1 in 10 of your team members thought about quitting today, due to burnout.
And, in addition to the human cost, each one who quits costs you up to a year's salary and 6+ months to replace.
It's time to grow scalable, in-house support for preventing burnout, Imposter Syndrome & toxic resilience.
What Is Burnout?
Burnout happens after an extended period of mental, emotional and physical stress. People feel emotionally drained, completely overwhelmed, and they struggle to meet their commitments. They doubt themselves, impacting their confidence, and find it hard to perform at their previous level.
It is a sliding scale, with plenty of warning signs, and it can lead to extended staff absence, mental health issues, and it can make valued staff leave a job they previously loved, as well as negatively impacting team dynamics and working relationships.
It affects performance, productivity, motivation, decision-making, and creativity, and can take months or even years to fully recover, if not addressed soon enough. Yet, in most cases, it is preventable.
What The Research Says
Clare Josa has spent the past five years running an UK-wide research study into burnout, and its links with Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience, as part of her 20+ years of specialising in this field. That's where the 1 in 10 figure comes from. And here are some more stats you need to know:
Currently (2023) at 'severe' risk of burnout
Expectation of toxic resilience is making this worse
Working environment drains their batteries
The Three Pillars of Burnout
Clare's research has allowed her to create a model that explains the three core pillars of burnout. And we need to address all three of these, working with the root causes, not just the surface-level symptoms, to prevent burnout.
1. The Culture
This can be from a company, a national culture, a faith culture, a team-based culture. It's about the expectations and how things work.
It governs what's important to people and how they feel about their work.
2. Environment
This is how the culture looks on a practical level, what it means for people's day-to-day activities.
It impacts everything from workloads to the number of meetings, through to 'pings' and toxic resilience.
3. Personal Habits
This is where we hold the most power and choice.
It's about our thoughts, beliefs, experiences, fears, worries, and hopes, and how these impact the actions we take, whether that be about self-sabotage or success and thriving.
Remember that 1 in 10...?
How many of your key staff and rising stars have you lost, due to burnout, Imposter Syndrome & toxic resilience,
in the past year?
Hint: it's almost never the reason they give for leaving, in exit interviews.
How To Spot The Hidden Warning Signs Of Burnout
Productivity And Efficiency
4 Ps Of Burnout
From the research study: Perfectionism, Procrastination, Project Paralysis & People-Pleasing
Overwhelmed
Struggling with workload & 'can't think straight' or see the wood for the trees, plus struggling to make decisions
Working Longer Hours
Trying to compensate for the exhaustion, lack of concentration, and mistakes, increasing exhaustion
Performance - Fulfilling Potential
Exhaustion
The kind that's back within days of coming home from a holiday, which sleep doesn't fix, means people hold back
Struggling To Concentrate
Finding it hard to process & retain information, mind going blank, holding back on ideas
Making Mistakes
The neuroscience of stress and burnout means mistakes become inevitable, making people more cautious
People - How Burnout Impacts Teams
Negativity & Low Mood
Finding it hard to lift yourself back to your 'happy place', feeling down and worried about becoming depressed
Shorter Fuse
Getting irritable and critical with colleagues and loved-ones, turning thriving teams toxic
Loss Of Enthusiasm
... and the so-called 'quiet quitting', where people have to step back and just do enough to get by, leaving team members to pick up the slack
Profits - The Bottom Line Impact
Lost Innovation
There are physiological reasons why burnout harms creativity and innovation, hitting competitive advantage
Stress-Related Illness
Physical as well as mental and emotional symptoms. From blood pressure to back pain, and beyond. Key staff go on long-term sick leave.
Leave Of Absence
LOA and sabbatical requests rise as people feel desperate to find a way to recharge their batteries, adding to colleagues' workloads
And there is a direct, measurable cost for each person who quits due to burnout, Imposter Syndrome or toxic resilience, both in terms of the rehiring cost and the impact on the business and their team members from that role being empty for 6 months.
Are you seeing these warning signs in your teams?
But they're not talking to you about it?
Step zero: we need to remove the taboo.
