Now we talk about how quickly we raced into burnout without even realising it.

Welcome to Becoming 30, my newsletter series where I discuss the lessons I’ve learned the hard way during my 20s. I’m turning 30 later this month and want to use this time to reflect and find my community as I move into this new decade of life. Join me!

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Our modern lives are engineered to lead us to burn out, and it is a radical choice to work against that and choose to prioritise your own mental health and wellbeing.

We were never supposed to be constantly connected - to our friends, our bosses, the latest breaking news from across the globe, and some random people on social media we would never otherwise have crossed paths with. Our brains were not designed to be able to maintain this level of connectedness.

Don’t get me wrong, I know and fully appreciate the benefits of being able to find this connection and community online - it’s one of the reasons I started writing and sharing it on Substack in the first place.

But somewhere along the line (and it was extremely recently, in the overall timeline of humankind) it became an expectation that we are always switched on. That we respond to every whatsapp, every email, every comment, every DM.

And our brains literally were not wired for this.

Before working from home, people left the office when they finished work and went home. They physically couldn’t access work from any other location, so those parts of themselves did not overlap. Now, we are expected to keep up with work emails on our phones, and with so many of us working from our homes, those boundaries get blurred.

The 24-hour news cycle constantly bombards us with new horror stories about what is happening in the world. Our group chats with people we barely know light up our phones as soon as we wake up and right before we go to sleep. Digital advertising shows us unattainable beauty standards designed to keep us feeling bad about ourselves so that we purchase more.

The reason we’re all sleepwalking into burnout is that our nervous systems have spent so long in survival mode that we are losing touch of who we are underneath it all.

Bonus points if you’re neurodivergent!

Before I was diagnosed as an AuDHDer, I was always so confused about why my phone was such a source of stress for me. My unread WhatsApp messages in particular always got to me - I knew that I appreciated messages from my friends and family, and I knew that I wanted to respond to them. But it became a massive unticked item on my to-do list, and my brain developed an aversion to it until 90% of the time I couldn’t physically bring myself to do it.

I still haven’t found the answer, but I am working on bringing a lot more self-compassion into my brain.

And putting that damn phone down..

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After creating this Substack account and posting one article a week for the first month of its publication, I let go of the consistency I told myself I would bring to this new endeavour. Temporarily, of course - the fact that you’re reading this now indicates that something has pulled me back again. I still feel that gravity towards writing and creating in this way, and committing myself to the journey of becoming a more peaceful and creative version of myself. But I’m struggling with how it feels to have ‘fallen off the wagon’.

In reality, my rational brain knows that one week is nothing, a tiny blip in the timeline of any potential future this tiny space of the internet may have.

But why does it feel as if I’m letting myself down and not dedicating myself to my dreams?

Hi, my name is Beth and I’m a perfectionist in recovery. There’s more on that in my previous article here, but the short story is that I have started my journey of recovering from perfectionism and developing my previously nonexistent self-compassion muscle. I have always strived - asking above and beyond of myself in everything I do, pushing myself to the limits of what I am capable of. I have never been happy with less than perfect, and although I’ve never reached perfection (which of course, I never will), I do feel like this has driven me to achieve a lot in my time. But I’m trying to loosen my grip and aim for slow ambition and productivity, self-compassion and grace.

My goal for this year was to be kinder to myself. To accept where I’m at, learn to love the process instead of always focusing on the outcome, and to dim the constant internal pressure that has been a permanent feature in my brain for as long as I can remember. And so far, it’s helped. I’m still performing well at work, but I don’t lie awake in the evening worrying about that email I sent to a client, or whether there were any mistakes in the deadline I submitted earlier that day. I’m ok with the concept that I may have made a mistake (in fact, I likely have), and I don’t attach my worth to that.

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Anyway, back to Substack. I have felt a drive to create and share more intentionally for a while now, and when I discovered Substack, it felt very aligned. I don’t have much time for short-form content - I have struggled with my relationship with my phone for a while now, and I don’t like the clickbait-y, attention-grabbing nature of it short form video content. I’d rather connect with people on a deeper level and spend time reading and sharing meaningful experiences and interpretations of life. For that reason, I have loved Substack so far, and so I decided to commit to publishing one article a week, about whatever I’d been thinking about that week. With no ulterior motive other than to share and connect.

Four weeks later, life has taken over again. May was a very busy month for me - it felt like as the sun came out in London, my desire for socialising, travelling and maximising different experiences came out of hibernation, and I threw myself into life at its fullest. I had a very full month and enjoyed it in many ways, but I couldn’t help feeling as May turned into June, that maybe I’d overdone it. I didn’t have time to write a Substack post, and so it slipped under the net.

