Seven Books That Are All About Improving Yourself
The Quiet Burn: The Ambitious Woman's Guide to Recognizing and Preventing Burnout – Lynn Blades
Having spent decades advising a diverse group of clients, primarily women, who are fatigued from being undervalued, unheard, and burdened with excessive stress – Lynn Blades offers her expertise to help women recognise and prevent burnout, and empower them to reclaim their lives. Including practical tools and insights, the book contains advice on how to live a fulfilling life, practice self-respect, effectively communicate needs, and recognise the peril of ignoring personal well-being. If you strive to employ self-care in a healthy, sustainable, guilt-free way, and silence your self-doubt, this book may be the one you need.
Atomic Habits – James Clear
James Clear outlines how the adoption of 'atomic habits' – small, but consistent changes – can reap large and lasting rewards. The book encourages us to create more identity-focused habits, rather than overemphasising results-based ones. Through Clear's 'Four Laws of Behaviour Change,' he addresses the creation of good habits, and ridding yourself of bad ones.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear – Elizabeth Gilbert
Using her own experience and creative processes, Elizabeth Gilbert explores the nature of inspiration, and how letting go of our fears, and embracing our curiosity can enable us to live our most creative lives. The book combines elements of spirituality, and mindful pragmatism in order to direct the reader towards a more fulfilling creative process in whatever discipline, pastime, or general outlook that we are seeking.
The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown
Brené Brown brings us a guide to embracing our true selves, unencumbered by societal expectations. Using personal insights and research, Brené speaks about "wholehearted living," a way of experiencing and engaging with life from a foundation of self-worth; cultivating courage, compassion, and connection.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma – Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
With reference to years of clinical research, this book discusses the physical and mental impact that trauma can have on us, and how it can reshape our thought processes, and sense of control. The book speaks of the impact of trauma, and how it manifests physically, cognitively, and effects our relationships, then offers various methods of healing, and emphasises that recovery is possible once we can fully process the trauma.
How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain – Stanislas Dehaene
This science-based dive into the process of learning, and how the brain is wired to naturally do so is a fascinating and eye-opening study of how we intake, engage with, and retain new information. Dehaene outlines four key pillars of learning: attention, active engagement, error feedback, and consolidation; and argues that in order to maximise the efficacy of education, it should be designed around how our brains are wired to learn.
The Four Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz
Pillared on four agreements with one's self, this book provides a practical guide for personal growth and freedom by identifying the source of the beliefs and practices that limit us. The principles themselves seem somewhat simple: be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions, and always do your best. Yet, the application of them in everyday life, as explained by Don Miguel Ruiz, can be more complex, and have real life affirming benefits.
What books for self-improvement would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below!
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Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
How To Support Without Absorbing Everyone's Stress
With so much emphasis on being an empathetic leader these days, it's easy to misinterpret emotional caretaking for empathy. When a leader becomes the support system for the entire team or company, the end result is burnout and employees who don't know how to resolve their personal and professional issues. Critical feedback might get buffered into something more polite (or not given at all) to prevent hurting someone's feelings. A leader might prioritize an employee's stress load over their own because they over-sympathize; furthermore, they might absorb responsibilities or tasks to alleviate the burden of others. If you're placing everyone else's needs before your own, it won't be long before you're frustrated, and your executive functioning isn't working like it once did. Decisions will become harder to make and your mind will lack clarity as it's been filled with the emotional toil of an entire workplace. What's happened is you've started carrying people instead of coaching them. You've become everyone's fixer rather than building their capacity. The Risk For Women In Leadership Roles For women leaders, this scenario is particularly relevant as there's an unspoken societal expectation for women to be naturally empathetic, nurturing, and carry the emotional well-being of others. If you're a woman in a leadership position and you've internalized these expectations, rest assured they come with you into the workplace. Recognizing that these expectations exist - societally and personally - is one thing, but rebelling against poses a catch 22 for women leaders. Research by social