When you manage yourself, you manage your life. When you manage your life, you manage yourself.
When you can manage yourself, then, only then, can you manage your work.
To overcome stress, guilt, and overload, according to Meghan French Dunbar,
‘A holistic approach blending numerous healthy ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits has been proven to be far more effective, driving better employee engagement and retention; decreasing the likelihood of burnout; increasing employees’ feeling of thriving outside work; building more trust with the team; and increasing innovation, creativity, and team member growth.’
‘Before heading into significant meetings, presentations, events, or even one-on-one conversations, review your values and reflect on how they could guide you in this interaction.’
‘Cultivating authentic leadership means doing the work necessary to feel comfortable in your own skin– to value the experience regardless of who else is in the room and offer it freely, knowing that it benefits you and those around you.’
‘When following the crowd means stifling your truth, compromising your values, or holding your true self back, you’ll never be able to fully step into your authentic power.’
‘Trying to assimilate by changing yourself has been linked to loss of identity and increased depression, mental illness, burnout, and chronic disease.’
‘… If you regularly give your limited energy to things that fall outside what you claim to value, you can’t genuinely live according to your values.’
‘Optimized leaders understand that being overextended, stressed, or depleted stands in the way of being their best selves.’
‘When you’re exhausted, depleted, and overextended, you can’t tune into yourself and show up with intention.’
‘Difficult as it might be, part of optimizing yourself might be releasing people from your life who aren’t aligned with your values; consistently drain your energy, feel exploitative; lead to frequent unnecessary drama…’
‘When you insist on controlling everything in your life ... you put unnecessary stress on yourself and deny the people around you the opportunity to step up and grow.’
Source
Meghan French Dunbar (2025). This Isn’t Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success
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