I was trying to be kind to myself - to exercise self-compassion in not sticking to ultimately meaningless deadlines for anyone other than me. But part of me is coming to realise - maybe that’s the point after all? These deadlines are not for anyone else, but they are there for me. It’s most likely that my 29 subscribers have not noticed or cared that I didn’t share an article last week after only four previous publications (I appreciate you all more than you know for being here with me in these early days). But I cared, and it’s been playing on my mind a lot. During this period, I felt like I was being pulled back into the mindset I had before I started posting.

I was hearing that little voice in my head that tries to keep me safe, but small, by telling me that maybe this isn’t worth the effort, or isn’t the right path for me after all.

My nervous system was retreating to a place of safety, and making me doubt the steps I’d taken towards self-actualisation and living the life I wanted for myself.

So, here I am, back again. Trying to take those baby steps towards change and my higher self. I’m realising in the process that although my schedule shouldn’t be rigid - life happens and things can and should change as you go - I know that I want to keep showing up for myself.

New habits, structures, and routines can be hard (especially for my undiagnosed ADHD brain..), but I know that doing the things that I tell myself I’m going to do to access that future version of myself is the best form of self-care I can offer.

I am becoming the woman who does and is, rather than the woman who sits back, watching and dreaming.

This was more or less how the majority of my mornings went for years. The days that followed these mornings were then spent craving a repeat of the doomscrolling dopamine hit that I’d given my brain first thing. I fought a constant battle (which continues to this day) against the acutely trained reflex of picking up my phone and succumbing to the empty, numb feeling that accompanies a doomscroll session. I’ve tried several strategies to help counter this reflex over the years - my phone permanently lives on silent and automatically turns on to do not disturb at certain times. I set up a screen time limit for the apps I waste the most time on (cough cough, I’m looking at you, Instagram). I’ve tried several times to charge my phone overnight in another room, to put my phone away at a certain time of the evening, and to spend as long as I can in the morning phone-free. They help to some extent, but after a certain period of time, they start to slip, and before I know it, I find myself sucked back into the doomscroll.

I’ve decided I’ve had enough. Getting my ADHD diagnosis last year felt like the final straw - I have accepted that my brain craves dopamine and that I am addicted to the hit that my phone gives me. This explains to some extent why this feels so challenging for me. But what I can’t deal with anymore is the feeling of shame as I find myself entering the downward spiral of spending increasing amounts of time on my phone again. It’s hard not to feel like I’ve failed and I’ve let myself down when I inevitably fall back where I started - in a doomscroll hole. I am well and truly done with feeling like my phone controls my life, and like my social media controls my mood. The tech bros who control our devices and algorithms have too much power over my day-to-day, and I’m not willing to accept it anymore.

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Enter a new routine. An actual alarm clock to wake me up gently (big up the Lumie), charging my phone overnight at the other end of the room again. A short walk, cycle to work, or simply standing outside for a few minutes in the morning to get sunlight exposure and kickstart a healthy morning cortisol spike without the artificially generated dopamine. Slowly starting my day and getting myself ready, all whilst staying away from my phone. I won’t try to pretend that I always succeed, but the days that I do are blissful, and they motivate me to keep trying. I find that my brain is so much calmer, and doesn’t crave the same stimulation if I’ve not started the day with mindless scrolling. But equally as important, I’m trying to be kind to myself. These devices and algorithms are created to have exactly this impact - keep us hooked and always wanting more. If I pick up my phone in the morning, it’s hard not to feel like it’s game over for my attention span and creativity that day. But I’m trying to see it with a bit more nuance, and be more comfortable in the in between.

It’s also useful to have other motivating factors - minutes and hours not spent on my phone are hours spent on other, more meaningful hobbies. For me, that’s involved discovering an artistic streak that has been buried for a very long time. I used to love being creative as a child, but somewhere along the way, that got lost as I convinced myself I wasn’t good at it (and implicitly - it’s therefore not worth trying at all! See my previous article on perfectionism for more on that…). But last year, when I found myself largely housebound with a chronic illness, I decided it was time to get back in touch with that desire to create. Not to try to produce some perfect art masterpiece, but to detach myself from the outcome and create what I felt like creating. It was transformational. I started falling in love with afternoons spent painting, and picking up my latest crochet project for half an hour or so in the evening. I haven’t looked back since.

I’m still far from where I want to be with my relationship with my phone. I am currently exploring other options (e.g. a brick) to make that block more physical, as well as prioritising and investing time and effort into my analogue hobby options. Is there anything else I should try? If there is one tip/trick that’s helped you be more offline in 2026, don’t gatekeep and let me know in the comments below.

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Having said that, everyone is dying to know how I feel about turning thirty, as if the days are ticking by until my youth expires and I must be secretly crumbling inside at the thought of it. I’d be lying if I said leaving my twenties behind wasn’t a little daunting - of course it is, I have had some of the best times of my life so far in my twenties. I have been enjoying the freedom that comes with feeling like you have endless time, choices and space to make mistakes.

