S3 E53: Matching burnout solutions to your stage of burnout
with author, coach and psychologist Dr Sharon Grossman
Key Takeways
I think my whole life I always make decisions based on how it's going to impact that thing that I value very much in my life, which is having a certain lifestyle. And that means lifestyle of balance, where I get to do work, that I'm very passionate about that I think has a sense of meaning like beyond myself, where I can serve other people and outside of work to be able to live a really full life where I am not just raising my kids, but I have time for myself. I have time for the things that are important to me. Like my extended family, my friends, traveling, dancing, like all the things that I like to do. And so it's as you know, very tricky, especially as you have kids and you have more and more commitments and I have my own business, so there's a lot of different balls in the air.
And so I'm constantly going in and trying to refine my systems and figure out what can I delegate out to my virtual assistant and what things can I systematize and get off my plate? It's like I'm constantly coming in and trying to find a new angle where I can alleviate some of the pressure and some of the stress on myself so that I have more time to do the things that are important that make a difference. Cuz like me checking my email doesn't really make a difference in the world.
I really love working with super high achievers. I really love women in medicine very much They're super givers. So they give so much of themselves also at work. And what I was hearing over and over again was that they were looking for that exit strategy because they were so burned out doing what they're doing. And the truth of the matter is they didn't really wanna leave medicine, they just couldn't figure out how to do it differently. And the thought that they had to give it up and that they had to find something else that was more sustainable was what they thought was necessary, but it was also heartbreaking for them. And so I thought I can help them.
You also have the people who are really trying to still balance all of these things to really juggle all of the things that they were doing before they became moms and putting so much pressure on themselves and then feeling like what they do is never enough. And do you know, one person can only do so much. There's so much guilt that working moms feel, especially when they are programmed to believe that they need to do more than they're already doing.
I think we often don't realize that we're burning out until it's too late, or I have people tell me, oh, now in retrospect, that job that I left three years ago, I was burned out then. But I didn't realize it until now. So I often wanna encourage people to see if they can see it in somebody else and then maybe they can help support them as they're going through it.
Without further ado stage, one of the Freudenberger and North's stage of burnout is compulsion to prove. And that's really especially if you are somebody who's a high achiever. And so they start performing like different acts in order to alleviate some of their anxiety. So if you're super anxious about, especially if you've got perfectionism imposter syndrome and things like that, there's always that nagging voice in your head that says, that's not really that good or somebody else is doing something more than you are.
Stage two is you start working harder and that compulsion becomes confused with dedication and commitment, and that can translate into an unwillingness to delegate workout responsibilities, domestic chores, because you worry about losing control.
In step three is you start to neglect your own needs. That's where you start to put off chores and pleasures until later, because you're like I still have more work to do. As you're really neglecting your true needs and covering up all of the stress and disappointment and guilt and overwhelm and all of the feelings that you have with these escapist activities.
And then in step four, this is where we dismiss conflict and needs. So when someone brings up the fact that maybe you're spending too much time at work, what do you do when they bring that to your attention? You actually double down and you say, oh, but I just have to finish this project. They don't get it. And once I finish this things will be fine. And so you're always like finding another reason why you should stay in it. And so as you're doing that, and as you're spending more and more time and working even harder to prove that you can do it, you start to feel that fatigue, you can't get rest.
Now, stage five is now you're trying to adjust to your environment. You're really trying to make it work. And in, so doing, you feel like you have to revise your values. So everything that isn't work related, you might deem unimportant. So if you're a working mom and you obviously love your kids, you might be married and love your spouse. All of a sudden, everybody takes a seat in like the they're all on the back burner. Your notions of work, life balance, go out the window. You don't have time for friends. You're so focused on getting the job done that you're sacrificing everything in your life. So that's a massive problem because you're so focused on one thing, which is your work that everything else falls apart.
Then stage six is where your denial becomes heightened. So you're starting to lose the ability to distinguish between what is, and isn't essential in your life. Most of your time starts to compress into the present. You might sever your relationships with the past and the future. And when problems do emerge, you deny them, you might become cynical or place the blame.
Then stage seven is you really start to disengage. It's like the tipping point where, you've been pouring so much of yourself in you've let go of all of your needs. You're basically all in, you've doubled down and then you start to accumulate all this stress. And so now it's I've gotta have some sort of a release. And so you might start to maybe you substances or start drinking a lot or do something that helps you to deal with all that stress and also really disengage. And that's where we see a lot of cynicism come in. Where you start to have this really negative attitude about your work.
Then stage eight is where you start to have observable behavioral changes. So that's where you might be isolating. You might be feeling really bitter. And we talked about stage seven, you've got cynicism on board. Now you become not so pleasant to be around. Perhaps you might be taking it out on your kids. When you come home you might become disconnected from your own emotions. You start to withdraw and again engaging more and more into those kind of escapisms like the drinking, the smoking, the overeating, all the things that help you kind of stuff your emotions down.
