Burnout

The most polished, useless thing I’ve ever made.

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Stack of drafts covered in red edits, with a red pen on top

Perfectionism Got You Promoted. Now It’s Keeping You Stuck. Perfected into oblivion. I once spent so long perfecting a briefing that it died on the way up. It was headed to the CIO, then the deputy minister. Lots of visibility, and my name was on it. That made it high stakes to me. So I revised it. Then I revised the revision. Tightened the language, reworked the framing, chased one more data point, softened one more sentence so nobody upstream could poke a hole in it. By the time it reached…

The week I disappeared.

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Wilted plant on a cluttered desk beside an open laptop

The Week You Can’t Remember You kill your dreams the same way you kill houseplants — neglect. My journalling app threw a question at me that stopped me cold. “What’s a moment from this week that felt meaningful to you?” That was it. The bar was so low! One moment, just one, that meant something. It didn’t have to be a career milestone or a life-altering epiphany. Just something that meant something to me, something to remind me how glorious life can be. Nothing came to me. I sat there with…

The fine print on your paycheck

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Pay stub split between a blank form and dense fine print

Your Paycheck Costs You a Lot Most people ignore the hidden costs of their paycheck. You signed a contract. You didn’t read all the fine print. Time and labour in. Money out. That’s the deal you read. That’s the deal you remember signing. Flip the page. There are hidden costs on the back. And they’ve been compounding for years. The story you tell yourself “I need this job to survive.” Like all good stories, there’s truth in it. That’s what makes it dangerous. The truth keeps you from looking…

Hero Mode Put Me in the Hospital

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Person curled up on a dark floor in a strip of light

Hero Mode Put Me in the Hospital This is where Hero mode got me. I was telling myself I just needed to go harder. Lean in. Push through. Dig deeper. The project was slipping, the people around me weren’t moving fast enough, and somewhere in my head I had decided that if I just willed it hard enough, I could drag the whole thing across the finish line by myself. Then one night I found myself on the floor. Curled up in a ball. In tears. A couple of days later I was in the hospital. And lying…

One of these nearly killed me.

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Three unlabeled bottles on a table, one tipped on its side

BURNOUT, BOREDOM, OR BETRAYAL? Why a misdiagnosis is keeping you stuck. Burnout, boredom, and betrayal can all feel the same. Pick the wrong medicine and you’ll spend years treating the wrong problem. Imagine someone gave you two weeks off. Fully paid. No boss to answer to, no inbox, no obligations. What happens at the end of week two? If you feel noticeably better — rested, maybe even a little excited to get back in the saddle — and you can imagine going back with a few things changed, what…

The burnout advice that’s making things worse

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Race car stuck behind a stopped school bus

You’re Not Burned Out. You’re Bored. The real diagnosis hiding behind your exhaustion. Wasted potential. Burnout has become the respectable way to say “I hate my life but I’m not ready to do anything about it.” So let’s call it what it actually is – you not claiming your agency. You’re not exhausted from doing too much. You’re exhausted from doing too little of the right work. There’s a difference. A big one. You wake up exhausted. You drag yourself through a day of JIRA tickets, slide decks…

Your Services May No Longer Be Required

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Blank ID badge with a silhouette photo, crossed by hard light

Why You’re Terrified to Lose the Job You Hate It’s not a financial crisis. It’s an identity crisis. What’s left when they take away the badge? I got an interesting letter last week. So did about 3,300 of my colleagues. The subject matter was polite, bureaucratic, and chilling: “Your services may no longer be required.” We are caught in the push to reduce the size of the public service in the Government of Canada. For many, this letter is a nightmare scenario. It triggers a primal panic. But I…

The Lie Beneath Your Hustle

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Still man whose shadow is sprinting across the wall

The Lie Beneath Your Hustle When your motion becomes your mask. How your hustle became your hiding place. You’re addicted to tactics because strategy requires something far scarier: honesty about what you actually want. I know because I was a tactics junkie too. Had my morning routine locked by 5:47am. Read every negotiation book, and got so good at managing up my boss thought I was magic. I got the promotion. Senior executive. The title I’d chased for years. Six months later I was in the…

You’re Building A Beautiful Life You’re Too Drained To Enjoy

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Tim Parkins and his friend Wade pausing on a wooded fall trail

You’re Building A Beautiful Life You’re Too Drained To Enjoy You’ve been so busy building a meaningful life that you forgot to make it livable. My good buddy Wade and I taking a break while on our hike. On Monday I went hiking with a good friend. We used to do this all the time. Every few weeks, we’d hit the trails, talk about life, solve the world’s problems, and come back feeling recharged. It was our thing. Then life got busy, for both of us. Bigger workloads. Projects around the house….

Einstein Called It Insanity. You Call It Productivity. Who’s Right?

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Man chained to clocks, books, and a laptop while another walks free

Einstein Called It Insanity. You Call It Productivity. Who’s Right? You escape your chains by choosing to let them go. Why do you keep doing the same damn things that aren’t working? You’re stuck. So you do more. Einstein called that insanity; doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting a different result. You’re exhausted, overwhelmed, not hitting your goals – and your brilliant solution is to add MORE to your plate. Another course. Trying to add in a new habit, another morning…

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