The age of burnout

“Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.” – Michael Gungor

Welcome to the age of burnout

Isn’t it funny that in the age of AI we totally forgot how to be human? Let’s go back to the basics and lets look at the pyramid of the human needs. If work is everything, we start to compromise even the most basic needs. Burnout is a way of your body to tell you to stop and to callibrate yourself before it’s too late.

What is burnout?

Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships. From Psychology today

Why so many of us and at such young ages are getting burnt out?

1 – Social media and the age of “you can have it all”.

Spoiler alert: no you can’t! We all have 24h and as per the basic pyramid of needs, we need rest. The brain doesn’t function properly without proper rest. If you go to bed thinking about work and the kids and all the things you haven’t done, you are not allowing yourself to decompress and actually rest.

We see all this self-made millionaires in silicon valley who advocate just a few hours sleep if you want to be successful. Well, what does success mean to you? If it’s burn out, you are on the right path.

2 – High expectations

Expectations have never been higher than before, not just those from society on you, but those you hold on yourself (oh boy, am I guilty of this one!). You have to be the acing your career, you have to be the best husband / wife, the best parent and attend everything your kids do at school and volunteer at school and in your local community and and and.

I remember my parents going to work and never bringing any work home. They did what was in the contract, no more, no less. Then we were told if you go to university you will get a good job and feel something you feel proud of. We mold our identity on the job title we have. Our ego’s feel amazing about it. You continuously compare yourself to others and your expectations keep on going higher and higher.

3 – The biggest lie of the century: multi-tasking

We have devices all over, 24/7 notifications demanding our attention, at the same time as emails keep on coming at the speed of light, and meetings because we have teams around the globe, and the kids can’t open the cooking jar and your other half doesn’t know where the car keys are. Our brains are not geared for this. If you keep on jumping from one task to the next and back again you are just burning yourself. There is nothing more restorative than a few hours of mindful focus. Focus on 1 thing and get it done. Is this how we function? Hell no.

I could add so many other reasons, so many in fact I could write a whole book about it.

What can we do about it?

Spoiler: The below lines are just a bunch of common sense but I still feel like adding them to remind ourselves.

Just say no

Practice with me: No. Not maybe, No. If your kid wants the 10th chocolate what do you say? No. That’s the no I’m after. No

Say no to everything which is not priority for you. Say no to your boss, say no to your colleagues, say no to your partners, say no to your kids. Prioritize where you say yes. And the first yes you need to use is for yourself. Yes am I going to take care of myself. Yes my rest is priority and I’m going to drop everything else during this slot which is not rest. (I wrote quite a lot about this in the “frog & the pan“)

Let the small fires burn, someone else can deal with them or they will burn and not need any action on them. You might even be more respected for having said No.

If you burn out there is no going back to your old self. What will you get from work? A pat in your back? They will move on without you, but you ruined your life. These days there are some leaders who really believe that the work you do is the reward you seek, that you feel fulfilled in doing what you do. And a lot of us might actually believe it! Remember this, if you get seriously ill there will be no going back.

Find ways to decompress

We are not made to be sitting with our butts for 12h in a row. We need to keep active and in contact with nature. So get out there and go for a quick walk in your local park. Join a class, whatever rocks your boat and works for you! There is a point where the brain is not productive anymore, so you will just be spending more hours to do something you could do in less than 1h if you had a well-rested mind. Stress is also a killer of creativity, which all companies need anyway (I wrote about it here). Find a slot that works for you and use it to restore some energy back in your brain. Book a meeting with yourself and do what you need to do.

Connect with others

We evolved close to others, it’s core to our survival throughout history. So you need to prioritize meaningful connections, either with your family, your friends, or those that you relate to (e.g. common interests). Talk with someone on how you feel, this might help you gain the clarity of mind to understand how deep in a hole you actually are (others might see it more clearly than ourselves).

Be the example you seek

Well someone has to stop it, especially if you have at least 1 person you are responsible for in your job, be the example. Lead with empathy, encourage others to turn off and unplug when they need to unplug and have their back. Wouldn’t it be amazing if at least every 1 person looked after just another person in the company?

