The research is clear that burnout is driven more by organizational misalignment than personal deficiency — and that the mismatch between personal values and workplace culture is consistently one of the strongest predictors of this misalignment. This means the most important thing an individual can do isn’t more self-care. It’s knowing your unique core values clearly enough to see exactly where the misalignment is — and which parts can be reframed, renegotiated, or released without burning the whole thing down.

Reflections on the second version of Relief Retreats.

As we prepare to embark on our second Relief Retreat in October 2020, it seemed a good time to share what I mean when I say “evidence-based.” If I’m going to offer a service to someone, and charge them an out-of-pocket expense, I want to be sure it works!

The major downside to the first retreat was the time (2 weeks) and expense. (Most people cannot leave work or family for 2 weeks, and the cost would have been $6000 per person had I not subsidized 75% of it with my own funds; bear in mind that I had an independent body collect and analyze the data so there would be no conflict of interest.)