Thriving in marketing: Holistic strategies for career growth in 2025

This year is sure to present its share of challenges. With rapid digital transformation, evolving tech, and a constantly shifting operating environment, professional pressures can soon mount up. As we stand at the threshold of a new professional year, it is crucial to develop a strategic approach, personal understanding and resilience to go from surviving to thriving in a highly rewarding profession.

The challenge of the profession

Recent research conducted by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) found that 56% of marketers worried about experiencing burnout in their current role and unfortunately, this doesn’t come as a total surprise. Working towards a launch, coupling long-term strategy with in-year execution, increased accountability, and pressure to deliver the commercial number are just a few examples of the tasks assigned to marketers that can be a source of stress. Add to this the need to learn new approaches and keep up to date with technological advances to stay current and the frequent changes in ownership and leadership taking place and you begin to see how many plates marketers need to keep spinning.

In addition to all this, how marketing teams plan and execute is evolving too. There is a shift from a planned calendar of activities and anticipated seasonal peaks to a more responsive approach to consumer demands and changes. The ‘always on’ way in which we activate in market provides less clarity on when there will be demand peaks and lessens our ability to plan and resource accordingly, adding to marketers list of worries.

But what truly is burnout?

True burnout results in chronic exhaustion, resulting in you being unable to get out of bed. It is when your body says no, because you haven’t. When it does occur it can take weeks, if not months, to truly recover from. Having personally experienced this, it is not something I would wish anyone to experience and its one of the reasons I’m so passionate about increasing awareness of burnout and proactive in addressing its prevention.

From the work I have done to help, I have found that burnout is more likely to occur when we are experiencing periods of prolonged stress, whether professional or personal. This coupled with a driver within us to be perfect, is what ultimately leads to true burnout. Personal understanding of our individual needs and drivers is essential for us to effectively manage our stress and well-being.

What do these findings mean for the marketing industry and those seeking fulfilling careers within it?

It means we need to be proactive in looking after our wellbeing and developing our personal understanding. This in turn allows us to build our personal awareness, increasing our understanding of what we need to have (the mental, emotional and physical energy) for not only our roles, but our life as a whole. We then need to use this personal understanding to define, prioritise and set much needed boundaries around what we personally, need to protect these.

It also means that we have to be proactive in managing what we take on. Managing what is in our control, managing our workload, our commitments and whatever else we can. It’s inevitable in life that we will also have many things outside our control to deal with that are stress inducing. We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.

Do we need to build resilience into our teams or are we simply putting too much pressure on individuals?

Resilience is essential for success in marketing. It's the ability to handle setbacks, which as we all know, are an inevitable part of life. Proactively setting boundaries can help you build and maintain adequate levels of resilience, bolstering your ability to manage stressful situations or tasks. After all, we can't pour from an empty cup.

We are putting too much pressure on individuals. We are also not saying enough or providing the necessary clarity to prioritise our workloads. It is essential that we ensure, for ourselves and for the marketers in our care, we have manageable workloads which can be achieved through providing clarity, focus and clear prioritisation.

You can also support yourselves and others to develop their personal understanding and awareness of self - to define what drives them and what they need to have in place to ensure they are feeling balanced and looking after themselves, especially in times of prolonged stress.

Finally, build awareness of the signs of burnout and provide opportunities for psychologically safe conversations of these signs and how you can work together to address them.

• Do you know what your drivers are?
• Do you know what you need to do weekly to ensure your physical, mental, and emotional well-being?
• Are you prioritising time to do these things? The things that fill up your cup?
• Are you experiencing a stressful work or life event or both?
• What do you need to prioritise and say no to during this time?
• What are your signs that you aren't quite yourself and you may be heading to burnout?

If we want to reverse the rise of burnout in our profession, we need to be proactive in noticing the signs and taking action to stop it happening. Our profession will always be challenging and ever changing, but by looking after what we need to we can help ensure we have the energy and resilience so we can move from surviving, to thriving.

Want to start 2025 of, right? Join Abigail Dixon's upcoming webinar designed specifically for marketers seeking growth and career fulfilment. Dive into strategies that encompass not just professional skills, but also personal development and well-being.

Sign up to our member-exclusive webinar here