I didn’t become “free” in some heroic way; I just got tired of waking up in a life that looked impressive and felt like a quiet betrayal, every single day.
The hidden cause of burnout
Most people are not burned out by work itself; they are burned out by following the wrong agenda – not your own agenda.
Your company has an agenda, your boss has an agenda, your clients have an agenda, and even your family has an agenda. The uncomfortable question is: do you really have one of your own, and are you actually living by it?
Humans are not made to run, long-term, on an external plan that contradicts their own values. If your personal agenda is not aligned with the place you work, the people you surround yourself with, and the roles you hold, you will not be happy. There is no clever mindset hack that fixes that. Misalignment always comes with a price, and most people pay it quietly.
For a long time, I did too.
When your life runs on other people’s plans
My life looked “successful” from the outside: interesting projects, high responsibility, business partners, clients, long hours; on paper, it all made sense. Inside, it was a constant negotiation and low-grade fight. Everyone had expectations, everyone had priorities, and my days became an endless game of standing my ground here, compromising there, smoothing conflicts so things could keep running.
I was productive, but not free. I was needed, but not aligned.
The core problem was simple: I was living within others' agendas and trying to squeeze my own purpose into the gaps.
You cannot run a business, or even a career, with this logic: “You drive the car, I secretly try to steer from the passenger seat.” If you share a company or a project with people whose values and long-term goals are fundamentally different from yours, you will always be at war or in self-betrayal. That friction does not go away with more willpower; it just buries itself deeper into your nervous system.
It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, or an employee; the same rule applies. The things you can control, your actions and your reactions, must be aligned with your purpose. If you put your time and energy into what you actually care about, you experience progress, even when it is hard. If you spend it serving an agenda that contradicts your own, the result is predictable: resentment, numbness, or a quiet kind of despair.
Alignment always has a price.
This is where it gets uncomfortable, because alignment is not free.
Sometimes it means saying no to “good” opportunities that are wrong for you. Sometimes it means leaving a company that pays well but slowly destroys your self-respect. Sometimes it really is better to be short-term unemployed than long-term dishonest with yourself.
Can you do that? Do you do that? Ask yourself this question often – it’s worth it.
One thing I have learned about people, and I include myself in this, is that most do not really change. Only the best change in a positive, intentional way over time; most slowly degrade where they are already stuck, telling themselves that things will improve “after this release”, “after this boss is gone”, “after this one last crisis”. The years pass, the story stays the same; the only thing that changes is the level of exhaustion.
If you read this and your first reaction is, “It’s not that bad, you’re exaggerating”, watch that reaction carefully. Often, that is not realism speaking; it is fear of what would happen if you admitted to yourself how misaligned you actually are.
Real change starts in one place
Real change starts in one place only: with you.
Obvious when we start to think about it, yet it remains a huge hurdle; you get used to overcoming it :)
You need a mindset shift, yes, but more than that, you need the willingness to move away from something before you have all the answers about what comes next. There is an old picture I like: if you want to pour fresh water into a barrel, you need space in the barrel. You cannot fill it if it is already full.
It is the same with your life. If someone else’s priorities occupy every part of your calendar and your headspace, there is no room for anything new to enter.
Sometimes “emptying the barrel” means clearing your mind and becoming truly open to new ideas. Sometimes it means leaving a role, a company, or a partnership to create space for the next chapter that you cannot fully see yet. This is scary, and that is precisely why most people don’t do it. They prefer the familiar cage over the open door, because the open door does not come with guarantees.
Epictetus puts it very simply:
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Self-leadership is precisely this: taking back mastery over what you do, what you tolerate, and what you move away from.
The Turning-Pro Moment: When Your Purpose Stops Being Negotiable
Here we tackle the fear behind most avoidance: “If I really take responsibility, it will break me.” We’ll separate workload from inner posture, show how stoic tools protect your emotional core, and define concrete boundaries so you can be fully in charge without constantly running on fumes.
Freedom is hard work (and worth it)
The last four or five years have been some of the hardest in my life. I have questioned myself, made mistakes, walked down paths that didn’t lead where I hoped. But there is one thing I will not trade back: I am free.
There is no one left who can tell me what I “have to” do today. I decide what I work on. I decide which clients I take. I decide which projects I kill. I live with the consequences of those decisions, and that is precisely the point. I am the master of my day, not because I always get it right, but because I own the choices.
Self-leadership and self-mastery are not things you “achieve” and then check off a list. They are a practice for life. I fail regularly, I fall into old patterns, I get distracted by fear or vanity. But I would rather fail in the attempt to live my own agenda than succeed as a perfectly obedient executor of someone else’s plan.
Marcus Aurelius captured the inner battlefield like this:
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Your agenda starts exactly there: in your mind, your decisions, your small daily acts of courage.
Designing a life that runs on your agenda
If you feel stuck right now, in a job, in a business, in a situation that quietly violates your values, then the main problem is not productivity, focus or discipline. The main problem is that you are running the wrong agenda. Before you optimise your calendar, you need to decide what you actually want your life to serve.
From there, self-leadership becomes very concrete:
clarify what your agenda is
align your daily actions and reactions with it
be willing to walk away from whatever fundamentally contradicts it
This is not a motivational quote; it is a decision that will cost you something in the short term and give you your life back in the long term.
Epictetus said that the only worthy goal to pursue in life is freedom. I agree with him. Freedom is not chaos; it is not doing “whatever you want” in a childish sense; it is the condition where your choices are truly yours and your actions are aligned with your purpose. That is the ground on which you can actually thrive as a human being.
If you are somewhere on that path, and you feel afraid, stuck, or petrified even to start, you don’t have to figure it out alone. This is the work I do with employees, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs who are tired of living on borrowed agendas.
You are allowed to design a life where your agenda is not an afterthought, but the starting point.
—Adrian