psychologists, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli, revealed that there's an expectation for women to lead with both strength and warmth, yet they may face criticism if they favor one style over the other. Eagly and Steven Karau went a step further with their 2002 Role Congruity Theory, citing that the traits we associate with effective leadership (assertiveness, decisiveness, authority) don't blend well with those aforementioned societal expectations we have for women. In other words, because women are often expected to be nurturing and accommodating, it creates discomfort for others when they're more assertive and direct without also being nurturing simultaneously. If that sounds like a tall order, it's because it is. Where does this leave a female leader who wants to be assertive and authoritative but also empathetic and nurturing? Very possibly, in an attempt to preserve their reputation and workplace harmony, they may overcorrect - consciously or unconsciously - by becoming emotional caretakers rather than assertive decision-makers. The end result is burnout. If women lead with authority, they risk coming off as cold or unapproachable; yet if they lead with empathy, they risk being the emotional pillow for the entire workplace. When the latter happens, they can end up absorbing everyone's stress. They become the default mediator, endlessly assuaging everyone's concerns. The line between leadership and caretaker becomes blurred. This can easily go undetected for a long period of time if you've been socialized to play the caretaker role. It will feel natural to listen to people's problems on a daily basis, try to help them through it, offer solutions, maybe take on some of their job duties to alleviate their load. Like the frog boiling in water metaphor, however, resentment will start to grow, as well as fatigue. You might wake up one day asking yourself who you are and what role you play. Support Your People By Enabling Capacity True leadership support doesn't mean solving everyone's problems for them. Rather, it's about enabling the other person's capacity. It involves building their resilience muscle. The key is to replace the urge to rescue with helping people develop the skills necessary for navigating life's difficulties. It's the difference between coddling and coaching. To give an example of how this might look in real time: When you enable capacity like this, you're doing three things: The shift here is granting them the gift of agency which, in the long run, builds self-confidence. Moreover, you've preserved the psychological safety of the culture by creating the space for someone to express themselves. In this environment, everyone walks away empowered. The employee feels emboldened and the leader feels supportive. Getting Comfortable With Not Fixing Things If fixing people's problems is your comfort zone, then there might be some initial discomfort as you learn to pause before rushing in to rescue. Anyone who's even a little bit empathetic will be affected if they see someone struggle, personally or professionally. It's a natural human impulse to want to help and solve someone's problems for them. It might at first feel mean or disrespectful to let someone struggle a bit, but you're not being apathetic; you're showing them deep respect for their own capabilities. You're communicating this truth: I believe in your ability to navigate this. For growth to happen, the one who's struggling needs to learn how to resolve their own issues; and the leader needs to learn to pause and empower, rather than fix and absorb. The Emotional Load Doesn't Disappear Overnight If you've been acting as the workplace panacea for awhile, the mental fatigue you might be experiencing won't leave your system as soon as you make the decision to empower rather than rescue. Allow yourself some grace. There will be a transition period for the fatigue to dissipate and your professional identity to re-emerge. This is a good time to redefine not only what support for your team looks like, but for yourself as well. When it comes to helping others, maybe there's room for improvement with boundary setting. Exercising that pause before rushing in to rescue will most likely take some practice. When it comes to helping yourself, trust that others are capable. We so often promote high performers to leadership positions, but perhaps now as a leader, performance needs to be paired with trust. Trust in your people's self-efficacy will keep burnout at bay. So What Does Supportive Leadership Look Like? To reiterate, supportive leadership doesn't mean building a wall of indifference around you, sending a 'you deal with it' vibe out to the world. You're protecting your own energy and mental load so you can lead decisively, with clarity and empathy, while not getting bogged down with superfluous concerns. No one wins when their leader is drained from absorbing excessive emotional labor. If you can learn to switch from rescuing to reinforcing, you protect your own sanity while helping others grow all around. Allow some growing pains with this process. It may feel against the grain at first if you've been the emotional rescue unit for a long time. In the long run, you'll be thankful you switched from caretaker to advocate. Your team will thank you too, though maybe not out loud. [Studies cited: Women Face a Labyrinth (2007), Eagly & Carli Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders (2002); Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J.]
Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
Leading While Drained: Burnout - The Quiet Cost Of Doing It All
Why burnout doesn't wear a name tag and how ambitious women are rewriting the rules of resilience. It's Summer Somewhere… But Not in Our Calendars Lately, every Zoom call starts with a sigh and a confession: 'I'm busier than ever.' The summer slowdown? Apparently it missed the memo. From London to Dubai, my colleagues are juggling project wrap-ups, cover for vacationing teammates, and squeezing in guilt-tinged getaways that feel more like covert missions than rest. Remember when summers felt endless as a child? Time stretched like elastic. Now it's compressed into deadlines, childcare coordination, and the unspoken competition of who can reply to emails fastest from a beach lounger. Time certainly speeds up as you become busier and Time Warp Trap Andrew Scott, in his book, The longevity imperative, explains how routines speed up time. 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The more insecure they feel, the harder they try and in doing so, they dig themselves deeper into a hole.' The truth is the idea of balance creates more stress and exhaustion in trying to achieve something unattainable. The pressure to 'do it all' leads to exhaustion masked as excellence. Grigoriou explains why we fail to recognise burnout; 'The roots of burnout vary from person to person. Some professionals are driven by unrelenting standards. They don't pause to reflect or celebrate achievements, each success is immediately replaced by the next target. Others are people-pleasers, hungry for external validation, needing others' praise to feel worthy. Still others secretly fear they're frauds, pushing themselves relentlessly to prove they're not as defective as they feel inside.' According to the World Health Organization, 12 billion workdays are lost annually due to depression and anxiety with a productivity loss of approximately US$1 trillion dollars. But that's just the financial ledger. The emotional toll is harder to quantify. The World Economic Forum is calling for a rethink of success, one that doesn't require sacrificing wellbeing at the altar of productivity. The Thriving Workplaces Report argues that boosting workplace wellbeing could help the global economy grow by $11.7 trillion, curbing losses in productivity through absence and low morale. 'We need to rethink how we define success in the workplace,' says Shyam Bishen, Head of the World Economic Forum's Centre for Health and Healthcare. 'For too long, wellbeing has been treated as an option. But the evidence is clear: when organizations put people's health and wellbeing at the heart of their strategy, everything else improves, from innovation to resilience to business performance. This is a pivotal moment to make workplace health a shared priority across leadership teams, for the sake of employees and the future strength and sustainability of organizations. Good leaders create an environment of wellbeing for their teams.' Spoiler: Thriving humans make better leaders. Grigoriou offers a wild proposition: 'What if you did 20% less? Many believe that working less will confirm their worst fears: that they are, in fact, frauds. Some worry they'll be rejected or no longer valued. Others realize they have no identity beyond work, and the idea of exploring joy or meaning outside of productivity feels threatening or unfamiliar.' Cue panic. What if we're exposed as frauds? What if we're no longer needed? What if... we find joy and it terrifies us? Rewrite the Rules Real healing isn't a quick fix, it's about tuning into the observing self. The part of you that gently interrupts the perfectionist, the imposter, the people-pleaser and says, 'Hey, maybe rest isn't rebellion.' Building the capacity for these conversations is about having the time to step away from routines and tasks, but it also requires a willingness to engage in conversations that are likely to be uncomfortable and challenging. For women, who still carry disproportionate domestic loads, burnout is three times more likely. And yet, space for reflection often comes last on the list, if at all. Creating it starts with silence. And maybe… a very unsubtle 'Do Not Disturb' sign. Burnout isn't weakness. It's your ambition asking for new terms. It's your inner compass pointing to a deeper form of success. . . not louder, just truer.