Burnout isn't a sign of weakness.
It's a symptom of having been strong for too long.
Then next...
We Need To Stop Thinking That Wellbeing Will Fix Burnout
Wellbeing can't prevent burnout. And here's why: when it comes to our energy levels, we have two types of batteries.
We have a daily battery, which is topped up by sleeping, nutritious food, relaxation and things like mindfulness apps. It's what the body is designed to deplete and replenish each day.
© Clare Josa
And we have an emergency battery, which is only for use when we need to draw on reserves. This one is much tougher to top up - think: holidays, cold water swimming, deep meditation.
When people are heading towards burnout, it's because they have been relying on their emergency battery for day-to-day energy.
Perhaps they're stuck in fire-fighting, or maybe Imposter Syndrome means they're constantly on the look-out for threats and are stuck in hypervigilance. Or maybe they're feeling anxious and worrying or catastrophising with their self-talk, triggering the fight-flight-freeze response 100 times a day. Or perhaps they're relying on adrenaline to help them function, despite their exhaustion.
All of this makes us draw on the emergency battery, as we get locked into a cycle of chronic stress, and this is what leads to burnout.
Wellbeing initiatives often focus on things like:
These are great for topping up the daily battery and creating a sense of belonging. They can be truly valuable initiatives.
But their effect on energy levels isn't lasting. Wellbeing's focus is on easing the surface-level symptoms, rather than preventing future pain by addressing the root causes.
These things don't prevent burnout - or address Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience, two core predictors of burnout. They help with the symptoms, but they don't address the underlying causes.
So What Can You Do?
Unfortunately, classic coaching isn't the answer
Coaching can be great for helping people to become more aware of their stress triggers, how Imposter Syndrome makes them self-sabotage, and their burnout habits. But it can only work at the 'mindset' level.
That's not where the problems lie. The root causes run deeper than that. So coaching for burnout and Imposter Syndrome becomes about coping strategies, rather than clearing it out.
And it's expensive. It can easily cost £5,000 - £10,000 per person for a suitably qualified and experienced external coach. With hundreds in your teams, that's not scalable.
Nor are Mental Health First-Aiders the solution...
Mental Health First-Aiders are wonderful, but they're only trained to 'catch and pass' in a crisis. They're not therapists.
Yet many companies are now using them as untrained counsellors, suggesting people go to talk to them for everything from anxiety and burnout, to lack of confidence. They haven't been trained in this highly-specialised work, and it risks harm to both the team member and the MHFA.
Even worse, some organisations are asking their MHFAs to be responsible for their wellbeing initiatives, despite not having had any training in how to make these safe and effective.
Instead: You Need To Stop People Needing To Run On The Emergency Battery
A Message From Clare Josa
The best way to prevent burnout is to break the cycle of relying on the emergency battery day-to-day, so it doesn't become drained in the first place.
But I learned the hard way. I burned out for the first time at 19, the second time at 27, and for the third time at 34.
I've spent the past 20 years applying what we've been discovering through my research studies, client work and teaching, to develop methods that are proven to create breakthroughs in minutes, not months.
These strategies help people in-the-moment, when there's no time for 'navel-gazing', and also with the deeper work for preventing burnout, Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience in ways that are fast, fun and forever.
And that's what I now teach on my certification programmes, based on my Natural Resilience Method®, so that others can do this work, too.
It's Essential To Ditch
Toxic Resilience
There are two types of resilience.
Clare talks about 'toxic resilience'. It's the expectation to bounce back and pretend you're fine, even when you've been through a tough experience.
And Clare's research shows that this is one of two core predictors of burnout.
In contrast, Clare's work focuses on moving from 'fighting' to being in flow, with her Natural Resilience Method®.
This means that instead of being knocked for six and having to bounce back, you feel naturally calmer, less stressed, more confident, happier, and you get to be all of who you really are, rather than relying on masks and armour to keep you safe.
What's The Answer For Preventing Burnout & Growing Thriving Teams?
It's essential to tackle all three pillars (Culture, Environment & Burnout) at both the 'quick win' and the 'strategic' levels, with proven ways of prioritising your interventions and measuring the impact you're having.
