Balance & Beyond Podcast

How will AI and automation make us more human in 2025?

And what does this mean for women navigating procrastination, perfectionism, and the pressure to succeed?

In this episode, we explore three major trends reshaping workplaces this year, from the rise of AI to the shift toward continuous learning. We uncover why women leaders must let go of outdated success patterns that lead to burnout and embrace new strategies to not just survive, but thrive.

You’ll learn:

• Why perfectionism and procrastination hold women back in a world of rapid change.
• How micro-learning can replace traditional degrees as the key to staying ahead.
• The mindset shifts you need to adapt and lead with confidence in an AI-driven workplace.

This episode is packed with practical insights to help you break free from self-sabotaging behaviours, stay agile, and unlock your full potential.

To learn more about these patterns, sign up for the Future-Ready You: The 2025 Blueprint for Career Success. A free event kicking off 17th January where we’ll share more detail on these trends and the tools you need to stay ahead of the pack. Save your spot at: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/careerblueprint

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

It's 2025 and the game has changed. The game I'm talking about is the workplace. And, with it evolving faster than ever, success this year is going to demand something different from you than you've had before. So in today's episode, I'm going to share with you the three biggest trends that I'm seeing take place in 2025, and what you must do if you really want to thrive professionally, this year, and beyond. 

I'm going to be sharing with you some of these key trends today. But, if this interests you, and you want to know more, I want to make sure you know about ‘Future Ready You’, the 2025 blueprint for career success. Free two-part workshops we are running. Starting this coming Friday, January the 17th, over two Fridays in one hour sessions, I'm going to be sharing with you what you need to redefine success, on your terms. 

What are the future ready leadership capabilities you need? What's the upgraded professional toolkit that's going to help you navigate the AI era? Registration is free, and you can check the link in the show notes. or you can visit balanceinstitute.com/careerblueprint to save your spot. All right, let's talk about what are some of these trends, and this can give you a really good understanding as to whether or not you need to be at that event with us. Heads up, you probably do. 

So, the three biggest trends I am seeing impact workplaces, and this is workplaces of all shapes and sizes, and it's primarily relating to women who operate within these workplaces. And these are small businesses, large businesses, no surprise. The number one trend that everybody's talking about is AI and automation. AI is changing everything. I have gone from 12 months ago hearing about this thing to now actively, I use between 10 and 15 different types of AI software programs, apps, across my business. 

And I am always on the lookout for what else I could be using to streamline things. So, it's changing everything. If you think you're immune from the AI revolution, then I need to grab you by the shoulders, and give you a shake, and say, “It will impact all of us in some way.” You can either be afraid of it, or you can embrace it. Now I don't need to tell you any of the trends or the numbers about what's actually going on here, because it's exploded! They're talking about, there's some stats where now they're saying, “83% of companies are saying that AI is the top priority in their business”. 

So, yes, AI can, you know, speed up workflows. It can be efficient. I mean, I've got my 14-year-old using ChatGPT for her homework, which brings up all kinds of interesting moral dilemmas. However, there is something that sits underneath AI, that is actually going to stop you from being able to embrace it. What am I talking about? Now, in an era of AI, what is going to start being a key competitive advantage for you as a professional? 

When you are now going to AI to write your emails, when you're going to AI to help you with reports, when you're going to AI to, God knows what, whether it's ChatGPT, or Gemini, or any one of the other platforms, who knows, have emerged in the next week, when you have perfectionistic tendencies, all you will do is you will outsource the perfectionistic voice in your head for AI. 

So, this is flag number one. Rather than crafting an email, you will stick it through Chat GPT, or whatever your organization allows you to use in the hope of making it more perfect. So, for somebody like that, while you may think AI is making you faster, it's actually just fueling your perfectionist. So, call out “number one”. If you are using it to finesse, and make something perfect. There's a difference between getting it to put things in a different tone of voice for you, or getting it with a critical eye to analyze something, as opposed to making it sound better. “Make this sound better.” 