Fast Company
22-07-2025
- Fast Company
Stop being a martyr at work. Aim for sustainable success instead
BY Casually mentioning canceling a doctor's appointment or skipping something personal to take on more work has become the new humblebrag. It's rarely treated as a big deal, and often, it's delivered with self-deprecating pride: 'Oh, I'll just cancel my doctor's appointment to crank this out,' or 'I was up until midnight finishing that deck.' These aren't just updates, but quiet auditions for 'Most Dedicated Employee.' Many of us hear those lines, or say them ourselves, and think, 'Wow, that's commitment.' But what we're really doing is reinforcing workplace culture that rewards exhaustion instead of impact. Too often, self-sacrifice is confused with value, and that mindset is burning people out. The result is burnout factories dressed up as high-performance cultures. And this isn't just anecdotal. According to Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, nearly 60% of employees report feeling emotionally detached at work, and nearly 1 in 5 say they're miserable. That's not high performance, it's slow, silent collapse. If you want to show up with focus, creativity, and resilience (at work and in life) it starts by putting down the invisible sword too many of us keep falling on. Here's what that looks like in practice: 1. Stop glorifying sacrifice We've been conditioned to admire the person who 'pushes through,' the one who skips lunch, works late, or shows up sick. We've equated overextension with excellence and decided that making ourselves perpetually available signals dedication and makes us irreplaceable. But this constant grind isn't sustainable, and not to be a bubble buster, but it also doesn't guarantee job security. It does, however, guarantee exhaustion. In a culture of depletion dressed up as drive, the truth no one wants to say out loud is that just because someone's willing to sacrifice everything for work doesn't mean they should be expected to, or applauded for it. What You Can Do: Celebrate boundaries out loud. Tell your team when you're logging off, and why. Compliment coworkers who prioritize recovery. Make self-preservation visible, respected, and routine. Someone who 'takes one for the team' isn't always the hero, and we need to stop making them out to be. Most importantly, we need to stop reinforcing bad behavior. 2. Redefine loyalty Too many of us equate loyalty with self-abandonment. We mistake constantly being 'on' for being dependable. But true loyalty isn't about erasing yourself but about showing up consistently and sustainably. Loyalty to your job shouldn't come at the expense of loyalty to your body, your family, your health, or your own values. The people who build long, meaningful careers aren't the ones sprinting from sacrifice to sacrifice. They're the ones who understand how to pace themselves and advocate for what they need. What You Can Do: Before saying yes to adding more to your work plate, ask yourself: Does this align with my actual priorities and capacity? Because, it is possible to be deeply committed to your work without constantly proving your worth through overextension. 3. Question urgency culture So many 'fire drills' at work are just . . . smoke. Tasks labeled urgent are often driven by someone else's disorganization, perfectionism, or anxiety, not an actual need. When everything is urgent, nothing truly is. Urgency culture thrives in environments where people are afraid to slow down or challenge assumptions. But what if part of being a great teammate wasn't speed, it was discernment? What You Can Do: Practice pausing to ask: What's the real deadline here? What's the consequence if it moves? Normalize not taking 'ASAP' at face value. Sometimes urgency is warranted. Often, it's just a default setting we've forgotten how to question. 4. Trade perfectionism for progress As a recovering perfectionist, I can attest to the fact that perfectionism is sneaky. It masquerades as diligence and high standards but more often than not, it's actually fear in a super sharp blazer. Fear of judgment, failure, or not being good enough. In high-pressure work cultures, perfectionism isn't just tolerated, it's celebrated. But if you're spending hours tweaking slide formatting or rewriting a perfectly clear email for the fourth time, maybe it's time you ask yourself who you're really trying to protect. Perfection rarely drives impact, but it always drains energy. What You Can Do: Pick one thing this week to do at 85%. Then walk away. The deck doesn't need one more alignment check. The email is fine as is. Let 'good enough' be good, and reclaim that energy for something else. 5. Be the example, not the exception It's easy to think change starts at the top. But culture isn't just set by leadership, it's shaped by what we tolerate, model, and reinforce at every level. If you're tired of performative burnout, you can't just opt out silently. You have to opt-in to something different. Culture shifts through visible choices. Through the senior leader who leaves loudly at 5 p.m. to the teammate who says, 'I'm not available tonight, but I can jump in first thing tomorrow,' all the way to the employee who takes a mental health day without apology. What You Can Do: Audit your behavior. Are you constantly over-delivering? Do you reward fire drills and penalize slow, thoughtful work? Start showing people what sustainable excellence looks like. Bottom line: You don't need a policy change to be a culture shifter. The workplace is changing in slow but meaningful ways. And, these changes don't just happen because HR rolls out a new initiative, but when enough people, at every level, stop performing exhaustion as proof of commitment. So next time that reflex kicks in, the one that tells you to push through, to cancel something personal, to over-deliver just to be seen, pause. Ask yourself: Is this really necessary? You shouldn't have to earn your worth through burnout, and you're allowed to take care of yourself and still be exceptional. In fact, that might be the most powerful thing you can do. The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is this Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alli Kushner is a writer, speaker, and fierce LinkedIn user. Her work explores the intersection of identity, ambition, and modern parenthood, with bylines in The New York Times, Business Insider, HuffPost, and more More
