What my burnout taught me about emotional fitness and leadership

Hi, I’m Nataly, and I spent most of my life and two decades of my career as a business executive, entrepreneur, and leader believing that struggle was an inevitable part of doing anything challenging or meaningful.

Even though on the outside I was incredibly successful and appeared positive and confident, I was often overwhelmed with self-doubt, pushed myself to the limit of exhaustion daily, and over-focused on everything that was wrong or negative -- in myself, at work, in the teams I led.

But I didn’t think that how I felt had any impact on my ability to do my work or to positively impact other people. I adopted a martyr mentality and believed that as long as I cared about my team and doing great work together, my own emotional health -- or lack thereof -- didn't matter.

I took pride in never taking care of myself: Things like self-care or emotional well-being were for the “weak” and I was a tough cookie, who could struggle through any challenge!

Until one day I completely burned out. 

This was the scariest time in my life. I faced losing everything that was meaningful to me — my health, my family, my team, the company I worked so hard to build, my future. 

It’s been six years and I still can’t talk about this painful experience without tears in my eyes.

When I look back, I realize that I had been experiencing daily burnout regularly for decades. But I didn’t have the courage to admit it to myself nor the skills to know how to break free from it. The thing is, burnout isn't just about overworking (which I was). It's also caused by not having a supportive relationship with yourself and assumptions about what others expect from you (in my case, I thought everyone expected me to always be positive and confident.)

With a lot of inner work, research, trial and error, and doing things I never ever thought I would do -- things like acknowledging my difficult feelings and sharing them with others, treating myself with compassion, and learning how to talk back to my brain when it caused me to struggle -- I found new way to work and live.

I learned how to struggle less and had more energy to bring to the work and people I cared so much about.

I made my emotional fitness and mental health my non-negotiable priorities and saw the quality of my work, impact, and relationships soar.

I began to lead with more authenticity and vulnerability and was blown away by how much closer, committed, and stronger my teams became.

I went from daily burnout and overwhelm to feeling confident that I could lead through any challenge or crisis.

Since the pandemic broke out, I’ve done more than 150 talks and workshops on emotional fitness skills for leaders and teams and I’ve seen many warning signs of people on the edge or in the grips of daily burnout. Once you’ve been there, you can sense it in other people without them needing to say a word.

Being a leader is always hard, but the challenges of leading through the uncertainty of the pandemic has added intense pressure. I’ve experienced this intense pressure myself, having to completely reinvent our business to be virtual, while trying to be there in a meaningful and supportive way for my family, team, friends, and the tens of thousands of people with whom I am lucky to share my lessons and teachings through my work.

I’ve had tough days, I’ve had days of tears and feeling scared about the future, days when I’ve hit the wall with all things pandemic. I’ve not always been a patient leader, mom or parent. But using the emotional fitness skills I learned after I burned out, I’ve been able to lead through this time with more clarity, compassion -- including towards myself -- and energy than I could ever imagine. 

I only wish I’d learned these skills earlier in my career, but instead of regret I’m pouring all my energy into sharing them with as many leaders as I can.

If you’re skeptical, like I used to be, here’s what research shows:

• When you improve your emotional health and well-being, you perform at the top of your potential across every area: You're more productive and creative, you make better decisions, including during crises, and you are more effective in your job.
• Leaders who successfully lead through crises are more open about their emotions and create greater emotional awareness and openness within their teams.
• Practicing gratitude, kindness and compassion not only reduces your own stress but dramatically improves the resilience and motivation within your teams.

If I could go back and say one thing to my leader self 10 years ago when I was struggling, burning out, and refusing to care about my emotional health, I would say this:

Your emotional health and well-being are not extras or fluff. They are your RESPONSIBILITY to yourself, your work, and the people you care about.