Burnout & Human Design: How Alignment Transformed My Leadership
- Lindsey Hilliard
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
TL;DR
For most of my life, I mistook burnout for excellence. I pushed harder, achieved more, and overrode my nervous system in workplaces that rewarded overgiving. It wasn’t until everything collapsed — emotionally, physically, and energetically — that I realised burnout wasn’t the problem. Misalignment was.
The real turning point came when I discovered Human Design. Understanding my energy, my leadership style, and how I’m naturally built to work gave me the permission I had been missing for years.
Shifting into alignment changed everything: my career, my wellbeing, my leadership, and my business. Today, through Fresh Collective, The Natural Leader Book, The Natural Leader Model, The Natural Leader Hub and EMBODY, I lead from intuition, integrity, and energy — not pressure.
If you’re caught in the burnout cycle, the key isn’t working less. It’s working from who you actually are.
For most of my life, I didn’t call it burnout. I called it being excellent.
I called it drive. Ambition. Capability. Leadership.
If you had asked anyone around me, they would have said I was thriving. And by all external measures, I was.
At twenty-two, I joined Victoria police and moved fast. Detective quickly. A Taskforce even quicker. Before long, I was investigating the murder of one of Melbourne’s most notorious gangland figures — Carl Williams — a role detectives dream about.
It was high-stakes, high-adrenaline, high-everything. And I rose to it, because that’s what “excellent” people do.
Then came motherhood — and with it, a whole new set of expectations.
Part-time hours? I would deliver full-time results.
Male-dominated environment? I'll be twice as capable.
Resistance? I'll simply overcompensate.
I worked harder than anyone asked me to, and harder than anyone should.
But life doesn’t care how strong you are on paper.
Two pregnancies. A partner spiralling into depression after losing a job. Financial strain. Two tiny humans who needed me. And a nervous system carrying a lifetime’s worth of pressure, trauma, grief, and fear.
I didn’t fall apart when things were hard. I fell apart when they softened.
When my husband found a new job — when the pressure finally lifted — I collapsed. Completely.
I wasn’t fragile, but I was depleted.
I wasn’t weak, but I was empty.
I wasn’t incapable, but I was numb.
Medication didn’t “fix” me (as much as doctors might like to think it does), but it gave me enough clarity to see that pretending I was fine was the very thing that was breaking me. And once that illusion cracked, everything else followed.
I realised I couldn’t go back to policing. That chapter was done. Anything after what I had already achieved would feel less than — and for the first time, I gave myself permission to listen to that truth.
So I pivoted. And when that role burned me out, I pivoted again. And then again.
Private sector leadership, government investigations, senior leadership, project work...
And then came the moment — the one that woke me up.
I stepped into an executive role with a workplace culture so saturated with masculine energy that softness didn’t stand a chance. It was strategy over humanity. Performance over people. Posturing over presence.
I lasted five months before my system screamed “NO” so loudly that I couldn’t pretend anymore.
The relief of not getting the permanent role told me everything.
I wasn’t meant to be there. And for the first time, I didn’t override that knowing.
The Pivot: Human Design Set Me Free
Here’s the part that very few talk about:
You don’t break the burnout cycle by resting. You break it by realigning.
And I didn’t learn that through therapy or leadership courses —I learned it through my Human Design.
Human Design gave me permission to stop living the version of myself I thought I should embody and align with the one I was actually born for.
Human Design literally saved me from another burnout.
It showed me:
that my energy is cyclical, not linear
that I thrive in experimentation, not rigid pathways
that my creativity is not a hobby — it’s actually my power
that I’m here to lead uniquely, not uniformly
that my authority (my gut) knows the way long before my mind does
that burnout wasn’t a flaw in me — it was a symptom of misalignment
And when I started honouring my design instead of fighting it…everything completely shifted.
This year alone, I’ve built Fresh Collective, created The Natural Leader Model, wrote and published The Natural Leader book and birthed EMBODY — multiple offerings rooted in the wisdom I learned the hard way.
But the shift wasn’t just in my business.
I still have my corporate role and it happened there too.
The Role That Doesn’t Look “Fancy”… But Feels Like Freedom
This year, I actually manifested for myself a role inside my organisation that, on the surface, doesn’t look as glamorous as leading an investigations team which is what I'm well known and respected for.
Instead it’s a role centred around:
building systems
refining processes
creating efficiencies
solving problems
improving operations
pivoting from project to project
developing structure
designing solutions
To the outside world, it might look like a “step sideways” or even backwards in some respects.
But to my energy? It is a perfect match.
It aligns beautifully with my human design:
my 1/3 profile (experiment → refine → rebuild → teach)
my individual circuitry (innovation, creativity, empowerment)
my integration circuitry (self-sufficiency, internal authority)
my defined sacral (respond → build → iterate)
my natural gifts in strategy, structure, and systems
ebbing and flowing, instead of trying to be "on" all the time.
It feels like breathing space. Like flow. Like freedom (which unsurprisingly is part of my life theme!)
And I am more productive, more impactful, and more in my power in this “less glamorous” role than I ever was in the ones that looked impressive on paper.
Even better? I don’t need this role forever. But it's right for me right now. And right now, it supports me beautifully.
That’s what alignment feels like.
The Lesson I Learned the Hard Way
It wasn’t burnout that broke me. It was the belief that I had to ignore my own intuition to succeed.
The moment I started honouring my energy — truly honouring it — my entire life recalibrated.
My work. My leadership. My creativity. My health. My nervous system. My sense of purpose.
Everything.
Burnout wasn’t a sign that I was weak. It was a sign I was off-path.
Alignment was the doorway.
And Human Design handed me the key.
If you’re curious what your design says about your energy, your leadership, and the way you’re naturally built to succeed, you can download your free chart below. It’s the first step to understanding the blueprint that’s already inside you.
And if you want to go deeper — if you want to really unpack your chart, your leadership style, and how to lead in a way that feels intuitive, embodied, and true — I’d love to welcome you inside The Natural Leader Hub, where we explore this work together in a completely new way.
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