Gratitude and Overload

You’re nearly through 2025. Now what?

It’s almost Thanksgiving. Most leaders I talk to are grateful they made it through the year—but not 100% sure how to keep going.

They’re sharp, capable people. And still: foggy, overloaded, or performing steadiness they don’t actually feel.

One client told me, “I cannot possibly do all of the things, much less do them all well.” Another said, “I’m running a company in crisis while performing as CEO on high-stakes deliverables, and somehow still leading actual people.”

I know that feeling. The book I’m writing opens in the middle of my own breaking point. A high-stakes, high-visibility role amid consecutive medical emergencies. Navigating the end of a marriage. Parenting through chaos and conflict in quarantine. I remember sitting on my son’s bed, staring at the spaceman decal on his wall, knowing I could not keep going the way I had been.

I had always relied on the same formula: work harder, push through, stay in control. But that season cracked the formula open. I wasn’t just tired. I was disconnected in a way rest couldn’t fix. It wasn’t burnout. It was dysregulation from chronic stored stress.

When I finally said yes to trying something different, I was skeptical. I even asked a teacher if I could skip the meditation parts and just get to the practical stuff. But what I found surprised me. Going inward wasn’t passive. It was the only place I could still find choice.

Now I see that same moment in nearly every leader I work with. One said, “I’ve conditioned myself to prioritize my organization’s needs over my own. It’s mirrored in my personal life. Dismantling that is the work I need to do.”

In recent SHIFT Snapshot results, 16% of leaders named the exact same domain as both their greatest strength and their top pressure point. That kind of overlap signals more than burnout. It reflects a deeper strain, where the traits people lean on most are also getting pulled past capacity.

The world is moving faster than our systems can process. People are making decisions with no recovery time, jumping from crisis to crisis, and blaming themselves for losing clarity or presence. But their systems are just overloaded.

When the map breaks, it doesn’t mean you failed. It means the landscape has changed.

That is the heart of the work I do. And it is the heart of the book I am writing—how we lead when the old rules no longer apply, how we find steadiness when we have lost the thread, and how we return to ourselves when everything tilts.

Again and again, I see that leaders already have what they need. One said, “In my personal life, things like patience and self-awareness are second nature. But in my professional life, under stress, I forget to reach for them. I reach for what I have been trained to use.”

The breakthrough comes when we stop adding more and start building from what is already there.

This holiday might feel complicated. That’s okay. A side of gratitude goes surprisingly well with full-body exhaustion. You don’t need to push through. You don’t need to figure it all out. Just a breath, a pause, and the quiet knowledge you haven’t lost yourself.

I hope you find a quiet corner today. Even for a minute. And I am deeply grateful for my extended community for your presence, your work, and the conversations we are building together.