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There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly second-guessing yourself. From rehearsing over and over what you’ll say before meetings. From constantly comparing yourself to colleagues who seem to have it all figured out. From working incredibly hard 24/7, whilst simultaneously feeling like you’re somehow not doing enough.
The latest Marketing Week 2026 Career & Salary Survey data reveals why this feels so relentless. Some 84.9% of marketers say they experience imposter syndrome (up from 80% the previous year). By itself this is snapshot data, of course, but it also reveals a consistent pattern.
There are some other interesting findings:
- 65.3% feel overwhelmed
- 55.1% report emotional exhaustion
- 53.4% have lost enjoyment in work that used to engage them
- 47.7% feel a sense of ineffectiveness
- 50% say their feelings of imposter syndrome have intensified over the past year
In my opinion, this isn’t a random collection of separate problems, it’s more like a cascade. This is what happens when resilience reserves run dry.
One survey respondent captured it perfectly when asked why they felt like they couldn’t tell a manager or the wider business how they are feeling: “It will reflect like I cannot cope even though I’m incredibly conscientious, diligent and committed.”
Does that feel familiar?
They are coping. They are conscientious, diligent and committed. But they’re worried about how any mention of being overwhelmed or exhausted might be perceived. They are doing a good job whilst running on empty. When your resilience reserves are depleted, the imposter gremlin gains momentum.
In my previous articles on imposter syndrome, I’ve written about why that is the case. Imposter syndrome is fundamentally about identity, not capability. It’s not about what you can do, but about who you believe you are.
But there’s another layer I’ve come to understand through my resilience research and writing my book on positive resilience. When your reserves are depleted, no amount of confidence-building touches the real problem. It’s like trying to fill a car with premium petrol when the engine is broken. The fuel is fine. The problem is elsewhere.
Each qualification you pursue becomes another item on your already full to-do list. Leadership books become another standard you’re not meeting. Each “should” ends up depleting you further. You’re not building confidence. You’re using up the last of your resilience reserves trying to perform confidence. And performance is exhausting.
The Career & Salary Survey respondents named it clearly:
“You don’t want to look weak or not in control.”
“Need to be seen as strong especially as a menopausal older female.”
“The pressure to always perform and not show how you’re feeling out of fear it could hinder progression.”
This isn’t just individual experience. It’s the environment people are working in.
Radiators vs drains
Perhaps the most damning statistic from the survey is that 42.5% of marketers don’t feel they can tell their manager or the wider business how they’re feeling. The free text responses reveal why:
“They’re not interested, it would jeopardise my position. I don’t want to risk redundancy.”
“I don’t feel that it would be actioned in any way and the predominant approach is ‘OK I hear you’ and then stick their head back in the sand. They don’t know how to manage from a people side.”
“My manager recently pulled me up for not being on my A game a few days after my father’s funeral.”
“Feel like I should be grateful in role or would be deemed as complaining”
“Someone is always waiting to take over.”
That last one really got me thinking, because it highlights a competitive landscape where honesty is seen as weakness and vulnerability is not supported.
You’re not building confidence. You’re using up the last of your resilience reserves trying to perform confidence. And performance is exhausting.
When an environment is like this, I don’t think we can sit around hoping for something to happen or waiting for the culture or people to change. We need skills we can develop regardless of whether our workplaces support resilience building or not.
Resilience can be learned, practised and strengthened. However, we’ve been conditioned to think about it the wrong way. We wait for things to go wrong, then hope we’re resilient enough to cope. That’s backwards.
My approach is that we build resilience when times are good, proactively rather than reactively. But there are things everyone can do right now – whether feeling depleted or not – that will help.
You can’t effectively build resilience whilst you’re desperately needing it, but you can start making small shifts that begin to rebuild reserves even when running on empty. This is why I emphasise positive resilience in my book, building strength in ways that energise rather than deplete.
