Nostos Nest

16/04/2026

A simple mental health check-in can tell you a lot.

Every couple of weeks I pause and ask myself:
How is my mental health right now?

One easy way to think about it:

🟢 Green - steady and feeling good
🟠 Amber - a bit low and needing attention
🔴 Red - completely drained and needing a proper recharge

This is a great burnout prevention practice because it helps you notice the signs early instead of pushing through and ignoring them.

Right now I’m 🟢

A lot of that comes down to protecting my time and holding my boundaries better.

It’s simple, but it creates awareness, and awareness is where change starts.

How’s your battery today?

14/04/2026

Burnout isn’t always just about exhaustion.

Sometimes it shakes your identity too.

When so much of your self-worth has been tied to being capable, productive, reliable, or high-performing, burnout can leave you wondering who you are underneath all of that.

That’s a big part of why recovery can feel so unsettling.

I wrote more about this here:
https://nostosnest.com/2026/04/identity-after-burnout/

13/04/2026

When work has shaped so much of your identity, losing that structure can feel bigger than people realise.

For a lot of us, work becomes more than a job. It becomes how we explain ourselves, how we measure ourselves, and how we find a sense of place.

So when burnout or redundancy changes that, it can bring up much deeper questions about identity.

That’s what I’ve been reflecting on in my latest blog post - what it means to reconnect with who you are when your job is no longer the main thing defining you.

If work didn’t define you, how would you introduce yourself?

Read the full blog post here: https://nostosnest.com/2026/04/identity-after-burnout/

13/04/2026

A lot of small and growing businesses want to create a mentally healthy workplace. They’re doing their best with the resources and capacity they have, but often don’t have a clear way to see where the gaps are and what to focus on first.

So I created the Small Business Mentally Healthy Workplace Starter Kit - a self-guided option based on my Mentally Healthy Workplace Maturity Assessment and the broader service offering I developed around it.

It’s designed to help small and growing businesses assess where they are now, identify the biggest gaps, and decide what to prioritise first.

It includes a practical guide plus a self-assessment tool covering 8 focus areas of a mentally healthy workplace, with clear maturity levels, practical actions, and next-step guidance.

You can find it here: https://nostosnest.com/product/small-business-mentally-healthy-workplace-starter-kit/

If you know a business owner, people leader, or someone working in this space who might find it helpful, I’d really appreciate you sharing it with them.

A practical DIY mentally healthy workplace assessment designed for small businesses. Review your workplace culture, leadership and support systems.

13/04/2026

Who are you when work no longer defines you?

It sounds like a simple question until your career, capacity, or identity shifts and you realise how much of your answer used to come from what you did.

Burnout can disrupt more than energy. It can disrupt identity too.

My latest blog post explores what happens when the roles and labels you’ve leaned on no longer feel like enough, and what it can look like to start asking deeper questions about who you are beyond work, performance, and being useful.

If you’ve ever felt a bit lost after burnout, redundancy, or a major life change, this one might resonate.

Read: "Identity After Burnout: Who Are You When Work No Longer Defines You?" (link in the comments)

08/04/2026

Recently I did something simple but surprisingly powerful - I mapped nearly four decades of my career onto one timeline.

For so many years, it had all felt quite fragmented to me. Different jobs, different countries, different highs and lows, and of course the gradual build-up to burnout.

But seeing it all laid out visually gave me a completely different perspective.

I could see how work, life events, health, and timing had all been intersecting for years in ways I hadn’t fully appreciated at the time.

What it gave me most was clarity - and also compassion for the version of me who was trying to navigate all of it without being able to see the bigger picture.

I’ve written about the exercise and what it revealed in my latest blog post:
"Mapping My Career Journey: How a Career Mapping Exercise Brought Clarity After Burnout"

You can read it here: https://nostosnest.com/2026/03/career-mapping-exercise/

07/04/2026

You don’t have to choose between struggling alone and hiring a coach.

