The Lulu Essey Podcast
Welcome to The Lulu Essey Podcast — a raw, unedited space for honest conversations about building a life that feels deeply aligned with who you truly are.
Here we explore the full spectrum of well-being: mental fitness, emotional resilience, authentic confidence, and the courage to create a life on your own terms. Through lived experience and evidence-informed approaches, you'll discover that transformation is truly an inside job.
Each episode offers practical tools and tiny, consistent steps for navigating anxiety, uncertainty, and life's challenges. You'll learn how to build confidence from within, find calm in chaos, and deepen connection with yourself and others — one small, powerful action at a time.
Come as you are — no judgment, no quick fixes. Because creating a meaningful life isn't about perfection; it's about progress with self-compassion, acceptance, and the willingness to embrace both light and shadow on your journey.
The Lulu Essey Podcast
The Productivity Police: Breaking Free from To-Do List Tyranny
If your to-do list is running your life instead of serving it, this is your purposeful rebellion. Lulu shows how productivity culture becomes identity, why the “productivity guilt spiral” isn’t laziness but being human, and how to shift from productive to purposeful. You’ll get Permission to Pause, the 60-Second Mental Fitness Check, and the Good Enough Revolution (80% > “perfect”) so you can untie your worth from your output and finally work with your energy instead of against it.
What you’ll discover
- Why productivity as identity backfires and how it disconnects you from inner wisdom
- The Productivity Guilt Spiral is not laziness; it’s just being human in a world equating worth with output
- Permission to Pause: rest is a basic human need that makes you more effective
- Productive vs. Purposeful — the question that changes your day: “What matters to YOU today and aligns with your values?”
- The 60-Second Mental Fitness Check: pause, breathe, and ask, “What would love do right now?”
- The Good Enough Revolution: choosing 80% to escape perfectionism
Powerful quotes
- "Your worth isn't measured by your to-do list. You are valuable because you exist, not because of what you accomplish."
- "Rest is not earned through productivity… It's a basic, vital, life-giving human need."
- "Being busy is not the same as being productive. And being productive isn't the same as being purposeful."
- "Good enough can be revolutionary."
- "You have Permission to Pause…"
Timestamps
00:00 – Check-in & breathe
01:46 – Confession: teaching what I need to learn
04:14 – When productivity becomes identity
05:28 – The Sunday-night freak-out
06:44 – Worth tied to output
08:55 – Jung on boredom & serenity
10:21 – The Good Enough Revolution (80% > “perfect”)
12:55 – The cost of filling every moment
13:44 – Permission to Pause
15:13 – Productive vs. Purposeful
16:58 – 60-Second Mental Fitness Check
19:14 – Gentle experiment: try 80%
19:59 – Self-worth reset
20:38 – Share this as a rebellion
21:44 – Next week’s preview
Join the conversation:
Share this with 3 people who need the reminder that worth isn’t tied to productivity. Where could you choose purposeful over productive today?
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Remember:
You teach best what you most need to learn. Today, choose purpose over productivity.
This is an inside job. Share this episode with those you love. 💛
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Let's Connect:
https://www.luluessey.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@luluessey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.essey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/
Free Guide: Break Free from the Success Trap – https://www.luluessey.com/freetool
Thank you for being here. You are enough. ✨