Through my research, I’ve identified two key things we can all do very easily to help build resilience as a skill:
1. Energy pattern recognition
The foundation is learning what energises you, versus what depletes you. Not what you think should energise you, but your actual energy patterns.
I use the concept of radiators and drains. Radiators energise and uplift you. After spending time with them you feel more capable, more yourself. Drains are the opposite. After interacting with them you feel exhausted, depleted, questioning yourself. It doesn’t just have to be people. It can be processes, environments, types of work. Anything really.
Start with observation. After each meeting, task, or interaction, pause and ask yourself: Do I feel more energised or more depleted right now? Don’t judge it. Just notice and write it down. At the end of a week, look at your notes. Which three people, tasks, or situations consistently energise you? Which three consistently drain you?
Then make one deliberate change. Spend 30 minutes with one radiator this week. Not networking. Genuine time with someone who energises you. Or if it’s a task, deliberately schedule time for work that replenishes you. This is active resilience building.
You can’t always get rid of drains entirely. Sometimes they’re unavoidable parts of your role or people you have to work with. But when you know what they are, you can balance them with radiators. You can be deliberate about recharging after draining interactions.
2. Strength identification
We all have skills and qualifications we write on our CV, but I want you to find what makes you feel more like yourself when you’re doing it. The thing that energises rather than depletes you.
When I ask people about their strengths, people either look awkward because it’s much easier to focus on our weaknesses, or it’s like being surrounded by parrots. Everyone squawking the same rehearsed phrases.
“I’m a team player.”
“I’m detail-oriented.”
“I work well under pressure.”
These generic responses don’t reveal genuine strengths and it feeds into the idea of performative confidence and needing to be seen to be strong.
When you really understand your strengths and can talk about them from a place of self-awareness and true understanding, you build self-belief.
Understanding your strengths isn’t about memorising impressive-sounding lists. It’s one thing to say: “I’m a good communicator.”
It’s another to say: “I’m an excellent communicator and I specialise in making complex ideas simple. I love seeing the lightbulb go on in someone’s mind, because I’ve helped them understand something.”
The second version is real. When you really understand your strengths and can talk about them from a place of self-awareness, and true understanding, you build self-belief. That self-belief fuels confidence and both feed into resilience.
Notice three moments where work felt effortless. Not because it was easy, but because you were using skills that come naturally to you. What specifically were you doing? What made it feel effortless?
It could be things like explaining complex ideas to stakeholders, spotting patterns in data, bringing people together around a shared goal.
Once you’ve identified these strengths, ask yourself if you are using them regularly or spending more time on things that deplete you. If it’s the latter, identify one small way to use one of these strengths more often.
Marketers, we’ve got resilience all wrong
This is the shift from reactive coping to proactive strength building. Traditional resilience thinking waits for crisis, then hopes you can cope. Resilience as a skill means building capacity all the time.
This doesn’t have to be ground-breaking. It’s bringing self-awareness and balance. Identify one specific thing that genuinely replenishes your reserves. Not exercise because you think you should. Something that actually gives you energy.
Maybe it’s 15 minutes reading. Maybe it’s a walk at lunch. Maybe it’s calling a friend who makes you laugh. The test is simple: Do you feel more energised after doing it? Then commit to doing it more often. Not when you’re depleted and desperate. Before you need it.
When 84.9% of a profession experiences imposter syndrome, whilst working in environments where 42.5% don’t feel safe being honest about how they’re feeling, I see systematic depletion being treated as personal failure. I don’t think people are broken and need fixing. I think they need support.
I can’t fix the systems and cultures that create this environment (although I’ll be sharing thoughts on that in future articles), but I can help people wrestle back a little bit of control. By noticing energy patterns and identifying genuine strengths, you can understand what’s happening and make small, deliberate choices that start to shift the balance in your favour.
Laura Chamberlain is an award-winning professor at Warwick Business School, a marketer, career strategist and coach. She is also founder of self-development consultancy Think Talk Thrive.