For the Habits pillar, you can teach your teams the Natural Resilience Method®, to create root-cause-level breakthroughs quickly and easily. It is science-backed and proven to clear Imposter Syndrome, burnout and toxic resilience, so that people can show up as all of who they really are, fulfilling their potential, and having the impact their ideas and dreams deserve.
Natural Resilience Method®
The Natural Resilience Method® is Clare Josa's science-backed, proven strategy to shrink your stress levels, crank up your confidence, and set yourself free from burnout, Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience.
It is designed as a cycle you can work through multiple times, each time going a layer deeper with more powerful techniques, to create safe, high-impact, low-effort change.
Its core focus is on the Habits pillar, but once people have released the habits that were keeping them trapped on the burnout roller coaster and struggling with Imposter Syndrome, they have more energy, courage and confidence to help lead the work to create positive change in the Culture and Environment pillars.
You can't create change in your life when you're super-stressed. So the first stage is to get grounded, to learn how to pause the fight-flight-freeze response, and to turn off hypervigilance. It's about feeling safe again and starting to realise that the mind-story fears that were causing us worry don't need to hold power over us.
Our thoughts impact our body and create our emotions. Combined, these three dictate our actions, whether that's self-sabotaging or setting ourselves up for thriving.
Stage 2 of Clare's process demystifies the art and science of neuroplasticity to teach you how to rewire your brain, starting to turn your inner critic into a genuine cheerleader.
Your body feels every thought you think. It keeps track of your limiting beliefs and hidden fears. And it gets secretly addicted to adrenaline, keeping you stuck on the burnout rollercoaster.
So in stage three, Clare helps people to rewire their body to start to reset the harm that burnout has been causing, and to support a happier, more confident 'you'. Plus this is the point where she teaches ways of working with the body to release the hidden blocks that have been holding you back, going beyond 'mindset' and positive thinking, to create lasting change.
It's so easy to give away our personal power, without realising. And that drains our batteries, both through the giving and often also through the secret resentment this can cause us to feel.
So in this phase, Clare supports people with reclaiming their personal power (without creating conflict), resetting boundaries with people, situations and personal habits that drain our energy, and also with clearing out the hidden drivers that caused us to give away our power in the first place, so we don't need to do that again in the future.
It's also about building our confidence to be more of who we really are, instead of toning ourselves down.
This is about doing, but also becoming - becoming the real you, taking off the secret masks and armour, and allowing yourself to have the impact your ideas and dreams deserve.
In this phase, you get to 'unwire' the now out-of-date habits that held you back, so you can make the difference you're really here to make, with courage, confidence and passion.
And when you do this at the end of a Natural Resilience Method® cycle, the 'future' you choose to consciously create is so much more fun and expansive than it would have been at the beginning.
how to implement the 3-pillar solutions
Scalable solutions for burnout, Imposter Syndrome & toxic resilience
While you're researching, prioritising and implementing the Culture and Environment pillar interventions, you can already start making progress with supporting people with the Habits pillar. This has a knock-on positive impact on teams, performance, productivity, creativity and profit.
People can create life-changing shifts with the Natural Resilience Method® foundation-level strategies on a self-study basis with Clare's Burnout Prevention Toolkit™.
Or they can dive in more deeply and get accelerated coaching with Clare's Imposter Syndrome Bootcamp™, which combines an inspirational eLearning programme with breakthrough coaching sessions with one of Clare's certified Master Coaches.
And you can learn how to safely and effectively support others with these strategies, 1:1, both in-the-moment and on a preventative basis, with Clare's Natural Resilience Method® Practitioner programme, affectionately know as Imposter Syndrome First-Aiders.
Imagine being able to proactively support hundreds for the cost of coaching a handful.
Creating High-Impact, Low-Effort Scalable Solutions
Work with Clare Josa to easily create strategic solutions, tailored to your teams' needs, to prevent burnout, Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience, with 3-Pillars results you can measure. Here's the journey you'll take:
How Big Is Your Problem?