And then from there we see depersonalization in stage nine. That's where you're disconnected from yourself, your emotions, your body, your priorities. You can't even recognize yourself anymore. You're like who is this person? I don't recognize this person anymore. I didn't used to be like this. I'm not the kind of person who yells at my kids. I'm not the kind of person who is drinking a bottle of wine a night. I'm not the kind of person who isolates. And I have all these friends I haven't seen them in six months or a year or six years.
And that leads us to stage 10 where there's that sense of emptiness. You feel hollow, you feel drained, you feel depleted and that's where you start to become reactive and maybe even impulsive. And that can mean that you overreact in certain situations that feel stressful, right?
And then in stage 11, we see depression on board. Life starts just losing its meaning. And you're like, what is the point of all this? That's the biggest kind of depression related question that people ask is their life starts to feel meaningless. And when you are somebody who has come into this profession and you've put so much into getting there, and then once you're in it, you're also like pouring so much of yourself in and you feel like nothing I do is ever enough.
And that leads us to the final stage, which is where you're so burned out and you just mentally and physically collapse. You just no longer care about anything anymore. There's nothing really left in your life. You're just going through the motions and because you view your life as meaningless oftentimes this is where we see people start to become suicidal.
And so in addition to all of the physical exhaustion, the mental exhaustion and the stress and all that stuff that we talked about there's a real thing that happens with your body, where it just can't get you to stop. And so it gets worse all the time. So no matter what's happening, like I've had people tell me that they're in the emergency room and they're working on their laptop. So we have the people who don't listen to the messages and those are the people that burn out time and time again. And I've heard people as much as three hospitalizations as a result of burnout until finally they got the message and they're like, all right, this is clearly not working. I don't wanna end up dead. Like something needs to change.
And ultimately burnout is about chronic stress. So if you know how to deal with stress and what we know about stress, just to define even that term is about perception. It's about how we perceive our situation. So when your job is requiring you to do a certain project, what are you making it mean? What are the thoughts that come through your head? And if you're somebody who believes that you're not good enough, then you're gonna have different thoughts about that. Then somebody who believes that there are rock star and they can handle anything or somebody who believes that, I'm gonna get this done as quickly as possible so that I can get back home and spend time with my kids or that I can go to that yoga class or that I can go and meet my friend for dinner.
I think that the book is really helpful for people who aren't so far up that ladder, who have the bandwidth to learn and start to think about their situation and start to experiment and play with some of these ideas. They can take the book and kind of coach themselves through it. But as you get further and further up that ladder, I believe that you need more because you just don't have the bandwidth to think about another thing to take on another thing. And so that's where you need more support. You need more accountability, you need more structure. And I think that's where coaching comes in.
There's so many barriers when you're burned out that I think, you have to get to a point in your life where you say I'm ready. I'm done. I can't keep doing it like this. And rather than say, I'm done, I'm gonna end my life. It should be, I'm done doing this by myself, doing it in this way. I gotta find another way. And if the coaching can help me,
When you're working in an organization as a leader, something that you can do to help your team is that maybe every Friday you gather everybody up for maybe 30 minutes and you ask what has been stressful this week? Because I think when we typically have these meetings, we're talking about projects, we're talking about deadlines, we're talking about progress, but we're not addressing how we feel and how it's impacting us and what we're dealing with. And I think there is a lot of value in being able to acknowledge what people are dealing with.
I would say for working moms, it's having some sort of check in with yourself on a regular basis where you think about what you have going on. You've got your family, you've got your work, you've got your health, you've got your relationships, like all these different aspects of your life. And how are you doing in each of those areas? And are your scores on those different areas satisfactory for you, right? Cause there is no right or wrong, but are you happy with the way things are going?
I don't think that we have to get to a 10 in anything. I don't think we have to be a 10 outta a 10 mother. And I don't think we have to be a 10 outta 10 worker. And I don't think we have to be a 10 and a 10 spouse. I think we have to have more compassion with ourselves and say, you know what, I'm human and I'm not gonna be perfect. And I don't expect myself to be perfect.
Bio
Dr. Sharon Grossman is a psychologist, success coach, and speaker who’s an expert in Emotional Intelligence and managing burnout. She holds a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Fordham University.
For the past two decades, Dr. Grossman has worked with high achieving professionals to improve their mental health and wellbeing as all are prone to sacrificing their self-care due to work demands and family obligations. She describes these individuals as having too much on their mind with no clear plan or direction. They end up focusing on unimportant items while forgetting about more important ones, thus entering a paradox called a downward spiral of perceived underachievement and eventual exhaustion. She shares prevention and recovery strategies in her Amazon bestselling book, The 7E Solution to Burnout, and on her weekly podcast, Decode Your Burnout.
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