would likely take them off track and into burnout again and away from their real purpose. And as I read...

Why Balance Is More About Boundaries Than Time

coaching wellbeing Oct 05, 2021

When I ask clients to define balance for them, they talk about quality time with loved ones, feeling calm, feeling happy, having fun, taking time out for themselves, and yet when they first start to look at their free time during a week to make any of this happen, it’s taken up by other things.

We’ve all been on some kind of time management training during our careers, we’ve been taught about colour blocking, block scheduling, chunking, the time of day to complete certain tasks based on energy and brain power, Pomodoro techniques and many other things. And I use some great tools to help me to be as productive as possible throughout my week.

But the reality is for most of us that no matter how many times we are taught to manage our time, we don’t make it happen. And that’s because we don’t talk about boundaries. We talk about minutes and hours. And we all have the same amount of those.

...

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