Finding a way forward through burn out

In 1974, Herbert Freudenberger, a German-born American psychologist, noticed something that intrigued him. An increasing number of his patients were presenting with similar conditions of mental and physical exhaustion connected to their professional life. He was the first person to coin the phrase ‘burn out’ as a way to describe the exhaustion he was witnessing.?

What Freudenberger saw was that people were experiencing a significant impact on their health and wellbeing connected to the busyness of what consumed their time. For most people, that’s work.?

Over the past 40-odd years, burn out has become not only an idea to coin but, for many professionals in the Western world, also a way of operating—especially when uncertainty levels are high.?

While our first reaction might be to hide under the covers, binge on the latest Netflix series and do less, this step back into inactivity can lead to feeling ‘checked out’. Instead, the way forward to vitality and health is through reconnecting to what matters and scheduling that into our days and weeks.?

The cost of burn out

When we are in Burn Out, the cost is to our health. In this state, we can be kicking goals, even smashing targets; but we’re doing so at the cost of looking after ourselves. As we run from one project to the next, juggling ever-faster speeding balls, the first three things to drop off our list are sleep, nutrition, and movement.?

We lose sleep worrying about the sheer amount of stuff we must get done and what’s going to change tomorrow, we grab food where we can and eat it on the run or at our desk—fast and nasty is usually the choice—and the most movement we get is getting up to make another cup of coffee.?

Our focus on these health behaviours goes to the bottom of our pile right at the time when more energy, not less, is required. On a personal level, the impact of busyness, particularly when we’ve lost sight of ‘why’ we’re busy, occurs across all aspects of our health—and covers other aspects of our lives.?

Dr Lissa Rankin is an American physician who discovered something interesting when talking with her patients. While her patients were presenting with a physical ailment, when she asked them, ‘What do you need to heal?’, the responses were things like, ‘I need to change my job’, or ‘I need to sort out my debt’, or even ‘I need to leave the relationship I’m in’. These insights prompted Dr Rankin to expand our definition of ‘health’ to include aspects of our lives that contribute to our overall wellbeing. Dr Rankin’s work has identified that the following aspects of our lives have as much impact on our health as what we eat and how we move:

• physical health
• mental health
• relationship health
• financial health
• creativity
• spirituality
• sexuality
• work/life purpose
• physical environment

As we explore the cost of Burn Out has to our health, it’s important that our definition of health is expanded to include these other aspects of our lives.?

Rituals are your anchor

Rituals and routines give us an anchor in the busyness and overwhelm. We tend to get so busy that the important things get shoved to the bottom of the pile, added to the never-ending to-do list.?

So, when things are crazy in this state of Burn Out—when that overwhelm hits us—those routines and rituals give us something to hold onto. They are the anchor in the storm.?

When I talk to people and clients, I often hear that they constantly feel like they’re being pulled in a million different directions, and this is certainly also true in my own experience. It may be that those different directions are all really interesting, and we want to sink our teeth into all of them, but the result is we end up just flip-flopping between a whole range of different things, making millimetres of progress in a few different directions, but really getting nowhere with anything in particular.?

Once you’ve gotten clear on the behaviours you are going to engage in, and you’ve created tangible reminders of those things that matter in your space, rituals are the things that pulse and keep your values alive.?

Use these three actions to turn your ideas into rituals:?

#1: Schedule It

We grossly overestimate how much time we have and underestimate how long things will take us. Which is why, when we put the stuff that matters to the end it never gets done. Flip that notion and put the things that matter into your calendar. Take five minutes on Sunday evening to schedule the actions that matter for you this week – allowing flexibility if these activities need to be adapted. If it’s a morning ritual, set yourself a time you can commit to; if it’s a yoga class, block the time out, if it’s an adventure with friends, square it away – you can even do this virtually if needed. Once these activities that matter are in the schedule, they become your default, and you no longer have to make a decision. Honour the schedule and notice how your week changes.?

#2: Share It

Find someone who can hold you accountable to this ritual. This is a person you trust who will check in on how it went, without judgement, but with the caring accountability to keep pulling you back to yourself.?

#3: Tweak It

Adapt your ritual to still fit in when life changes. How can you keep it up when you have to operate in a hybrid work setting? Tweak it so it doesn’t get dropped into the too hard basket and become a good idea you had once but that never came to anything. You’ve got to fight and nudge for these moments in your week. Imagine you’re in a mosh pit with a million people, trying to get to the front of the stage. How do you just graciously and slowly but very persistently elbow your way through the busyness? How do you still stake out your ground and make a claim in that space? By designing your intention, setting your behaviours, crafting your environment, and committing to your rituals, you can gently nudge and elbow your way back to those things that matter to you.

Finding your way through a period of Burn Out is possible, but the journey may take you on a few twists and turns. Reach out to your support network and always remember there is someone to talk to about what you’re experiencing. Beyond Blue and Lifeline are incredible organisations with trained professionals ready to help you.

If you’d like to dig in deeper to the Stand Out book and the many chapters and exercises included throughout tackling the states of Burn Out, Check Out, Freak Out and Stand Out, you can do so here.