Not everyone wants one-on-one support, and not everyone has the budget for it either.

Sometimes you want something more private, more affordable, and more self-paced - but still thoughtful and grounded in real experience.

That’s why I’ve created a range of self-guided resources alongside my Personal Guidance service, to support people navigating burnout, overwhelm, and life change.

The Burnout Clarity Guide is a great starting point, and it’s free.

You can explore everything here:
nostosnest.com/resources

06/04/2026

You can be burnt out even when your job isn’t that busy.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned from burnout is that it’s rarely about workload alone. It’s usually a mix of things building up over time and affecting your overall capacity.

That’s what can make burnout so hard to recognise. From the outside, someone’s workload might not look that intense, but their capacity may already be stretched in ways other people can’t see.

I’ve shared more about this in my blog here:
https://nostosnest.com/2025/02/causes-of-burnout/

Have you ever felt burnt out even when life didn’t look that busy on paper?

05/04/2026

A lot of burnout advice sounds simple enough: rest more, switch off, relax.

But for some of us, that’s exactly the problem.

If you feel restless, guilty, or uncomfortable when you’re not being productive, slowing down doesn’t always come naturally. Sometimes doing nothing feels more stressful than helpful.

So today’s burnout prevention tip is this: rediscover your creative side.

Ideally, make it something that doesn’t involve a phone or a laptop.

It doesn’t need to be impressive or turned into a side hustle, just something you enjoy and can get lost in for a little while.

My creative outlet is knitting. It helps me slow down in a way that still feels natural.

Not everything restorative has to look like meditation or sitting still. Sometimes it just looks like making space for a different part of yourself.

02/04/2026

We can get so busy pushing through the week that we barely stop to ask ourselves a very basic question: how am I actually doing? 🤍

That’s why I like doing a simple mental health check-in using a battery level. 🔋

Some weeks I feel fully charged. Some weeks I know I’m running lower than I’d like. This week I’m sitting around 80% - overall pretty good, but aware that sleep and a busy schedule do make a difference.

It’s such a simple habit, but it can tell you a lot.

So please take a minute to check-in and ask yourself:

❓ What’s your mental health battery level right now?
❓ What are you doing this weekend to recharge or stay charged? 💚

31/03/2026

For a long time I thought burnout meant I had pushed too hard or handled things poorly.

But when I mapped nearly four decades of my career onto a single timeline, something became very clear.

Burnout didn’t come from one bad year or one difficult job.

It was the outcome of years of momentum - work pressure, life events, health changes, and timing all intersecting.

Seeing that full picture helped me replace a lot of self-blame with understanding.

Sometimes burnout isn’t about resilience at all. It’s about how long we’ve been moving without enough space to pause.

I wrote about this exercise in my latest blog post:

“Mapping My Career Journey: How a Career Mapping Exercise Brought Clarity After Burnout.”

You can read it here:
https://nostosnest.com/2026/03/career-mapping-exercise/

30/03/2026

Burnout rarely starts with the breakdown.

When I mapped nearly four decades of my career onto a single timeline, something became very clear - the decline to burnout had been unfolding for years.

Seeing it visually helped me understand things that were hard to see while I was living them.

The gradual decline in energy

Moments that looked successful from the outside but felt very different on the inside
COVID
Perimenopause
Career curveballs
A growing sense of getting lost in the system at work
The way life events, health, work pressure and timing all intersected

When it was all on one page, the timing finally made sense.

It wasn’t one bad year.

It was a perfect storm.

Mapping my career didn’t just give me insight. It gave me context - and that helped replace a lot of self-blame with understanding.

In my latest blog post I share the exercise, what emerged when I mapped my career, and why it can be a powerful reflection tool if your work story feels confusing or unfinished.

You can read “Mapping My Career Journey: How a Career Mapping Exercise Brought Clarity After Burnout.” here:

https://nostosnest.com/2026/03/career-mapping-exercise/