Further reading:

Burnout

https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/mental-health-issues/stress/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/08/a-career-change-saved-my-life-the-people-who-built-better-lives-after-burnout

And before I end, a great video that sums it all.

Keep the Monkey in control

Let’s make it clear, not insulting anyone here for as tempting as it might be sometimes.

I’m talking about the Budhist term “Monkey Mind”. From wikipedia below:

The psychological components of the “mind-monkey will-horse” metaphor are Chinese xin or Sino-Japanese shin or kokoro 心 “heart; mind; feelings, affections; center” and yi or i 意 ‘thought, idea; opinion, sentiment; will, wish; meaning’. This Chinese character 心 was graphically simplified from an original pictogram of a heart, and 意 “thought; think” is an ideogram combining 心 under yin 音 “sound; tone; voice” denoting “sound in the mind; thought; idea”.

A lot of self-help books will at some point talk about the monkey mind. But why does it matter in the office context? Well quite a lot.

Do you find yourself really anxious and overhelmed? I can tell you that I do more often than I dare to admit. And it all comes down to my monkey mind entering a kind of panic mode – and releasing a ton of adrenaline that no caffeine can fix – into my brain.

The Monkey mind is no different that a badly organized meeting where everyone is talking on top of each other and you can’t make sense of what’s going on, but in this case the “people” represent your thoughts and your worries. When this happens you will feel umbalanced and even more stressed which in turn is like feeding your monkey bananas, it will crave for more and more and go even more wrestless.

When the monkey mind is out there loose you can find yourself doing things you might regret or even have no recollection of having lost control. It won’t do you no good really and you might end up in burn out.

So how do you control it? Let’s face it, we all worry, we can’t make worry go away, it’s here to stay. Worry can come from the most smallest thoughts like do I even fit in my office clothing? Am I forgetting anything from my to do list? All adds up. So while we can’t get rid of all anxiety, we can for sure find ways to deal with it so your head feels more relaxed.

Some things that work for me – and as you can tell I’m no expert and there are tons of books out there that can explain this better than me (some are utter bananas…. you take your pick).

Breathing

Sometimes it can be irritating when someone mentions breathing as you will involutarily focus on your breathing when we do it unconsciously. But it does help. In the past I’ve managed to hide myself in the bathroom to block my mind from all the noise (both outside and in my head) and just focus on some breathing. There are tons of techniques out there but I use the one a clever midwife told me to when I was having a panick attack. It goes like this: you do a long breath during 6 seconds, you hold it for 6 seconds and then you exhale for 6 seconds as deep as you can go. You can go on as long as you need to.

My daughter also has a meditation about feeling frustrated which is about imaging a birthday cake and blowing out some candles. I would recommend you doing this away from everyone as people might freak out if you blow next to them.

Exercise

Any form of exercise will do. I’m not talking about hitting the gymn necessarily – although this can do wonder for a lot of people – but can even be as simple as move away from the computer and go away for a walk outside until you feel better. If you have to leave a meeting before you were meant to, then leave. Just go for a walk until your mind feels clearer. Walking for me walks quite well if I’m really irritated. If you prefer a run then go for a run. Keep on going until you feel you are back in control.

Chores

Oh yeah, it works for me at least. If you are home and need to do some laundry or wash the dishes, then do it. It does wonders when you have to focus your brain on a physical activity. Bonus tip you get the chores done so less to do at the end of the day.

Do something you enjoy

Could be anything from singing or dancing to your favourite sing, play with the kids for a bit, chasing the cat, doing a puzzle. Whatever rocks your boat and might calm you down.

Focus on what you can control and do 1 task at a time

Once you have done 1 or more of the tips above, the next step is focus on what you can control. If you can’t control it, let it go. Let it be someone elses problem and focus on what you can control right now. Focusing on a smaller task you can achieve will give you back a sense of control. If this means you need to avoid a few meetings by all means just do. When I finally have the chance to start and finish a task I feel a lot better.

At the end of the day you need to find what works for you. No matter how many magic numbers are mentioned out there, you need to find your 42.