Dr. Jenny Severson
When I became a school principal at 26, no one was there to teach me how to do my job. Or show me how to take care of myself while doing it.
So I didn’t. (Take care of myself, that is.)
Every day for five years, I threw myself into the work. Between managing all sorts of problems, lunch duty, and meetings with the school board, my days were more packed than a can of sardines.
Even when I transitioned to a consultancy role where I helped schools and companies implement proven cognitive science- and neuroscience-backed strategies to achieve peak performance in their environments, I was still doing too much. I overextended myself by pleasing people, performing, pretending, gaining titles and status, and running through airports nonstop. All while raising my three children.
In 2017, the burnout that had built up over years of overwhelm culminated in the form of breast cancer. What followed were some of the bleakest months of my life.
But there’s one thing for sure…
Nothing wakes us up like a crisis.
And if there’s a “bright side” to getting cancer, it’s that surviving cancer gave me a chance to rebuild my life in such a way that it wouldn’t happen again.
Because here’s what cancer taught me:
It made me push the “stop” button on the busy-ness.
It made me realize that setting boundaries is essential to my self-care.
And it awakened me to the powerful force that is gratitude.
So here’s what I did:
I established daily gratitude rituals. I’d known that gratitude has a powerful effect on the brain from my background in neuroscience, but my practice helped me experience it in real life.
I returned to my career, but this time with a margin carved out for self-care in the form of my morning routine (which involves intentional exercise, meditation and prayer, and prepping my nutrition for the day).
And I incorporated teachings on gratitude into my work with schools and other organizations.
It took a while, but I’m once again “green and growing.”
Now, I provide educational leadership programs, give keynote addresses, and help leaders in schools and the corporate world implement practices rooted in gratitude and neuroscience so that they can take care of themselves physically and emotionally and excel professionally.
If you’re overworked and teetering on the edge of burnout, I’m here to fiercely champion you as you make the changes necessary to put yourself on a pathway toward renewed passion, wellness, and effectiveness.
If you’d like to learn more, the answers are just a click away. Don’t put this off. Schedule a call now.