What is Burnout?

My Burnout: It was now past midnight and I was just closing my laptop although my to do list still ran a mile long. As a snuck into bed my mind was still racing, pretty soon my heart started pounding hard, it felt like a lump in my throat, I was sweating and felt as if I couldn’t breath. Instinctively I went the bathroom and splashed ice cold water on my face. My body was shouting at me to STOP.

Over the years we’ve noticed an increase attention on mental health. Yet for me it still felt like it came with the stigma of weakness. What I didn’t appreciate is that burnout is real and can affect anyone, and can manifest itself physically in the body. In fact studies have now shown how prolonged stress can cause chronic disease.

Burnout is when the pressure upon you becomes so overbearing it manifests in a physical and mental breakdown of functioning. Affecting performance negatively and becoming unsustainable.

Where does it come from?

With the fast pace of change, post pandemic life. Including the threat of economic downturn and AI you can see why cases are on the rise and now affecting even the most successful.

This pressure can be sourced externally, such as the high pace of change, competition, relationships and economics. But can also be self inflicted. As a high achiever it’s often the expectations we place on ourselves or perceived expectations of others, that create the imploding feeling of burnout.

The good news is that you can get back in control and return to optimal levels of stress. I say optimal because too little stress and there is no drive to progress and meet your goals. Too much and we tip the scales the other way.

The secret is to find a balance and keep yourself there.

5 Signs of Burnout

5 Signs of Burnout – plus one no-one has told you before!

1.Irritability, Anger, Frustration and lack of patience.

If you come home snapping at everyone, or find yourself with a shorter fuse than usual you may be experiencing signs of burnout.

2. Increased Anxiety

This can manifest itself in chest pains, tightness around the chest, stomach complaints such as IBS and an uncomfortable feeling around doing something that before we might have felt at ease with. People often complain of this in the morning or just before a big meeting.

3. Insomnia

This starts with feeling tired. Sometimes experiencing extreme exhaustion fatigue by mid day. Coupled with low energy and low mood. Motivation can start to wane. As it escalates you may wake in the night with hot sweats or experience nightmares. Then at it’s worst you may get insomnia, the inability to sleep, as your mind continues to catastrophise and play out then events of that day and every event after it.

Without adequate sleep your body cannot recover, you cannot make sound decisions as your pre frontal cortex that helps you make sound judgements becomes less effective without sleep. You get irritable and less focused and productive.

4. Constant Illness

If you are constantly getting a cold, feeling run down and trying to beat away coldsores these are just some of the illnesses you may get as a result of having too much stress. Some people also report bad skin, IBS flare ups and more aches & pains.

Studies have shown that stress hormone cortisol represses white blood cells and so high levels of stress affect your immunity. Recently they have conducted a study on PTSD patients and found even when vaccinated they experience low immunity due to the impact of stress hormones in the body.

If you are constantly getting unwell or don’t seem to be able to shift a cold then visit the section on How to Avoid Burnout.

5. Lack of Control

With burnout and excess stress you can feel like everything is in total chaos. It’s feels out of your control. You’re desperately clinging on with white knuckles. Fighting the feeling and determined to take back the reigns. It feels uncomfortable , you might be so used to having everything in order and working as you’d like. It can sometimes feel like everything is going wrong and compounding day after day.

The Bonus one…

6. You are stuck in your head…

No one ever talks about this – but this can feel like a total isolation – no man is an island but when you are heading for burnout you can feel cut off and stuck in your head. Going around in circles, feeling like you must do everything alone, resentful, playing victim and often feeling unsupported in your mission.

In your mind you may have many conversations at incredible speed. Catastrophising is a common theme. But it’s worth remembering that externally the rest of the world has no idea what is going on.

How to Avoid Burnout

The body will give you warning signs like those above and it is your role to remain self aware.

Step 1 – Self Awareness

The first step is in consciously noticing the signs and any changes in your feelings or habits like sleep.