If you're constantly putting things into AI saying, “Make this sound better”. I want you to take a step back and say, “Hmm, what am I using this for?” However, moving on from this, the other piece that is going to really stop you embracing the AI evolution in the workplace, is your perfectionist is going to stop you being more human. What do I mean by this? 

Well, in an era of robots and Chat GPT, and whatever else, making things a lot more, let's say, “robotic”. The way that you are going to differentiate yourself is to actually become more human. You need to be vulnerable, you need to show emotion. Anything that an AI can't do, is what's going to set you apart. And this is why, when you're a get shit done person who relies on perfectionism, volume, perfectionistic high standards and volume of output, AI is going to replace you a lot faster. Because, no matter how many hours you work, AI is faster than you. No matter how perfect you try to be, AI is going to be more perfect than you. 

However, if you can be human, if you can embrace vulnerability, if you can embrace curiosity, and allow imperfection and authenticity, that's going to make you shine right through. It's going to make you a leader who can embrace AI as a way of maybe doing your job faster, or better, or whatever else. But then, you need to actually become more human. And if you're a perfectionist who is carrying around this 20-ton shield, who lives in fear of everybody finding out that you are actually a human, that you do actually make mistakes, that you do actually fail, then AI is going to be a massive, massive threat. 

And, rather than embracing it for all the benefits, it's just going to become your outsourced perfectionist. So I really want to highlight this key trend and, of course, we're going to go more in depth in this in the workshop but the importance in 2025 for you being more human. And the only way you're going to do that is to tame your perfectionist, because your perfectionist won't allow you to be human. 

It says that you can't make a mistake, it says that you have to have all the information, it says that you have to always be available. It says that you have to respond really quickly, because if you don't, then you have to be on top of everything. That's your perfectionist talking, so it will stop you embracing possibly the greatest generational shift that we are going through. 

So, if you want to stay on top of the game, you need to learn to become more human. How does that make you feel? I sense, even listening to this, you're going, “I am not comfortable with that.” “I don't want to make mistakes.” “I don't want to fail.” “I want to use Chat GPT to make me more perfect!” No, you have to be authentic. And, ironically, to be more human, you have to know who you are. 

So, if you've spent a lot of your life looking outside of yourself for validation, for reinforcement, then this is going to make you feel even more unsettled than you did previously, because now you're asked to be more human, but you don't know what that means, because you spent your whole life trying to be perfect, so this is going to feel uncomfortable on so many levels. Trying to be perfect, so this is going to feel uncomfortable on so many levels.

All right, let's talk about trend number two. That is another game changer and it's a continuation of a trend that we saw really picking up post COVID, but it is amping up big time right now, and this is the good old, “Do more with less.” So I am seeing, increasingly, people with higher workloads, fewer resources. Whether it's they can't hire the talent to plug gaps, they're not getting the budget for talent, they're being asked to absorb roles. 

Women are often doing two and three roles until they can get budget approval, or until they get to the new financial year, or whatever the excuses are. The reality is: expectations aren't changing, but volume is up, and resources are down. So, as a leader, if you want to thrive in this world, you cannot lean on some of your outdated success patterns. 

So, once upon a time, your success pattern, which was, again, the reason it's called “outdated” is because it used to work when the volume was lower. “Work harder”, “do more”, “work harder”, “work longer”, “push harder”, “turn out more”, “try to be more efficient”, “better manage your time”. That just leads to burnout. 

And it leads to burnout way faster than it ever has because, particularly as you get more senior, and most of the women who come to me are in their late 30s, early 40s, the volume of work at this level … You're not entry level anymore, where the work was only ever really maybe one or one and a half person's role. 

Now, you're having to make faster decisions, with less information. You're having to make more mistakes and be okay with that. So, the key piece that you are going to have to really tap into is, if you can't get more time, because we all get the same 168 hours a week, and you probably can't work harder, if you're already working on the couch, working weekends, then we have to look a little creatively, at what's going to make you effective in this environment. 