Clare's work starts with research, using her science-backed diagnostic tools. These work on a quantitative and qualitative basis to support you in determining which actions will produce the most impact, including measuring the hit on your bottom line.
Using her science-backed, quiz-style scorecard, your team members can get their burnout or toxic resilience 'score', along with a personalised action plan, so they can start making changes right away, even before you've finalised your longer-term strategy.
This also helps you to identify any team members who might benefit from immediate support with Clare's Bootcamp.
And this data helps you and Clare to identify the hidden 3-Pillars drivers of burnout, Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience for your teams, to prioritise the interventions from Culture, Environment & Habits that will have the most impact, with the least effort, both on a 'quick wins' and a longer-term strategic process.
Plus this is the ideal point to launch your initiative with a bespoke keynote from Clare, to remove the taboo about talking about burnout, Imposter Syndrome and toxic resilience, to give teams a common language to share their experiences, to teach them the 'first step' actions they can take to start turning this around, and to get them excited about the commitment you've made to change.
Grow In-House Support
You don't want to be forever-dependent on external coaches, because that's an expensive and slow route for helping people, once you build in signing off budget and waiting in their queue.
Instead, grow your own in-house support to help team members 1:1 with this work, both at the foundation level, with certified Natural Resilience Method® Practitioners, and even at certified Master Coach level. You can send up to 5 delegates on Clare's public-access rounds (which run twice a year), or run an in-house round of this certification training, for a minimum of 25 people.
And you can add in Clare's much-loved 'coaching hub' within the eLearning vault, where team members can connect with and communicate with their Practitioner or Master Coach easily and confidentially, rather than by company email (which they're all scared means IT is reading their inner-most thoughts). The coaching hub also takes out most of the admin for your coaches and makes it really easy for you to manage your bulk licences for Clare's courses.
Make It Scalable
But you don't want your Practitioners to have to give up their day-job to help others, so it's important to make this scalable.
You can let Clare's inspirational eLearning programmes do the 'heavy lifting', so that your Practitioners and Master Coaches are there to help with the breakthroughs, rather than teaching the basics.
This is easy and affordable, with bulk licences for Clare's Burnout Prevention Toolkit™ and her Imposter Syndrome Bootcamp programmes, both of which Natural Resilience Method® Practitioners are qualified to support.
And for the cultural and environmental factors, Clare can support you with making decisions and choosing your priorities, using strategies from her HOPE Matrix® work.
Measure The Impact
How do you measure wellbeing? Productivity? Creativity? By measuring the behaviours, cultural factors and environmental factors that support them.
As the former Head of Market Research for one of the world's most disruptive brands, Clare's scorecards and research studies are designed to measure these behaviours accurately, and by running them at key points during your interventions you can assess on both a quantitative and qualitative basis the impact this work has been having.
As a taster for the shifts you could see, even one round of the Natural Resilience Method® via Clare's bootcamp coaching (which your in-house Practitioners will be able to coach) has been shown to have the potential to take Imposter Syndrome levels from 80% (severe) to just 30% (low impact).
What's the first step? Book a no-obligation call with Clare Josa, to get answers to any questions you have and to discuss your needs.
What's the first step?
How Soon Will You See Results?
As with anything, the speed of results will depend on how committed your teams are to creating change, but here are some typical shift-points, to give you a feel for how this work might help your teams:
Remove The Taboo
Using Clare's keynote to launch the project means you're removing the taboo and giving people hope and 'start here' techniques, from day one.
Help Those Most In Need
Within 2 weeks of sending out the scorecard, you can offer proven support to those who need help right away, based on their scores.
Know Your Data
4 weeks after sending out the scorecard is the point where you'll be getting your research study report and discovering your hidden drivers.
Grow Your In-House Experts
You can use the research report to identify who to train as Practitioners. And at the end of this 3-month certification training, you'll have in-house experts to support others, 1:1.
Implement Your Strategy
By the six month point, you are likely to be seeing positive results from the 'quick wins' you've implemented, and be making great progress on the longer-term, strategic changes.
Measure Your Progress
By this time next year, you'll be ready to measure the impact of your interventions so far, and seeing great results. And that new data will help to inform the next stage of your strategy.
