S2 E34: A step by step guide to burnout recovery
with author, podcaster and career coach Selina Barker
Key Takeways
Don't ask what the world needs ask what makes you come alive and then go and do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And up until that point, I was all completely focused on wanting to make a difference, wanting to bring about change in the world in this sort of broken world. And when I read that, it gave me permission to stop thinking so much about what I wanted to do for the world and actually start with what makes me come alive and then go and do that. And so I experimented.
The people most likely to burn out are smart, caring, ambitious people. They are driven to make a difference in the world or care for others or to create, or to make things happen. They have visions that they want to bring to life. There is a drive behind them. And what happens when you burn out is that you've clicked into overdrive and you've stopped recognizing, or you've lost touch with actually, you know, what you need to look after yourself and how to manage your energy levels. And of course, plugged into a sort of society that has you attach all of your worth and, sense of self worth to your productivity and your achievements and your output.
And it is the core really of what I do when I'm coaching people is to, take a step back and go, okay, what are the ingredients you need to feel happy and fulfilled in the work that you do. So out of the work you're doing now, what pieces of that do you want to, do you want to take with you? What pieces of that do you want to keep doing? And sometimes it's like you say, staying within that company or within that job and tweaking things and do more of the stuff you enjoy and less of the stuff that you don't. Sometimes it's delegating. I think sometimes we forget that the stuff that we really hate doing someone will enjoy it.
You absolutely can find work that you enjoy doing that nourishes you. And when you become a parent, it's even more essential that you do that because parenting is a full-time job and it's really draining as much as it is rewarding. So if you've got work, that's draining you and not nourishing you and not filling you up. That suddenly becomes a real problem.
I thought that if I loved what I did, I wouldn't burn out because I'd be so fulfilled. I love what I do. I'm making a difference. If anything, I think it made me worse because I am my father's daughter and I have very strong workaholic tendencies. There is a very fine line between enthusiasm and obsessiveness. I'm competitive. I'm driven. I'm ambitious. I care. So all of these things combined, and I hadn't been taught how to look after myself. Wellbeing was a thing that at that time I looked, I thought it was just something that other people did. I just didn't get it. I just thought it was like a, almost like a hobby that I wasn't into.
I would hit what I call mini burnout. So it wouldn't be severe burnout. Like my father had, or like other people have had like where they're signed off work. Panic attacks are common when you have severe burnout, things like that. But I would suddenly be hit with my brain had gone on strike. Like a fuse had gone. Suddenly my brain just was not functioning. And the smallest decision I had to make could bring me to tears. And I just felt bone tired.
Then I had my son and it continued to happen. And of course, because I'm a career and life design coach, I'm talking about really loving your life. This was not me loving my life. This was something that was not working. And what I noticed everyone more and more people around me, my friends were also burning out and a lot more of my clients that were coming to me were coming to me because they had burnt out. And I said, what is going on? And what was really concerning to me was how there was this air of acceptance. This is just how it is. Work is hard. The world is fast paced and there's a champ, almost like a a sort of glamorizing of hustle and working hard. And, a sort of badge of honor, a badge of honor working late, working on are being so busy. And I was like this is all wrong. This is not how it's supposed to be.
I know that we are as human beings designed to thrive. And burnout is like the body's way of going stop enough. No, this isn't working. This is not sustainable. And it knocks you. It literally takes you off your feet and stops you in your tracks. And it's a real wake up call saying something has got to change because you're not thriving. You're running yourself into the ground. And it's when you're treating your body like a machine, and that is something that's so prevalent in our current sort of way of working is that this we've got productivity all wrong. We think it comes from working as fast as we can and long hours. And we treat ourselves as if we were machines and we're not. Human beings don't operate like machines. And we really need to take a really radical look at how we're working in how we're looking after ourselves and managing our energy.
