Inspiration
Self-care Express: Burnout First Aid
Burnout doesn’t happen overnight and neither does recovery. We can sure slow it down though.
Thus I will not burden you with an elaborate stepwise procedure. Instead, as Alan Moore might say, I’m here to offer you one mental file baked into mental cake. (Your favorite kind.)
Step 1. Know the signs. They’re different for everyone but not wildly different. You can’t sleep—but you can’t get out of bed. You can’t eat—or you can’t stop. Nothing’s fun, and you can’t remember when you last had fun, or, come to think of it, what fun is. You can’t go on, you must go on, but … what if you could fake your death and be resurrected in some remote corner of the Yucatán?
In other words, burnout is similar to grief, similar to depression, not a million miles from anxiety. But with more emptiness and foot dragging. You’ve been there, and now you know it when you see it.
Step 2. Get down and stay down. And by that I mean stop doing anything you can possibly stop doing. As my mentor Martha Beck says, don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow. And don’t do tomorrow what you can put off forever. Some things never need to get done in the first place. 86 everything you can. You can put things back later—judiciously—when your energy returns.
Where to start? With a thought experiment. Ask yourself, What would give me the most relief not to do? Let your Self give you the answer. The relief starts now.
(And that’s how you know whether “walk away from my mortgage” is the answer. Relief? Okay, start figuring out what “walk away from mortgage” means. On the other hand, if you react with hyperventilation? Flinging your condo to the winds might not be the move.)
Step 3. Assess the bigger picture. Now that you have a little breathing room, use some of that space to contemplate the source(s) of the burnout so you can plug the energy leaks.
Listen, I know this is hard, and I know you’re gonna tell me about that. You might have small children—possibly even the children of your children—to care for. Or elderly people or disabled folks who depend on you. But I’m gonna say that there’s always a little bit of wiggle room.
Wiggle in there, girl! Bring that file I gave you or even a dull spoon, and spend some time carving out a hairsbreadth more space for yourself.
One way to do this is to ask for help. I’ve been a life coach for about 15 years, so I know you don’t want to. But so often it comes down to this: Ask for help now, or be forced to accept it later. I’ve seen it!
Let me tell you, if you’re tired because you’re giving too much, you’re not playing by the rules of the game, which go something like “give a little, get a little.” The people who care about you want to support you, and even plenty of strangers will extend themselves. It’s human.
So that’s it! That’s the whole thing. Know when you’re burnt out, drop something immediately so you can stop and assess, and then shed more things until you’re feeling like yourself again.
Important: When you put things back on the stack, promise me you will go slow.
Today, tell us: have you felt burnt out lately? If so, were you able to take things off your list? Anything that worked for you, please tell us in the comments below.
Resources:
Burnout by the Nagoski twins is helpful. It reminds us of the wider causes of burnout, and why it’s exactly the wrong move to internalize things like low wages, racism, misogyny, and other grossly off-kilter playing field conditions that are very exhausting. Is it an accident that that we internalize them? It is not.
Shelf-Care Modern Classics: Burnout
Productivity: The Body Is Not a Factory
Image credit: The Water Fan (detail), Winslow Homer, 1898–1899, Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain.
Oh Max this the perfect. After 6 months working on my own recovery I am well onto the other side and so so much better for it. It is possible to do what I did before, but in a way that is better for myself and for those around me.
Wooooooo….
This is excellent.
It’s as though I’ve had to convince myself (with a few proddings from my therapis) that “yes, not only are you a loving, giving human, but — yes, you’re right: people will take and take and take until…”.
Needed to read this before going into work this morning: this is the reinforced perspective my soul required for me get out of bed this morning.
Thank you for reconnecting these dots for me.
Rock on, Max Rock on.
Thank you, Max! I now feel heard this a.m. Two things to take off my list to stress me less:
1) My exhorbitant rent. 2x what it was 3 years ago.
2) Orange person in D.C.
3) Living on the 3rd floor for 20+ yrs, aging knees.
My husband is disabled. We’ve had what I’ll call an eventful week. I won’t bore you with details. But this message is very timely. I need to let go of helping too much. I see him getting frustrated trying to do something and I jump in and do it for him. I should let him do it. I need to let him ask for help.
Good job! The hard part is watching him struggle.
“What would give me the most relief not to do? Let your Self give you the answer. The relief starts now.” Thank you!
You are one very special person, Max. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with all of us.
[chef’s kiss] and a sincere “thank you”
Thank you, Max, for the thought experiment…I’m going to use the “What would give me the most relief not to do” question to evaluate several things I might want to jettison. As always, your posts show up when we need them!
Thank you, Max. I needed this reminder. I am getting close to burnout and I need to pull back and focus on me for awhile.
I would add a note to make sure there are no underlying medical issues causing or exacerbating the fatigue. Pay attention to all symptoms, no matter how long you’ve been accommodating them, and their cumulative impact, and get a medical provider to do the same. “It’s just stress” is not always the case.
Great timing! How did you know? Thank you.
Thank you, Max! Such a great post.
This year I didn’t burn out (it’s happened before), but I learned a very important lesson. For me, just taking time off and not going anywhere is not a vacation (it is for a lot of people and it used to be that way for me, but it isn’t anymore). I need to use the file in the cake.
And so I went away for a bit.
And stopped. And knit. And learned. And had fun.
It was great. And I came back to my life and the good things in it with a better perspective and a lot more energy.
What a timely message! I keep wondering why I am ‘working’ more and harder (seems like) and I am theoretically ‘retired’! I am still working on de-cluttering my living space and shedding ‘stuff’ I don’t really need to do. After being single with 3 boys I know that I can’t function if I don’t take care of myself. The issue is what is going to serve me best so I can keep moving forward. Coincidentally I am pestering my MD to find what is affecting me physically.
Thank you.