But my twenties were also a decade of two halves for me. The first half was defined by self-doubt, insecurity and worry. The second half was when I started to discover who I am and trust myself a bit more, although there was still a hell of a lot of self-doubt and insecurity hanging around. If you’ve read my previous post, you’ll know that I feel like I lost a lot of myself to perfectionism, and to people pleasing and constantly putting others’ needs before my own (although that’s a story for another day..). As I’m ageing, those layers are slowly starting to peel away, and I can confidently say that I’m growing into myself and finding peace with who I am and the type of life I want to live. And it feels great.

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Of course, as women, we’re sold a lie for our whole lives - our youth is our currency, and when that expires, we retire into irrelevance because we are no longer desirable by men. This narrative is shoved down our throats in the formative decade that is our twenties, causing us to waste precious time and energy worrying about ageing as if it’s something we can keep at bay, if only we spend enough on self-care, beauty and skincare products. That pressure comes from all angles - you should strive in your academic life and career to climb the ladder as quickly as you can, because your biological clock is ticking and you should secure that promotion before you might want to take maternity leave. We are bombarded by this at a time when our energy should instead be channelled into discovering and growing into our adult selves and creating the kind of life we want to live. When we are subconsciously fed this narrative our whole lives, it’s very hard not to get completely caught up in this and to approach ageing with a sense of panic. So I totally get why so many of my friends, family and acquaintances are curious as to how I am coping with this. But I’ve been lucky enough to come across and then repeatedly expose myself to plenty of opposing narratives to that over the course of my twenties.

I never understood the people who would tell me as a teenager that school would be the best days of my life. I always used to think - surely it gets better than this? (spoiler reader - it did!). As I’ve aged, my life has continually improved as I’ve continued to develop my sense of self, find out more about who I am and create the kind of life that feels like peace. I’ve learned to find the joy in my everyday life rather than attaching my happiness to an external goal or accomplishment which I may reach in the future. Of course, things are far from linear, and I have been through plenty of setbacks over the months and years. But I know deep within my soul that I will continue to listen to and honour my inner intuition and self. I feel like my thirties will be a time of finding even more certainty, peace and fulfilment than I have in my twenties.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not trying to pretend that I am completely immune to the pressures of the modern world as I approach this milestone. I often get a niggling voice in my head that tells me that I should have achieved more by now. Younger me assumed that by age 30 I would have bought a house, be married with children, maybe have started my own business, but certainly would feel ‘successful’. I have none of those things right now, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I know that I would be deeply unhappy if I had pursued those things earlier when the person or situation wasn’t right for me. I’ve instead invested in my mental health and wellbeing, which I think has given me routines and systems that will take me through life in a happier and more peaceful state.

But I also know these two things can coexist - I can be confident and happy moving forward as I age and as my life unfolds in front of me, and I can acknowledge that there are niggles and doubts in my mind. I may struggle to get rid of these as a result of the years of conditioning I’ve experienced from growing up in a capitalist society that tries to distract us from self-fulfilment and contentment by making us unhappy and panicked, so that we ultimately keep spending more. I finally trust myself enough to know that the path I’m on is the right one, and that what is meant for me will come in time. And I know I will make the right choices when the time for them arrives. Until then, I’ll be figuring it out as I go, and please follow along for the ride.

So the honest answer? I’m doing ok, and I’m excited to find out what my next decade has in store for me.

This lasted through my teen years and well into my twenties. When you build your sense of identity around something, it becomes so entwined within the threads of your being that you lose awareness of the fact that it’s something to detangle in the first place - it just is a part of you. I was the ‘perfect’ sibling, the ‘perfect’ student, the ‘perfect’ girlfriend. But of course, I wasn’t. Nobody is perfect, no matter how hard they may try (and oh boy, was I trying). I was giving everything I had to appear perfect on the surface, but inside I was crumbling. I was hypervigilant, always on the lookout for the thing that might bring me down, might make everyone see who I really am inside. My true, imperfect self was so deeply buried that I didn’t even know what she looked like. The mask I was projecting to everyone else left me drained and exhausted. But most of all, it made me lonely. No one can relate to someone seemingly moving through life perfectly, because no one really is moving through life perfectly. As well as losing grip of my authenticity, I believe I missed out on many moments of connection with others because of this.

Where to go from here?

As part of my newfound desire to live life more consciously, and my (what I’m sure will be life-long) quest for self-improvement and growth (is that just another perfectionist trait? help??), I’m starting to unpick these threads a bit. I know rationally that perfection is an unrealistic goal, and I also know that constantly aiming for perfection and then inevitably not meeting that standard is a one-way road to dissatisfaction and self-beratement. I want to stay ambitious, I want to set goals for myself and work hard to achieve them, but I want to be kinder to myself during the process. I want to be at peace with where I am, find joy in my life in the present, and not expect that happiness and self-worth will one day arrive when I achieve the ultimate ‘perfect’ state. Although I didn’t believe it was possible for a while, I do think self-compassion and ambition can co-exist. And that’s where I’m hoping to land.

