If you feel like you’re burning out, read this.
Author’s Note: This is Part 1 of a 5-Part Series: The Work Culture Energy Scale & The Future of Sustainable Leadership.
My brain works like this—I get these huge, tangled ideas that I need to break down into pieces. Instead of dropping a 10,000-word essay, I’m taking you on a journey. In this series, we’re unpacking:
How to recognize your own work pace & alignment.
How to measure where you actually land on the Work Culture Energy Scale.
How leaders mistake overwork for accountability (and how to stop).
How workplaces say they want balance—but still expect overcommitment.
How we start building something better—together.
This isn’t just about how you work—it’s about how we lead, how we build, and how we change the systems we’re part of.
You can read each post as it comes, or if you’re the type who likes to binge it all at once, I’ll be linking the full collection at the end of the series.
Now—let’s start at the beginning. Because before we can talk about work culture, accountability, or leadership… we need to talk about dragons.
“I feel like for years I’ve been riding a fire-breathing dragon. I’ve gotten used to the heat and the secondary scorches as we burn down villages and villagers alike.
Recently, the dragon has mellowed. It landed in a soft green meadow and turned around. It stared me in the eyes. And it said, ‘I don’t want to breathe fire anymore.’”
“I don’t know what to do with that,” I admitted. “I don’t really trust it. And I don’t know if the dragon really means it, or if this is a trick.”
My therapist let me finish, leaving a little space, just in case there was more. She’s gotten used to the metaphors I use to convey complex feelings. After a moment, she smiled and said:
“Brittany. You are the dragon. You get to decide.”
That hit me hard.
The Fire-Breathing Lie of Ambition
For years, my dragon was ambition. It was high achievement. It was the belief that if I just pushed harder, excelled higher, stayed in motion long enough—then I’d finally prove I was enough.
I spent years feeding the beast with constant doing. I was always chasing the next milestone, the next challenge, the next impossible standard I’d somehow convinced myself was necessary.
Slowing down wasn’t an option. If I stopped, I wasn’t just resting—I was falling behind.
So when the dragon told me it wanted to stop, I didn’t know what to do with that.
Because if the relentless drive I’d depended on for years wanted to slow down…
Who was I without it?
And more importantly—if I had been the dragon all along… how much had I burned in the process?
The Moment of Realization
That moment in therapy forced me to ask myself a question I had been avoiding:
What if misalignment isn’t just about burnout?
Yes, misalignment can look like exhaustion, like overwork, like running yourself into the ground. But it also shows up in ways that are quieter, harder to name:
When we stop feeling like ourselves.
When our relationships start feeling forced or draining.
When our work becomes a cage instead of a calling.
When we realize we’re participating in systems we don’t believe in.
We wake up one day and realize:
"I built this life. I worked for this. I thought this was what I wanted… but it doesn’t actually fit."
And here’s the real kicker:
If I was the dragon all along… I was also the one who could change the flight path.
The Reactivated Self Check-In
Where is your dragon leading you right now?
Take a moment and reflect:
SELF – Do I feel like myself, or am I adjusting to fit into spaces that weren’t built for me?
RELATIONSHIPS – Do the people around me reflect the kind of support and values I need?
WORK – Does my work feel like something I want to be doing—or just something I have to keep up with?
THE WORLD – Am I engaging with the world in a way that feels true to me?
If even one of these feels off, you’re not alone. Many of us were taught to ignore these signals—to make ourselves small, to push through, to “be grateful” instead of asking for more.
So, I’m pausing you right now to ask:
Where is your dragon flying?
And what is it costing you?
And if you are the dragon… what do you want to do next?
Here’s what I want you to know:
Misalignment isn’t always about personal choice—it’s also about systems.
You don’t have to fix this alone—alignment is a collective process, not a solo journey.
Sometimes, the smallest shift (a boundary, a pause, a conversation) is the most powerful one.
If you feel stuck, know that you’re not the problem. Sometimes, the system is.
If you don’t know where to start, start here: one small act of reactivation in any area that feels possible.
You are the dragon. Now what?