When you spot the signs, the worst thing you can do is to carry on, powering through. Phrases such as ‘Man up’ or martyrdom behaviour do nothing to help the situation. Remember then you are no use to anyone if you are at burnout.

Step 2 Curate Your Executive Breathing Space

Nothing will change in the mind that created the problem, surrounded by the noise that demands your focus.

Your executive breathing space is an arena of allocated time where you take a digital, tasks and people detox. Studies have found the most effective ways to get back in touch with your higher self and retrieve a sense of calm and control include these tools:

• Somatic Breath work – long breaths out will clam your nervous system
• Meditation / Silence Practise
• Mindfulness
• Nature Walks
• Journalling – Free flow writing about the things you appreciate (a more in depth tool than gratitude lists)

Notice here I didn’t say bing on the Netflix series everyone is talking about and shutting yourself in doors.

Space, calm and clarity come from places that fill your energy cup. Natural endorphin pumping activities that allow you the breathing space to reconnect and regain control.

Step 3 – Unload Your Mental Clutter

Thinking about stressors in isolation might not be the best solution. In fact studies revealed that writing or talk about a problem or challenge is far more effective than thinking about it. Staying stuck in your head is a sure fire way to continue the cycle.

If you have a coach, a mentor, a therapist or simply want to journal it out, you will find this far more therapeutic and gain greater clarity and control.

Step 4 – Transform your life strategy

If you wait for a breakdown you’re likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In that moment I considered starting over and selling everything. Every extreme decision to escape the problem.

But you cannot escape yourself. And at some point this needs to become an opportunity to grow.

The opportunity for learning can be found in every experience.

The learning should be greater than the experience itself (Dan Sullivan)

This is an opportunity to define balance, meet your own needs, become mentally stronger and more emotionally intelligent in the course.

Transforming your Life Strategy is about:

Assessing your Personal Needs and then…

Designing a Life Strategy to meet those needs.

Perhaps you feel that you need more personal time, but that current work commitments don’t allow it.

A life strategy can involve:

Improving productivity by using Flow state so that work does not expand into your personal time.

Work will expand to fill the time we give it. [Parkinson’s Law]

Or Delegating a responsibility – but perhaps your team isn’t ready. So it’s about getting the right people, in the right roles and then trusting them with a clear vision to take the responsibility.

These can also be little things, such as introducing more sustainable positive lifestyle habits. Sleep routines, nutrition and exercise etc.

Often the first challenge is time. We have to carefully curate and identify the 80/20 (Pareto Principle) in our day. Always remembering that:

Efficiency is to do more, but effectiveness is to doing the right thing. [Peter Drucker]

Step 5 Optimise Your life for success/ performance

Optimising your life is about creating sustainable performance. You want to maintain an optimal stress level to enable you to continue to grow and manage the next big event.

We often talk about preparing your organisation for change, but forget that leaders at the forefront of the vision and decision making need the tools to prepare themselves.

In this step it’s critical to adopt healthy habits holistically. There is little point addressing a team structure, if you don’t optimise your own health, your relationships, connect with your purpose or know what to focus on. Because each time a plate falls, you will hot rock bottom all over again.

For example if you only optimise your team, everything else still feels like a ‘hot mess’. When the team manager leaves, the team falls apart you don’t have the supportive structure to maintain your mindset. It feels like a zero sum game. We want you to be mentally and physically strong and connected to your purpose in order to come from a a higher place.

Optimising means that you know what to focus on, how to be productive, when to delegate, confidence in decision making, remain confident that you can figure it out. Work life balance, purpose & mission based and so much more.

Next steps

This Q4 2024 starting October we are running a limited 5 place Stress Management & Burnout Avoidance Program especially for leaders in Tech and Finance.

We look at your personalised goals, teach optimal performance, focus and productivity for sustainable optimised success. With options to include strategies customised to adults leaders & CEOs with ADHD. Who can be a high risk due to the ability to tolerate high levels of stress.

If you would like to learn more please DM Sue Parker here on Linked in for a Strategic Thinking call to discuss your goals.