FFS: What are your burnout prevention strategies?
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Client Win This Week
“Just got back from 2 weeks in Europe. No problems walking for hours while wearing a backpack. Feel great except I want to go back now.”
Go Long in the Wild!
Something I loved seeing this week? Finally seeing a sleep study that differentiates between men and women. In other words, it’s not in your head that women tend to suffer from insomnia way more than men!
On LinkedIn, I talked about how Boeing’s culture of toxic positivity is manifesting itself in ways that have been disastrous for the company and the airline industry as a whole. This kind of mindset is pervasive throughout so much of the business world, regardless of the size of the company. In Boeing’s case, lives are at stake.
Since I’m on the road this week, I recorded an Instagram video of a workout you can do in your hotel room without any equipment.
On the Path to Choosing Myself
The 3rd post of this month’s series on burnout talked about the myth of toxic positivity. Here is a snippet:
After a stint working for a pretty large US bank, I was able to land a job at Microsoft. I learned quite a bit during those 5 years in Redmond and had the opportunity to take on different challenges. It was interesting to see how software was built to serve users on a massive scale. But I was also exposed to a new concept for the 1st time in my career - something that we now refer to as “toxic positivity”.
I first experienced this at the annual Company Meeting. Steve Ballmer was jumping around on stage yelling how “super excited” he was about Windows Vista. Cue the eye roll. It was expected that everyone in tech needed to be 100% in favor of their product’s direction. If you were pushing back on an assumption, or perceived to have not “drank the kool aid,” you were deemed to be negative.
Myth Monday
As stated above, positivity for the sake of positivity is not constructive for anyone or anything. Here is what it definitely does not help with:
Delivering better customer experiences
Improving collaboration and teamwork
Maintaining your mental health ← MOST IMPORTANT & LEADS TO BURNOUT!
Challenge of the Week
Think about your burnout prevention strategies. What, if anything, do you do now to build against burnout (if anything)?
I’d love to hear from you so please feel free to respond to this email.
If you decide you want to share your story more fully, I’d be happy to have you guest post on the blog (anonymous is ok too!).
Thank you for spending time with Go Long. Your feedback and comments are always welcomed and appreciated.
Have a great weekend!