Ep#210 You Don’t Need a New Year You Need a New Standard
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout Recovery Podcast where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Welcome back, my friends, and if we've not caught up yet in 2026, Happy New Year to you and your people. I wish you all of the best.

[00:00:32] I'm back myself from a wonderfully restorative Christmas break, and we do that at the beach here, because it's midsummer. And this is of course, despite recent terror attack, which we're working through as a community, and we will not let it beat us.

[00:00:49] However, I did choose not to work during the break. I went offline, which for many people is not so easy. As you know, this constant stream of distressed or possibly urgent messages continues to flood in. So if, for whatever reason, this is your first week back at work in 2026, and part of you feels flat, resistant or quietly annoyed, nothing is wrong with you.

[00:01:20] This isn't laziness. It's not a motivation problem. It's not a failure to rest properly.

[00:01:27] A big factor is likely to be how much stress hangover you took into the break with you; how burned out you felt prior to downing tools; how densely packed your calendar was over the holidays themselves; and how many difficult relatives you spent time with!

[00:01:45] If you are continually worrying about work, even when you're not there, your batteries are still being drained.

[00:01:54] Then January pops up, with this kind of weird way of pretending that something magically resets for you. Whereas your nervous system, your responsibilities, and your expectations very clearly did not reset.

[00:02:10] The calendar moved, but your life didn't.

[00:02:13] If you are already thinking with a sinking heart and an overloaded brain, "Right, here we go again then!", today's episode is for you.

[00:02:22] Because you don't need a new year. You don't need new goals, or a new you. You don't need to 10x your effort. You need a new standard.

[00:02:33] ' cause there's a lie baked into this time of year. It says: fresh air, fresh energy, fresh you.

[00:02:41] But most leaders I work with don't come back refreshed. They come back braced. Braced for the Inbox, braced for the meetings, braced for being the adult in the room again.

[00:02:54] So they do what capable people always do.

[00:02:57] They add goals. They add pressure. They add another layer of I should be better by now.

[00:03:04] Needling self-judgments start to pick away at them, for not pulling off this grand revolution that would fix everything.

[00:03:13] And that approach is not leadership, that's self neglect, dressed up as ambition. Let's bring one of my old faves, Dan Sullivan for a moment. Dan talks about "The Gap and The Gain".

[00:03:26] The GAP is where most high performers live. Measuring yourself against an ideal that keeps moving. Focusing on what's missing, never quite arriving.

[00:03:37] Sound a bit familiar? 

[00:03:39] Here's the part most people miss. The gap isn't caused by big goals. It's caused by unexamined standards and ideal.

[00:03:48] Because goals are optional and achievable, but standards are how you treat yourself on a bad Tuesday. Goals, they're what you aim for. Standards are what you tolerate. And ideals are this far away, imaginary, perfect world that you can never reach.

[00:04:13] So burnout doesn't come from aiming high. It comes from living by standards that no longer fit the person you've become, and then beating yourself up for not matching your ideals.

[00:04:26] Let's look at a quick few standards that I see wrecking good leaders. See if you can relate. "I should be able to handle this." "If I don't do it, it won't be done properly." " Rest is something I earn." " Strong leaders don't need support."

[00:04:44] Of course, nobody consciously chooses these standards. They inherit them, they absorb them, and they survive by them -until they don't.

[00:04:54] Here's the hard truth. You don't burn out 'cause you care too much.

[00:04:59] You burn out because you keep outgrowing the rules that you are still living by.

[00:05:04] Think about that for a minute. Listen to the voice of your inner critic. Do you even want to be the person it exhorts you to be? Who originally implanted these standards into you and when? Are they helping? Or is your unexamined life off the rails?

[00:05:25] Dan Sullivan's idea of 10x is often misunderstood. People hear 10x and think: more output, more pressure, more intensity. But that's really not it.

[00:05:36] 10x isn't about doing 10 times more.

[00:05:40] It's about raising the standard of what actually deserves your energy and attention.

[00:05:46] Selecting the 20% that is your greatest contribution and handing off the other 80%.

[00:05:53] 10x leadership looks like:

[00:05:55] Fewer commitments, kept impeccably.

[00:05:58] Less tolerance for misaligned work.

[00:06:02] More trust, even when others do it differently.

[00:06:07] And cleaner decisions instead of heroic effort.

[00:06:11] 10x isn't bullish. It's leaner and cleaner. And this is where January matters, not because it's a new year, but because it's a natural pause, to renegotiate your standards.

[00:06:25] So instead of asking, what do I want to achieve this year, try this, especially today:

[00:06:33] What standard did I live by last year that quietly cost me more than it gave?

[00:06:41] Don't overthink it. Your body already knows the answer.

[00:06:45] Maybe it's availability; maybe it's perfection; maybe it's saying yes too quickly; maybe it's tolerating friction that you should have addressed months ago; or maybe it's a connection you should have dropped.

[00:06:59] Now the second question, what standard am I ready to retire without explaining myself?

[00:07:07] That's leadership- not announcements, not solutions or resolutions, but decisions.

[00:07:16] So here's how you move from the gap to the gain, practically speaking.

[00:07:21] The GAP is measuring yourself against an ideal that you're trying to get to. Inevitably, then, it looks at what's still lacking.

[00:07:29] The GAIN is measuring yourself against who you were and what you could do last week, last month, last year. It's all upside. Upside feeds you, creates positive energy and confidence.

[00:07:44] I think you already know what the gap does. It creates frustration, self-criticism, and despair.

[00:07:50] So to move from one to the other, you stop asking, why am I not further ahead? And you start asking, what kind of leader am I becoming because I'm willing to change this standard?

[00:08:03] The gain isn't just progress, it's self-trust, restored. It's the quiet confidence that comes from knowing I'm no longer negotiating with my exhaustion.

[00:08:15] So if today feels heavy, if part of you is dreading it, if you're back at work, not really fully back into yourself, firstly, don't panic: that discomfort isn't a problem. It's just information.

[00:08:31] You don't need a new version of yourself. The idea of the best version of you is mostly used as a self aggression. You'd be in the gap.

[00:08:40] You need to lead yourself by standards that match who you are now, not who you had to be to survive earlier chapters in your life.

[00:08:48] This year doesn't need more force, it needs more self-respect.

[00:08:54] And that's not soft leadership. That's actually the kind that lasts. And by the way, it also produces out-of-the -park results and deeper fulfillment.

[00:09:05] So I work with Dan Sullivan's wisdom from his books, "10x Is Easier Than 2x", and "The Gap And The Gain" with my leadership clients.

[00:09:15] It's a blueprint really for fast tracking your leadership, congruent with who you are- potent, influential, capable, and successful- by removing any barriers that you currently have.

[00:09:29] I really have seen this process work miracles with my clients, to the point where it renews their passion for work and life.

[00:09:37] If you are itching to shed some skin, some old habits, and restore balance in your leadership, it's the way to go.

[00:09:45] Join me for the 2026 transformation coaching round, to experience this for yourself.

[00:09:51] Start at go.dexrandall.com/leadership. The link will be in the show notes.

[00:09:58] And once again, I wish you everything good for 2026. How about we work together to boost that up right from the start?

[00:10:06] Thank you for listening. Please share this episode with others who also may need to hear it, and I'll speak to you next week.