And there is one self-sabotage pattern that we are seeing again and again actually amplified, in this environment. Which is counterintuitive, because you'd think you'd need to do less of it. But, that thing is procrastination. You know, when you've got 50 million things to do, and you're so overwhelmed, you don't know where to begin? 

And so, suddenly, you find yourself on your favourite social media platform, scrolling, and looking at your Harry Potter stars “Where are they now?” Or the 25 best, you know, comedians. Or whatever your particular poison the algorithm serves you. That's where you find yourself. Or, another favourite is tidying, shifting stuff from room to room, because when we feel so overwhelmed at work, we have this dopamine need in our brain to feel under control. 

So, if you can feel under control by cleaning the kitchen bench, and making it look perfect, then for some reason that's going to make your brain feel better.  But, all procrastination is fear. When you are stuck in procrastination, it is like having holes in your bucket. You can talk about being more efficient, you can talk about trying to make more time, you can talk about your productivity, but if your bucket of work and what you produce is full of holes, which is what is happening to so many women then it is this constant battle that you cannot win. 

So working hard isn't going to work, and because it's only going to come at an increasingly unsustainable personal cost to you. So what you need to learn to do is as the workload increases and the resources decrease. So you need to learn to manage the fear that has got you sucked in procrastination cycles.  And we often talk about procrastination and perfectionism always going together. 

So, the more your perfectionist is raging, the more you will procrastinate. It can feel like “overwhelm”, it can feel like “paralysis”. You take longer to make decisions, because then you don't feel like you have all the information, and then you're terrified of making a mistake. So you need to wait and procrastinate, until you have all the information, but then you can't make a mistake. So you better think of scenarios A to K, in case you've made a mistake, or you've gone wrong. And then we just go round, and round, in circles. 

So these are huge energy leaks, and it stops you really stepping up into the work that matters. So, those who are going to thrive in 2025, are the ones who can stop the procrastination, stop the energy leaks, and actually focus on what really matters. This is how you are going to turn up the dial, this is how you're going to turn up the dial, this is how you're going to get promoted. This is how you are going to have energy left to look after yourself, to take care of your health, to look after your family. 

So, if you are not actively managing your procrastination and it can look different for everybody, what you will find is, as you evolve in the workplace, your procrastination tactics get a little more sneaky. They might not be the obvious scrolling on social media, but it might be continually coming back to your inbox, or continually checking your team's notifications. 

These are all procrastination strategies, where your brain is hijacking you on a dopamine search. So, until you understand what's really going on here, then you are going to continue to lean into these outdated patterns of working harder, and pushing harder, that aren't going to serve you. Now, lastly, let's talk about this hidden, let's call it “workplace trend” that not many people know about. And you may have heard of it before, but I don't think you realise just how critical to your career success this is going to be. 

So, we all know that the world is changing faster than ever, right? That's not new. We have had to just appreciate and accept that it's moving fast. What comes with that speed, is the need to continuously upskill and reskill. Now, how most women go with the upskilling, is they think, “Right, I need to do an MBA”, “I need to get some more letters after my name”, “I don't want to do a PhD, that's fast!” “It's only going to take me, what?” “Four years?” And cost me how many hundreds, of thousands, of dollars?” 

I'm not saying anyone who does a PhD is “silly”. I'm saying, if you feel like you need to upskill, what you need to do is to relook at the prioritisation you put on upskilling, and you need to look at how you do it. Upskilling is now about micro-dosing and micro-learning. It is not about a three-year degree, because literally three months into that degree, the thing that you're learning about has completely shifted. And, in many cases, it depends on what you're upskilling on that. 

Those in the university system have often got PhDs in order to get there, and so, yes, you can get some amazing professors. But, usually those who are on the tools, are at the forefront of the change. So going and studying theory, depending on what you're upskilling on, may not be the best bet for you right now. But it may be where, historically, you felt comfortable. So, again, the opportunity to look at all this. 