Is This Work A Good Fit For Your Company?
Not all organisations are a good fit for this work. But if yours is, then you're going to love it!
Hungry To Find Out More? Here Are The Next Steps:
Curious how much this might be costing your company every single day?
We've used our last 3 landmark research studies to create an online calculator that gives you instant, ballpark figures for what Imposter Syndrome and burnout are likely to be costing your organisation.
Here's where to get your results. And it's totally confidential. We don't collect any data or opt-in info.
Ready to dive in?
The biggest mistake Clare sees companies making is waiting until their whole strategy is finalised, before starting to take action. But that means those in most need have to wait far too long for support.
You could make a start right away by getting a pilot wave of people trained as Natural Resilience Method® Practitioners on one of Clare's public-access cohorts, while you get in Clare's queue for the strategic work and longer-terms solutions.
These cohorts run twice a year and you can send up to five delegates per cohort. Here's where to contact Clare's team to book places. This means you're already starting to build your in-house support, while you work with Clare on the wider strategy.
Have A Call With Clare
Ready to discuss truly scalable solutions? Here's where to book a call with Clare (no obligation) to get answers to any questions you may have, and for Clare to be able to put together a proposal, based on your teams' needs, your potential budget, and the stages above.
Start With Your Research Study
Once the initial invoice instalment has been paid, work can start within the following four weeks. Clare will design the scorecard research study for you and you can get this sent around your teams to kick things off.
At each stage of the process of working with Clare and her team, you'll be making progress you can measure, and giving those in most need the help they crave, whilst already starting to grow your in-house, scalable support, giving you breathing space to create the longer-term strategies, and the data to know that they'll work.
Don't Know Clare Josa Yet?
Clare Josa
International keynote speaker & 8x Author
Clare is considered a global authority in Imposter Syndrome, burnout and toxic resilience. She is the author of 8 books and is a sought-after international keynote speaker.
Her original background as an engineer, specialising in Six Sigma manufacturing, and then as Head of Market Research for one of the world's most disruptive brands, means she brings a practical, common sense approach to her inspirational, life-changing work.
But it's not all left-brained. She's also a yoga and meditation teacher, and specialises in working with the vagus nerve to make her work trauma-informed, supporting clients to release the hidden blocks they hadn't even realised were holding them back, which 'mindset' alone can't touch.
Clare is regularly interviewed by the likes of BBC Radio 4, the Guardian, and other media outlets, and she runs two podcasts, one of which has 15,000+ listeners in over 100 countries.
What Clients Say
Preventing A New Hire From Quitting
James had recently qualified as a Natural Resilience Method® Practitioner when he got a call from a manager who had recently started with the company. She was ready to quit, mid-probation, but decided to have a chat with him first, just in case he could help.
She was really struggling with Imposter Syndrome, completely convinced that they had made a mistake in hiring her, and she wanted to jump ship before they realised and fired her.
James applied the strategies he had learnt in his training and by the end of the first session, his new colleague felt relief, and hope. She promised to hold back handing in her notice until she and James had had three sessions.
By the end of these, she had made so much progress on clearing her long-running Imposter Syndrome that her confidence and performance improved to such an extent that she passed her probation early, and she's now thriving, leading her team.
Had she not had James to work with, she would have quit, taking the demotion she had applied for elsewhere, and the company would have had to rehire for a senior role that they had already taken six months to fill, leaving her work undone and the team demoralised and unsupported.
What's The Investment?
Clare's work doesn't come in at 'Aldi' prices, but it's also not 'Fortnum and Mason', though her fees do reflect the fact that she is a global authority in her field, and that working with her and her team can help you to unlock breakthroughs fast, even where nothing else has worked.
You can make a start by sending a single student on the Natural Resilience Method® Practitioner programme for just £2,495, through to the transformational 3 Pillars work described in this eBrochure, which is likely to be a six-figure investment, but which will pay back many, many times over, every single year. And preventing even just one key team member from leaving due to burnout or Imposter Syndrome could recoup your investment.
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