Challenge the myth that professional success requires grinding yourself into dust through ‘faux productivity’; instead, recognize that finding your purpose is a more effective and sustainable fuel.
Define your individual purpose as a far-reaching, steady, personally meaningful, and self-transcending goal by reflecting on your core values, past choices, passions, and what you want to be remembered for.
Actively cultivate your innate capacity for compassion, as improving your connection and relationships with other human beings is a ‘wisest form of selfishness’ that leads to greater happiness.
When forming new habits or breaking old ones, boost your resilience by clearly understanding your core values and purpose, then choose habits that align with these to help you recover from setbacks.
Conduct a ’time-to-purpose calendar audit’ for a month: look ahead, connect mundane tasks to your purpose, eliminate misaligned activities, and reflect weekly to uncover patterns of friction.
Be honest with yourself in practice and conversation about your mixed motivations, acknowledging altruistic, self-benefiting, and costly impulses, and seriously attend to any internal conflicts of interest.
Engage in contemplative practice to establish a touchstone with your true self, which can make you more ethical by making you aware of the discomfort of unethical behavior, but also seek community feedback for blind spots.
Approach ethical living not as a pursuit of perfection, but as an ongoing process within messiness and imperfection, viewing the ‘swirl’ of challenges as a crucible for continuous learning and growth.
Cultivate your mental and emotional resilience (Bhavana) in the present to prepare for inevitable future challenges, such as unexpected events or diagnoses, allowing you to navigate difficult moments imperfectly but with readiness.
If you want to start or restart a meditation practice, check out ‘The Basics’ course on the 10% Happier app, which discusses fundamentals and dispels common myths.
Practice ’non-meditation’ by not focusing on a specific object, instead being present with your experience and the relationship between perception and awareness, doing as little as possible to allow insights to arise naturally.
Engage in Tibetan preliminary practices like 100,000 prostrations, which involve a specific physical movement combined with visualization, to cultivate commitment to awakening and trust in wisdom over habits.
If you are a mindfulness practitioner or teacher, apply ethical guardrails by carefully and vigilantly assessing the intentions of organizations you work with, ensuring they address systemic issues, and be prepared to disengage if intentions shift.
Recognize that burnout is not solely an individual problem solvable by wellness or mindfulness; it’s deeply influenced by environmental, cultural, societal, and economic factors, requiring systemic solutions in addition to personal resilience strategies.
Train managers to recognize early signs of burnout in employees, as manager quality is a significant factor in burnout prevalence, and early intervention is more effective and cheaper than waiting until an employee is on disability.
If you are a meditator, avoid the mistake of believing meditation is a cure-all for burnout or other complex issues, as relying solely on practice can lead to ‘spiritual bypass’ and neglect other necessary interventions.