Okay, “What is the key challenge?” There are so many women in an era of perfectionistic tendencies, in an era of a lot of procrastination, and having to do more with less. When you are a people pleaser, and you don't know how to “boundary your time” with discipline, making the time for self-development, and upskilling, will never happen. Nod your head if you've said, “When I'm through this project, then I must read that article.” “I know I'll get work to pay to put me on a course in the third quarter, because that conference looks good!” 

Now, I'm not saying, “Don't go to the conference.” What I'm saying is, “What are you doing to hold boundaries for yourself, every single week?” “To put your own personal, and professional development, number one on your list?” Because, I can promise you, only those women who are micro-dosing, micro-learning, bite size, continually holding boundaries, for that to happen, are the ones who are going to get ahead. 

Because in this environment of rapid change, not only do you need to know about your profession, or industry, or specialization, but many people now need to know about AI. You might need to know about tech. You might be asked to know about sales, or product, or operations, or efficiency, or risk. And so, the breadth of what we're expected to know has increased exponentially, and this often can, with a lot of people's roles, remits expanding too. You know departments being merged together. 

Now suddenly you're managing people that you've never worked with, or never understood. I remember when I, for lack of a better word, ended up managing IT. I'm like, “I never managed IT!” “I'm a marketer, okay?” “So I have to upskill myself really quickly”. And part of when you're a people pleaser, and you say “yes” to everything, and you can't hold boundaries, you will never make the time for this. You will prioritize everybody else's needs, you will prioritize your team's training, and you'll always put it off.

So, the other piece to this, is women are not only, as people pleasers, not able to hold the boundaries to upskill themselves. But, they are also outsourcing the creation and “holding of those boundaries” to work. “Work should pay for my development.” “Work should make the time for me to learn.” “Well, I've got too much to do.” “I can't possibly have the time to do X, Y, Z, I've got too many deliverables.” Of course you do! You're having to do more with less!

This is where you've got to stop the procrastination, you've got to stop the perfectionism, to increase how much you can actually do, to increase your prioritization of what matters, and you have to put this ability to learn, micro-dosing, continuing your own education, as a number one priority. 

Again. I'm going to say this again. Do not outsource your development to anybody else. Nobody else cares about your career as much as you do. You need to be the CEO of your own life. Do not wait for somebody else to pay for your own education, because these days, that's not coming as often. So, you then wait. “Oh, I'll wait until next year.” “Oh, I'll wait.” 

Yeah, but what happens in the meantime? What happens to your skill set? How far behind do you fall? How much joy do you lose, when you've said, “Oh, I don't matter.” “I'll wait until somebody else decides that I matter.” You've completely given away your power! And that is a big trend, and tendency, of people pleasers. So, there you have it, these three key trends, and you can see how there is this beautiful alignment between the three key trends we're seeing in the workplace, and the self-sabotage programs, that are holding women back. 

So, I'll be going into a lot more detail into all of these in “Future Ready You”. I want women to be empowered, and to understand, not just the trends. I'm not here to wax lyrical about AI, and pretend I'm an expert on the topic. But, I'm an expert on women learning to be human. And, I can tell you that those two things do not align. 

So, I strongly encourage you to come along. I mentioned the link is in the show notes. You can visit balanceinstitute.com/careerblueprint. I'll be going into a lot more detail about each of these trends and, most importantly, giving you tools to tame your perfectionist in an era of AI, to stop your procrastinating, so that you can ensure you're able to do more with less. 

There's a lot going on. The world is changing really quickly, and I will not hesitate, if we need to, to do another episode on how these shifts are changing, how they're impacting women. But, I want you to be ready for the future, I really want you to thrive in 2025. So, take heed of these trends, take note of your self-sabotage programs, and let's make sure 2025 is your best year yet.

OUTRO: Thank you for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world. If you’re keen to dive deeper into our world, visit us at www.balanceinstitute.com to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance, and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast.