How to Avoid Burnout

Thanks so much for joining me for another edition of my newsletter! Through this extended period of isolation, burnout has been knocking on the door for many people, and today we are going to answer it! And join me shortly at 12 pm EDT / 9 am PDT/5 pm BST today for my weekly Newsweek interview show, Better. Today’s guest is Richard Rumelt, the author of The Crux, and we’re going to discuss how to get to the heart of your strategic challenge! I welcome you to participate in the conversation with us?here.

As an additional reminder, in case you aren’t part of my email list, which has completely different content than this newsletter, sign up here - this features advice about personal branding, strategies to grow your business, and how to lead a more fulfilling life.

From an objective standpoint, Nataly Kogan was at an all-time height in her career when she experienced burnout. And this was doing a job she loved. Her new book, The Awesome Human Project, focuses on how to avoid burnout and thrive. I highly recommend watching the replay of our interview from last week. She ended up delivering a miniature TED talk on the five core emotional skills - a framework she developed. You can watch our interview here. For now, here are several other points I enjoyed from our talk:

When your passion leads to burnout

“There's a saying or this concept, of “find work you love and you'll never work a day in your life.” What a bunch of nonsense. I think that's actually one of the things that is causing us to burn out. People who are passionate about their work and care about their jobs are at higher risk of burnout. We think of burnout as having too much work. That is one of the causes. But caring about your work so much that you never disconnect - even when you disconnect, you're thinking about work, and your identity is tied to your work. That is a huge cause of burnout. I didn't burn out because I hated my job. I burned out because I love my work so much.”?

Helping others through a difficult time

“First of all, let them know it's okay to feel how they feel, and that they don't need to feel better or fix anything right away. That is actually the biggest thing you can do to help. When people give us a lot of advice, ‘Hey, do this to feel better!’ We're not open. What's really helpful is if you can get on the same side as that person and ask, ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’ And when you talk to them about it, don't offer advice. Don't have ways for them to get better. Research shows when we create that space for ourselves and for others to just feel that way, without the pressure to feel better, that it actually creates an opening because it makes us feel safe.”

Training your emotional fitness

"Your happiness, and your emotional fitness, which is a broader concept, is a skill. And it's a skill that we can all improve just like physical fitness. If you want to run a marathon, you don't just start running the marathon. You're going to burn out. We need to practice improving our emotional fitness. Emotional fitness is a skill of creating a more supportive relationship with yourself. When we practice these emotional fitness skills we build our natural inner resilience. This is not about being strong or tough or never feeling difficult feelings. It's about knowing how to support ourselves through all the challenges we face which allows us to feel more joy, which allows us to feel more happiness and allows us to get through times when things are really not going well.”

Thanks as always for taking the time to read this week’s newsletter! I hope to see you shortly for my talk with Richard Rumelt. If you can’t make today’s interview, we always make a replay available on my YouTube page. If you’d like to be notified when the newest episode is available, subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive a notification.

Wishing you health and success -?

Dorie