I\u2019m writing this blog on the last day of work, just before a delicious two weeks of leave.\u00a0 By the time you\u2019ll be reading this my leave will be over and I\u2019ll be back to work for another year (please God). \u00a0I hope that we\u2019ll have all had a wonderful Christmas time. I also hope that my batteries will have been recharged because, to be honest with you, right now, they are not only not flat, they are starting to leak that toxic goo that can actually be quite destructive.<\/p>\n
How do you recharge your batteries? \u00a0I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve ever felt the need to actually do something proactive to charge them before? I think I\u2019ve very luckily had the kind of life where they are recharged naturally, like some kind of perpetual motion machine, as long as I\u2019ve had access to intangible energy plugin points such as: fun times with friends; an amazing new album to listen to; doing something well in work that I feel proud of \u2026 so long as I\u2019ve had access to some of those things, I\u2019ve been fine.\u00a0 \u00a0I think and hope that I\u2019m known for being someone full of energy and, well, life, but lately, I\u2019ve been feeling a bit like a doom sponge, sucking the joy and happiness from every space.<\/p>\n
Why could this be? Well, a number of reasons.\u00a0 I\u2019m 47 and, as Instagram likes to regularly remind me, this is PRIME PERI-TIME.\u00a0 No, this isn\u2019t an exciting opportunity to gorge on Peri-Peri delights at Nandos, this is a time where, if the general challenges of being a woman aren\u2019t enough, one of our hormonal deliverers of compassion, Oestrogen, starts to chaotically crash.\u00a0 A meme that instantly resonated with me went something along the lines of \u2018just when you need to be able to deal with taxing teenagers and elderly parents, your body unfortunately dials down your biological need to nurture\u2019. My cognitive function is absolutely fine but my ability to deal with nonsense and injustice is unfortunately at an all-time low.<\/p>\n
I think this year has also shown me that I need to reframe my relationship with work. I don\u2019t think I had realised how much I was relying on it for purpose and meaning, so when you realise how fragile your employment actually is, it makes you reevaluate how much you\u2019ve emotionally invested in it.<\/p>\n
When coupled with the sadnesses of more friends dying and a kind of lingering, aching loneliness that I just can\u2019t shift, the upshot is that I\u2019m not looking forward to 2026 with verve and enthusiasm unfortunately.<\/p>\n
Argh! I need to pick myself up and sort myself out! BIG TIME!<\/p>\n
Can lean help? Well, maybe? In two ways. Lean loves a standard management routine, creating time and space for reflective practice which is designed to improve yourself and your work, and I think I need to practice some of this too. Exercise might be a way to help me out of this, so I\u2019m going to try to make sure that I do 30 minutes of exercise a day to see if that can lift my spirits.<\/p>\n
The other way that I think lean can help is that I think I need to devote myself to it more.\u00a0 My roles in the Business School and University have mainly been about trying to create better systems but maybe I need to think more about developing my expertise base foremost and focus on furthering my knowledge of improvement by doing more actual academic things.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope that I have spent these two weeks doing things that recharge my soul.\u00a0 I am going to seek out windswept wintery beaches, warm gooey cheeses and fun times with friends.\u00a0 I hope that there are loads of lovely times with my daughter and that I reemerge into 2026 with more energy and enthusiasm!<\/p>\n
Onwards!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m writing this blog on the last day of work, just before a delicious two weeks of leave.\u00a0 By the time you\u2019ll be reading this my leave will be over […]","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":1313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,68],"tags":[16,103],"custom_author":[44],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lean","category-life","tag-lean","tag-new-year","custom_author-sarah-lethbridge"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/554\/2025\/12\/Batteries.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions\/1314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/sarahlethbridgelean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}