Your heart is racing and your chest feels tight. Your palms are sweaty. Your voice sounds strange, almost foreign to you. Your mouth is dry and you can hardly get out a word. You ask yourself, “Am I having a heart attack?” Maybe, you think.
But you can’t sleep at night either. You’re ruminating over the day’s events, prohibiting you from getting rest. You are wondering what’s going on and have promised your loved one that you will go and get a physical.
Might there be something else going on? Hmmm.
Numerous people have reached out to me with similar symptoms. They don’t know what to make of them and are searching for answers. Recently I had someone describe them as follows:
“In the last few months I’ve been sitting at my desk and I can’t bring myself to do the work. Everything seems to be going well, but I seem to be frozen. I’ve been taking sick leave, but that doesn’t seem to help either. I just can’t work today. I felt fine on the weekend, but I missed my deliverables. I should have reached out to my clients, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I need to find an off ramp.”
This is called burnout. It sounds like a cliche, but it’s a real thing. And burnout is scary!
What Exactly Is Burnout?
According to the World Health Organization, burnout is defined in ICD-11 as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
- feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
- increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
- reduced professional efficacy
“Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”
Yup, that sounds about right.
Even though people have heard about burnout, they firmly believe it will happen to others and not themselves. Does that resonate for you? Have you ever considered that you might experience burnout? If not, you are not alone. We often don’t think things will happen to us — until they do.
Causes of Burnout
Now let’s look at what might cause burnout:
• Lack of control
This can come in many different forms. Take one, for example — the executive who has worked hard at advancing his career and the growth of his company, resulting in great compensation, a sizable amount of stock options not yet vested, and finding himself in a position where it might feel like financial suicide to quit.
• Unclear job expectations
Think of the dilemma of an executive who is tasked with bridging a siloed organization and as a result reports to multiple bosses. They are charting new territory and job expectations for this new role straddling different groups is unclear and undefined.
• Dysfunctional workplace dynamics
We have all seen this play out in real life. The list is long, from toxic executives that aren’t shepherded to an exit to bullies to unethical conduct.
• Constantly on high energy
This applies to so many. Executives were working extremely hard even before the pandemic. Growth and speed were imperative. Then, at the start of the pandemic, everyone scrambled to keep the lights on and to keep business going and growing. Since then, inflation, the fear of a recession, and weather events that keep everyone on their toes — just to name a few examples of stressors -– continue to be challenging in addition to the demand for moving at a fast pace. There is no rest for the weary.
• Lack of social support
This was already obvious during the beginning part of the pandemic. Executives can be socially awkward. Making small talk and connecting with people in a real sense is a muscle that seems to have atrophied for them. No amount of cheese boards sent to employees for Zoom happy hours will make this go away. Think about it, what makes you feel socially supported?
• Work-life imbalance
Work-life balance was mostly better when everyone was working from home. Now executives must juggle employees who are commuting, those working remotely, hosting hybrid town halls and all-hands-on-deck meetings. Hosting hybrid events is exhausting. Executives have to make seemingly endless and impossible decisions, leading to decision-making fatigue. Reductions in force or hiring sprints are leaving many depleted. Even when employees are given unlimited vacation (which my daughter has at her current company), the peer pressure to work all the time is immense. What does work-life balance actually look like?
Next, most importantly, what can you do about it?
How to Cope with Burnout
1) Get a Health Checkup
You wouldn’t think twice about taking your car in for service if something felt off. Do your body a favor and get into an annual physical routine to be preventative in nature. And when things really feel off, have yourself checked out against that annual baseline.
2) Be Kind to Yourself
The fact that you are feeling off is not your fault. You are not a failure. You are doing what you think everyone is expecting of you. Don’t take a feeling of unease as some kind of wrongdoing. This might sound strange. It’s part of being human to have ups and downs. If you ignore the downs long enough, your body will rebel. So be kind to yourself and listen to your body.
3) Understanding the Role of the EGO
Your ego is not who you are. It’s kind of like your inner critic that cheers you on to be successful and drives much of your behavior. But it can also be like fool’s gold. In reality, your ego will be your greatest judge. For more reading in this area, check out The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
4) Express Your Subconscious
This might seem counterintuitive. If it’s subconscious, how could you possibly express it? Well, you have to kind of fool it a bit. The best way I have found to get the subconscious to become clearer is by daily writing in a journal. This stream of consciousness writing is so cleansing and will make you aware of what you have been burying for a long time. Read more about journal writing here.
In addition, coaching will get to your subconscious by challenging your limiting beliefs and uncovering your assumptions. Reach out if you want to find out more.
5) Talk Therapy
I’m not a therapist, but I know lots of people, myself included, who at times have benefited from talking things out. There is no shame in seeking out and talking to a therapist. It takes a bit of time to find the right one, but then that applies to finding the right coach as well.
6) Meditative Practice
This is any practice that will enable you to quiet your mind. Every day you process about 70,000 thoughts! Phew, that’s a lot of thoughts to handle. Anything that will help you do less in this department will be a net positive for your well-being. And you don’t have to sit and stare into the sky to get there. For me, ironing is meditative. So are swimming and running. Painting and really any form of art have a similar effect on me. See what fits for you. One minute a day is a good start!
7) Explore Your Options
Now it’s time to think about what options you have. Often, you think you don’t have any other options than what you are already doing. But you always have a choice. I will never forget a conversation I had with my teenage daughter who told me that that’s not true. The example she cited: Imagine you are on a spacewalk and you get disconnected from your ship. For her that was the ultimate in not having any choice left at all. Imagine how mad she was when I mentioned that she could either, a) die a slow death by exhausting all the energy she had in her tank or, b) she could cut the cord to the tank and thereby speed up the process. There is always a choice as to how you can respond. You might not be in control of everything, but you are in control of how you respond. Big difference!
8) Discover What Options Are Best
Write down your potential choices, discuss them with others, and reflect on risks and consequences. Research your options more fully by reaching out to trusted contacts and resources.
9) Imagine a Different Future
You obviously had a different future in mind when you started your current job. But now you get to imagine an alternate future. Ask yourself: Wouldn’t it be cool if XYZ were possible? What is that XYZ? Explore it, try it on for size, imagine being that new person who could make this possible. Who would you have to become?
10) Time to Let Go
Here comes the hardest part: Letting go. Releasing your old self and taking the plunge into that new you, the new version that you are becoming. Accept that there is no going back to the old you. It’s time to embrace the new and fully step into this fresh reality of yours.
11) Action
What actions can you take today that will get you committed? And what three actions can you take every day thereafter? Don’t just think about it, act on it. Commit. Don’t look back and wonder what you might have become in the process.
12) Brace For the Ride
Will it all go smoothly? Probably not. There will be some setbacks and some strong pulls to the old version of yourself. Your family and friends might not understand what you are doing and will keep holding you back. But there is no reversing. You have already left the safe harbor. You are out at sea now and it is thrilling!
13) Enjoy the New You
Have you ever wondered if a butterfly would like to turn back time and become a caterpillar again? Probably not. I doubt it would, though. The transformation gave the caterpillar wings and now he can fly. How cool is that? Who would want to go back to a limited life of exploring 10 square inches on the forest floor when you can fly from flower to flower and be free?
Burnout? What burnout?