Burnout Isn’t a Badge of Honour – It’s a Call for Change
- Brainz Magazine
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Written by Steve Radford, Mindset Coach
Steven Radford is an Internationally Accredited Mindset & performance coach and the founder of SuccessWave Coaching. He helps professionals and leaders overcome burnout, rebuild self-belief, and take aligned action toward clarity, confidence, and meaningful success in work and life.
Burnout has become a silent epidemic, often mistaken for commitment or success. In this article, Steven Radford shares his personal journey through collapse and renewal, practical strategies for making small but powerful changes, and a framework to help you reflect, reframe, and rise, creating a healthier, values-led definition of success.
The hidden crisis behind “I’m fine”
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “I’m fine,” when deep down, you’re anything but? You push through the long days. You reply to emails at midnight. You skip meals and call it discipline. You wear exhaustion like a badge of honour, convincing yourself this is what success demands. But here’s the truth, burnout isn’t commitment. It’s a warning.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report 2025 reveals a sobering reality, only 21% of employees worldwide feel engaged at work, while 62% are disengaged, and 17% are actively working against their organisation’s aims. Just one in three say they are thriving in life, and 40% report feeling stress every single day.
These aren’t just numbers. They represent millions of people, perhaps even you, silently struggling, holding it together on the outside while falling apart within.
Burnout is your body’s way of saying, “I can’t keep doing this.” Ignore it, and the whisper becomes a scream, showing up as anxiety, illness, disconnection, or disillusionment. It’s time to stop applauding burnout and start listening to what it’s really trying to teach us.
1. What burnout really looks like
Burnout isn’t always dramatic. More often, it’s a slow erosion of energy, meaning, and joy.
You wake up tired, no matter how long you’ve slept.
The work you once loved feels mechanical.
You feel flat, distracted, or irritable.
The coping tools that once worked no longer do.
Many of my clients tell me, “I should be happy. I have a good job, a loving family, so why do I feel so empty?”
Because burnout doesn’t care how together your life looks on paper. It seeps in when your outer success keeps climbing, but your inner alignment begins to collapse.
2. Why we glorify burnout, and why it’s dangerous
We’ve been taught that long hours equal commitment. The person who answers emails at midnight is more dedicated. Skipping holidays is loyalty.
But this culture comes at a cost. Gallup estimates that disengagement costs the global economy US$438 billion in lost productivity in 2024. Beyond the numbers, the human toll is staggering, stressed bodies, fractured relationships, and diminished creativity.
The hardest truth? The more we tie our worth to output, the easier it is to burn out, and the harder it becomes to find our way back.
3. My own turning point
Between 2011 and 2016, my life unravelled in waves, a painful divorce, career setbacks, financial collapse, and grief from losing my mum at 56.
By 2015, I had nothing left. I wasn’t just tired, I was broken. Present, but not really living.
I remember sitting in a small 8x8 ft rented room that summer, looking around and thinking, “This cannot be my story.”
In that moment, I had two choices, stay stuck or rebuild. It felt impossible, but I knew I had to rise, not just for myself, but for my family.
4. The 1% shift, small changes that rebuild you
My recovery didn’t start with a grand plan. It began with the smallest steps:
Writing a daily gratitude list.
Journaling to release thoughts from my head onto paper.
Taking short walks outside.
Practicing kinder self-talk when I stumbled.
I began applying what’s often called the “1% Rule.” The idea is simple, each day, aim to improve by 1%. It wasn’t about perfection. It was about consistency. Those micro-choices built momentum, and over time, they created identity-level change.
Today, I share this principle with my clients. Don’t chase a “new you.” Instead, nurture the version of yourself that’s already within you, one consistent action at a time.
5. Redefining success for sustainable growth
One of the greatest shifts I see in clients comes when they redefine success. True success isn’t about a crammed calendar. It’s about alignment, waking with clarity, working with intention, and living with presence.
Ask yourself:
Does my definition of success support my well-being?
Am I chasing goals that no longer light me up?
Who am I becoming in the process?
The Gallup 2025 report makes this clear, engaged employees are almost twice as likely to be thriving in life compared to those who are disengaged. Engagement and well-being rise together.
Burnout happens when our outer achievements drown out our inner truth. When success is pursued at the expense of purpose, emptiness follows.
6. Stories of renewal
I’ve worked with leaders who thought exhaustion was simply part of their role, parents who believed sacrifice was love, and entrepreneurs who thought burnout was the price of ambition.
And yet, with small shifts, they rediscovered clarity, joy, and alignment. One client told me, “I didn’t realise how far I’d drifted from myself until I started reconnecting.” Burnout isn’t the end. It can be the beginning of something new.
7. My framework: Reflect, reframe, and rise
From my own journey came a framework I now use in coaching, simple, but deeply effective.
Reflect
Pause and notice the patterns, beliefs, and habits that are draining you. Journaling prompts I often give clients include:
“What’s depleting me right now?”
“Where am I saying yes when I want to say no?”
“What story am I telling myself that may not be true?”
Reframe
Challenge and shift those narratives. Using tools from ICF coaching practice, CBT, NLP, and positive psychology, I help clients rewrite the mental scripts that keep them stuck. One powerful exercise is visualisation, picturing yourself living in balance and alignment, then practising stepping into that identity daily.
Rise
Take intentional, values-led action. This might look like setting boundaries at work, building a daily gratitude habit, or creating healthier routines. The goal isn’t speed, it’s consistency, supported by accountability.
That’s the power of conscious coaching, small, aligned actions that change not just what you do, but who you become.
8. Values-led success: The antidote to burnout
If there’s one truth I’ve learned, it’s this, purpose protects you from burnout. Gallup’s research shows employees connected to meaningful work report higher engagement and lower stress. Yet 40% of workers worldwide still experience daily stress.
The difference? Values. When your goals are rooted in gratitude, service, family, or integrity, your motivation comes from within.
For me, gratitude is a daily anchor. I write down three small things each morning. It grounds me in what matters, especially when life feels heavy.
And through SuccessWave Coaching, I carry that into community impact, supporting causes that improve mental health, well-being, and social change. Because real success isn’t just individual achievement, it’s a collective contribution.
9. A call for conscious change
Burnout doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human. If you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or stuck, please hear this. You don’t have to wait for a full collapse to change.
Start small. Journal what isn’t working. Go for a walk. Say no to one thing that drains you. Book a clarity call. Transformation doesn’t begin with giant leaps. It begins with choosing, today, to rise.
Conclusion: My story, my mission
Today, I live with purpose, presence, and energy, surrounded by my wife and children. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened through small, daily choices. Burnout isn’t a badge of honour. It’s feedback. Honour it, and you open the door to clarity, vitality, and fulfilment.
If you’re ready to explore how coaching can support your transformation, I’d love to connect. Visit my website.
Whether through coaching, speaking, or free resources, my mission is clear, to help professionals break through burnout, rediscover their purpose, and rise, while giving back to causes that support mental health, well-being, and social change.
Read more from Steve Radford
Steve Radford, Mindset Coach
Steven Radford is an Internationally Accredited Mindset & Performance coach and the founder of SuccessWave Coaching. With a background in leadership, project management, change management, and personal development, Steven supports professionals and purpose-driven leaders to overcome burnout, unlock confidence, and create sustainable success. Through his coaching programs, writing, and speaking, he helps clients shift their mindset, reframe limiting beliefs, and take powerful, aligned action.
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