Watch sophie’s wedding cake exercise:

Why this matters → (30 sec read)

In Sophie’s wedding cake exercise, most people discover the same thing:

Their energy for work, family, and others sits on top — while their energy for themselves is a thin, unstable base.

That’s not a personal failure. It’s incredibly common.

Burnout happens when too much is stacked on top of too little support underneath.

If your cake feels wobbly, it’s not because you’re weak, it’s because it was never designed to hold that much weight.

For leaders → (30 sec read)

The wedding cake exercise explains something many organisations struggle to see.

When people are giving most of their energy externally — without a stable base — performance may hold for a while. But it’s being propped up by unsustainable effort.

High output doesn’t always mean high capacity.
It often means people are compensating.

Burnout is what happens when that compensation runs out.

why we love sophie’s wedding-cake-take on wellbeing

The power of the wedding cake exercise is that it removes both fluff - and moral judgement.

People don’t look at their cake and think “I’m bad at wellbeing” or “wellbeing is wishy-washy”

They think “Oh. This actually makes sense now.” and “Oh heck, my cake isn’t structurally sound.”

And that’s the shift.

Wellbeing stops being about adding things (like yoga and kale) to an already overloaded to do list.

And starts becoming an obvious and logical step in making your energy sustainable (protecting yourself against burnout in the process).

If you sketched your wedding cake today:

What’s stacked on top?
What’s holding it up?
What’s missing entirely?

🔔 Tomorrow on The Work Edit:

Sophie’s exercise on how to fill that bottom tier!

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Blue Monday: Keep Calm-ish and Carry On

Monday 19 January 2026
12:00 13:00
Book Your Place

Beat the Blue Monday slump with a practical, uplifting session focused on building real resilience and confidence for the year ahead.

Join wellbeing specialist Sophie Coulthard for an energising virtual workshop packed with simple strategies to help you reset, refocus, and feel more in control. You’ll explore how to manage pressure, shift unhelpful thinking, and support your own wellbeing, as well as those around you.

Whether you're already flagging in the new year or just want to start 2026 feeling steady and strong, this session is a great way to press pause and build momentum.