| Case Study #01 — J___ Director, Professional Services Firm The first thing J___ told me was that life felt like there were “too many balls in the air – spread too thin, not operating at my best.” Fair call, as a director of a professional services firm with fifty people depending on him. Plus, clients, innovation projects, availability, family, and community. He had a lot going on. By every external measure, he was (and is) nailing life. But there was a nagging feeling he couldn’t budge and a cycle he couldn’t break. He’d take on too much. The pressure builds. Let the good habits slip – not moving enough, a glass of wine to help sleep, fast food instead of real food. Stress accumulates. Fall in a hole – a blow-up, a few days off, a reset. Then start again. Aware enough to recognise the cycle, he just didn’t know how to stop it. What the work uncovered surprised him. When we mapped what he was carrying – the problems he felt responsible for, the worries running quietly in the background – most of it wasn’t his. He was so good at solving problems that he’d been mentally solving everyone else’s, without realising it whether they wanted him to or not. His own values, his own idea of what a good leader looks like, were generating more pressure than any client or deadline ever could. The work wasn’t about doing less. It was about seeing clearly – what’s actually yours, and what isn’t and how to stop picking it up anyway. J___ came out the other side with a clearer head and a lighter load. His word for it: “Balance.” |
| Nigel https://nigeldonovan.com |
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