I do think women tend to burn out more than men. And one of the reasons I think is because the deeply rooted narrative we have around women and what it is to be a good woman, is that when you want to be a good woman, you put the needs of others first. And so there's very much this self-sacrificial narrative around being a woman. And the struggle with holding boundaries with saying no. Women are far more likely to be people pleasers. And so that plays a big part.
We need to help you get your energy back and your life back and your time back and reconnect with you. And then once you've got your energy back, you're able to see more clearly what has been causing my burnout. Is it me just having no idea how to look after myself or is it that the place the company I work in is a toxic work environment. It's the wrong people. They're not giving me the sort of respect or the support that I need to thrive, or is it that actually your whole career isn't working for you and that, that needs to change. Then it takes people on a journey to identify what it is what caused them to burn out in the first place. And then they can do something to change.
I think the scary thing is, with a partner with family, when they know you to be you're the strong one, you're the rock. You're the supermom that can do everything. When you're starting to get really shaky and wobbly and go, I don't think I can do everything. And you're scared. You don't know what's happening to you. Actually, you're burnt out. You're exhausted. You need to recover and you will get back. In fact, even, an even more vibrant version of yourself, but you can't rush there. You can't cut corners, you have fully overdone it. And we're going to unpack how that happened at a later date. But right now you need to have this time to rest and recover.
Again, particularly women because we feel guilty for having needs because we're not supposed to have needs. Our fulfillment is supposed to come from looking after the needs of others. That's the narrative that a lot of us are living by. And just even voicing our needs can throw people into a panic and be anxiety inducing and come with a sense of guilt that they're even asking for that space and that me-time.
So I like to call all of our inner critics, the shitty committee, because you can have your witch in there and you can have all sorts of characters in there. And it's just a fun way. Whenever I introduce people to the shitty committee, they always laugh and go, I've definitely got one of those. And we all do. We all have a shitty committee. We all have an inner critic that is quick to tell us, that we're not good enough where we've done something wrong, warning us about how we're going to mess up, how are we going to fail? How are we going to look ridiculous how everyone's going to judge us? And it can be really mean and nasty. And we all have one. But the good news is that we can all learn to turn the volume down on the shitty committee. And you really do that by first turning the volume up.
And so the more that you can build up evidence to show the opposite, to be true, the less you, the less that belief, that some negative limiting belief, the less power it can hold over you. And you're never going to get fully rid of it. And your shitty committee will flare up any time you try something new, anytime you step out of your comfort zone, it will be there. But the more you get to know it, the more you accept it, the more you give it, a little cuddle that Scottish, witch pull her in and give her a cuddle and start to see the fear that lies beneath that actually the sort of quieter it will become. And then the other thing I do is get people to turn the volume up on their inner wise cheerleader, which is that loving, supportive voice that we also all have within us, but that we tend to use, tend to reserve for our friends and our loved ones and people that we want to support and encourage and tend to keep the shitty committee as the voice we use for ourselves. So it's then practicing, turning up that, turning that voice in on ourselves and being our own supportive and loving, cheerleader.
The most important thing to hold onto is that when you are feeling really burnt out, that it does feel scary and it does feel like it's hopeless. That's a very common feeling. I can't do this anymore. Haven't got what it takes. But you absolutely can recover from burnout and you will recover from burnout and it's step-by-step and rest and recovery is that first step. And often burnout can be the start of you going down a new path in life and creating an even better life for yourself. So sometimes we do have to break down to build up again.
Bio
Selina Barker is a Career and Life Design Coach, author and podcaster, who has been helping people break free from burn out and create lives and careers they love for almost two decades. She has coached a long list of clients from Google, Apple and UN Women, to recording artists, best-selling authors, and leaders in the creative and music industry. Her book ‘Burnt Out: the exhausted person’s six-step guide to thriving in a fast-paced world’ was published in April 2021. She is creator of the Audible Series The Career Change Coach and the Project Love Goodbye, Hello journals. And co-host of the Project Love Podcast which has had over half a million listens. She lives in London with her partner and their 6 year old son.
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