My career was taking off.
From the outside, it looked impressive. I was managing large projects, leading teams, handling high-value clients. It looked like momentum. Success. Growth.
But on the inside, it was slowly draining me.
My days were a blur of constant deadlines, unrealistic client expectations, and jumping from task to task with absolutely no space to stop, breathe, or reset. Every time I thought I was getting on top of things, something else landed on my plate. There was no buffer. No margin. No moment to recalibrate.
The deadlines were relentless. Expectations kept climbing. Back-to-back meetings filled entire days, meaning time to do the work that actually required deep thinking was after hours. Online meetings meant what used to take one focused discussion to resolve now bounced around for meeting after meeting — cameras on, engagement low, everyone slightly distracted but still “available.”
Lunch breaks became optional. Often they overlapped with another call. I rarely felt like I could say no. Not because anyone explicitly told me I couldn’t — but because the culture rewarded availability and quiet endurance.
I told myself that I couldn't let the project down.
But then things started slipping.
My performance dipped, even though I was working harder than ever. My decision-making became foggier. I would find myself staring into space between meetings, struggling to switch gears. I couldn’t remember conversations that had just happened. I’d re-read emails multiple times before they landed.
Basic tasks felt heavier. Personal admin went to the bottom of the list. By the time I got home, I had almost no energy left for my husband or my kids. Weekends weren’t fun —they were spent trying to do as little as possible, just to give myself a break. It wasn’t intentional recovery. It was survival.
And still, I pushed.
Until the cognitive load tipped into something deeper.
Burnout. Adrenal fatigue. A body and brain that simply refused to keep operating at that pace.
The hardest part was this: I knew what I needed.
I understood recovery. I’d read the books. I’d done the courses. I knew I needed breaks, keep exercising, find your rhythm. People told me to slow down. But I couldn’t get out of autopilot. The pace of work just kept overriding. Urgency drowned out intention. I didn’t feel like I had the structural permission — or the practical means — to get out of the cycle of overload.
So, I defaulted to the path of least resistance.
Suck it up and keep going. I told myself and my family it would settle down soon.
But this only made the cracks widen.
Eventually, I realised something uncomfortable: this wasn’t a resilience issue. It was a recovery issue.
There was no real rhythm to my work. No deliberate pause between intensity and reset. Just continuous demand layered on top of cognitive load. And I’m not the only one who has experienced that. The data is clear — workplace stress and burnout are increasing, even as organisations invest more in wellbeing initiatives.
That tells us something important.
Recovery doesn’t work when it’s left entirely up to the individual.
Because when people are overwhelmed, the first thing to disappear is the very behaviour that would help them recover.
That realisation became the foundation for Re.Mode.
Not another wellbeing layer. Not another tool asking already overloaded people to try harder. But a response to a simple truth: if performance depends on capacity, and capacity depends on recovery, then recovery must be built into the system.
Because pushing harder or telling yourself it's just a point in time isn’t a strategy.
And no one should have to quietly burn themselves out because the system mistakes endurance for performance.
- Lauren