Learning to play

I think the opposite of perfectionism is playfulness - something I let go of at quite a young age and lost completely for a while. Being able to try something new with curiosity, intrigue and joy, without worrying about the outcome or how you are being perceived whilst doing it is a quality I truly desire, and that I’m trying to cultivate in my daily life. When I have been able to enter that play state, I’m focused on how it feels to be learning something new, lightheartedly and without worrying about how good I will be or how I will be perceived by others, it’s game-changing. So, here starts my quest for new hobbies, and my vow to myself to commit to trying new things whilst separating myself from the outcome as much as I can.

For now, loosening my grip a bit feels good. I still catch myself constantly aiming too high and being to hard on myself when I fall short. But I can recognise when that’s happening, and I can challenge that, which must be a step in the right direction, right? Of course, it’s not going perfectly (as we now know, what does?!), but it’s going. And that’s enough for me.

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We all have to begin (again) somewhere.

When you decide to consciously rebuild and restructure your life, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to know where or how to start. For a while now, I’ve felt a call to create more intentionally and to share my story as a way to reinforce what I’ve learned over the past few years. Today, I am 29, and I’m taking that step - doing what scares me and starting again from zero. With no expectations, without placing pressure on a particular outcome, and creating purely to speak my truth.

No one’s journey or story is the same, but many of us living in the modern world are dealing with similar struggles - striving for goal after goal, constantly operating on the edge of burnout and not finding the time to discover or prioritise what actually makes us tick, what makes our soul and spirit sing. That’s why I’m intentionally slowing down this year. My goal is to create with meaning, to prioritise mindful being over endless doing, and to create a life for myself that is centred around a feeling of peace. I no longer set goals for my future based on what objective markers of success I have achieved, I set them based on how I want to feel.

I no longer want to be the woman who is stressed, burnt out, and considers being busier and more productive than everyone else to be a personality trait. I want to be the woman who is peaceful, grounded, and in tune with her intuition and her needs. Someone who unapologetically lives life on her terms. That is what this space is going to be about, and I hope you will join me on this journey as I attempt to figure it out.

My why

Last year, my entire world turned upside down when I came down with a chronic illness, for the second time in my life. The first time was aged 17, when I caught glandular fever. I was studying for my A levels at the time, alongside competing at an international level in swimming. I was forced to scale everything back; I trained less, went to school less, and I spent a lot more time on my own at my parents house. My life shrank around me, but it continued on and I eventually made it through the other end. One year on I was back ‘on track’ - racing again, getting good grades and preparing for the transition into adulthood.

But this time was different. I caught Covid in July last year, for probably the third time since the start of the pandemic in 2020. But instead of bouncing back after a week or so of feeling under the weather, I didn’t get better. In fact, I got significantly worse for a while. Again, I was forced backwards, but this time to a complete stop. Overnight, I went from being a very active person, a high performer at work with a thriving social life, to someone unable to walk two minutes down the road to buy myself food. I became sedentary, dependent on my partner and isolated from the life I had built for myself. The loss of identity associated with that was crippling, and my mental health plummeted alongside my physical health.

What’s next?

I made a promise to myself that my health and recovery would come before all else. I didn’t know how I’d ended up where I had, but I slowly came to realise that the life I had been living previously, the life I was proud of and that I had loved, was not sustainable for me anymore. Not only that, but I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to go back anymore.

Constant striving for the next goal, pushing my body and mind to their limits and not making enough time for true rest and restoration over a period of years had taken its toll. I faced the fact that I had been unable to truly allow myself to rest, to process and to recover properly. I was fitter and stronger than I possibly ever had been, but I was not healthy. I learned that muscle and cardiovascular fitness does not constitute health if you spend all day at work being stressed and you struggle to switch off and get to sleep at night.

The way to come back from that, or so I’m learning, is to very slowly and surely rebuild stronger foundations. Nourishing and fueling myself properly as a priority, balancing my hormones and truly looking at all the dark corners of my mental health. Facing all aspects of yourself and committing to doing the work is scary, and hard. But when you are forced to a stop and your usual distractions are taken away from you, there is nowhere to hide anymore. Everything needs to go through a finely tuned process of acknowledging, reassessing and rebuilding.

So, here’s where we are today. I’m rebuilding, slowly and surely, and I’m still not completely sure where this will take me. But I know that its forwards, and I know that what comes ahead will be greater than what came before. And I’m excited to find out.

Beth x