Overcoming Burnout and Rekindling Growth
How Leaders rekindle their inner fire and prevent it from going out again
Let’s talk burnout.
This week’s Coaching Call and deep-dive discussed unwinding stress and anxiety. From what I can see in recent conversations and online discussions, burnout is challenging the leaders we need to shape the future these days. So this edition is all about rekindling our energy because:
You can return from burnout to balance!
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Recognize Three Separate Challenges
For readers who missed our webinar or coaching call, a quick recap:
Stress is a reaction to a situation where you feel threatened, worried or out of control. Stress happens in the present. You can reduce stress with techniques to increase control over conditions, influence your emotional reactions or help you accept the problem and move forward. Helpful actions include deep breathing, reframing problems and exploring options, eating right and physical exercise release the symptoms that accompany stress.
Anxiety is an anticipatory reaction to the potential consequences of a situation. You feel symptoms of anxiety now, even if consequences haven’t occurred yet (or never do). We reduce anxiety with techniques that adjust our thinking - like returning our attention to the present, developing reasonable contingencies, and reaffirming our confidence to navigate the future.
Burnout is a Bigger Problem
Burnout is an overwhelming feeling resulting from sustained and repeated stress and anxiety, over a long period of time. It manifests as emotional, mental and physical exhaustion, poor performance, strained relationships and physical illnesses. Burnout comes from being swamped at work, overwhelmed with social responsibilities, or navigating relationships with heavy burdens (like caretaking or needy clients).
Burnout shows up as extremes - as “too little” desirable emotions, like a lack of motivation or caring about important goals; or as “too much” undesirable emotions, like resentment, hopelessness or cynicism about our careers or other people.
"Nobody’s perfect, so give yourself credit for everything you’re doing right, and be kind to yourself when you struggle." —Lori Deschene, author of Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal
All three conditions are serious and important. They erode a leader’s ability to think clearly, behave effectively, pursue goals and help others. But burnout is significant because it’s pervasive. It corrodes a leader’s ability to perform, which adds disappointment on top of stress.
Un-Burning Out
We learned methods for reducing stress (like the CIA model) in Coaching Call #5. Using the Three Questions technique quickly reduces anxiety symptoms by clarifying our plans and ability to deal with potential scenarios. Now, let’s explore techniques for healing burnout, and rekindling our energy and enthusiasm.
Here are five ways to un-burnout
1. Recognize there’s a problem
Recovery starts by realizing you have a problem. Burnout isn’t just being tired or needing a vacation. The symptoms are deeper: poor sleep, lack of focus, distractedness, persistent worry, missing deadlines, half-hearted conversations, and procrastination. Your body and mind are trying to tell you something, but it’s up to you to listen and lead.
Reflect on recent performance. How have you been working? Try to identify burnout symptoms, not berate yourself. Think like a doctor or scientist trying to analyze a problem, so you can solve it. Investigate objectively with optimistic intentions.
Ask for help. A colleague, coach or even a professional counselor can provide fresh perspectives on your situation. Candid feedback when you’re experiencing a problem can clarify your thoughts.
Reaffirm you deserve to be successful. Kick off recovery by rekindling your belief that you deserve a fruitful, enjoyable career. Burnout isn’t “part of the territory” and it’s not permanent. To revive your vitality, begin with a deep re-commitment to your future success.
2. Commit the Time to Heal
Recovery takes time and stamina. To become burned out, it took weeks, months, even years of sustained and repeated stress. It will require substantial time to heal, too. The good news is that small steps build momentum, and intentional healing takes less time than burnout took to seep into your life.
Sustain small efforts for long periods: a few minutes each day, in routines that last weeks (or a lifetime), such as:
Increasing your average sleep time one hour daily (not just on weekends). Learn to unwind before bed by putting away electronic media an hour beforehand.
Increase time at lunch. Stop rushing to eat. No multitasking. Have lunch with someone who will discuss anything other than work or stress-related topics.
Do a single-track activity. Meditation works, but some people prefer active techniques like journalling, singing, playing an instrument, or cooking. These activities require a focused mindset, leaving little room for stressful thoughts to marinate. I use photography (with a full DSLR camera requiring both hands) or reading/listening to a story in a second language which takes full attention.
Physical exercise. It’s great to walk when stress hits, but exercising daily for a month significantly sheds long-term-stress stuck in your body. Stretch, move, lose weight, stand fully upright, and breathe deeper. Joining a team for a season increases your commitment long enough to sweat out the burnout symptoms in your body - and teamwork reconnects you to goals and community.
These activities work if you sustain them for more than a few days. Challenge yourself to make time by inserting burnout-recovery steps directly into your schedule.
3. Apply Your Business Skills
What would you do if your network were offline or sales missed monthly goals? Jump into action with analytical business skills to discover, plan and apply resources to resolve the problem. You can do the same for yourself, too.
Perform a personal analysis on the STRESS AND ANXIETY in your life.
Identify three personal STRENGTHS you can tap into for balance and rejuvenation. Are you typically optimistic, write easily, have a sense of humor, or a good problem solver? Build a list of personal talents you can rely on.
Turn that list of talents into affirmations you can repeat daily.
I am a strong person who sees life’s opportunities.
I am a clear thinker who loves to solve problems.
I can find humor in challenges.
I share valuable information that helps others succeed.Read these strength-based affirmations each morning and evening. Over time, your attitude and self-assurance will steadily recharge.
Find three WEAKNESSES to target. Keep them simple and specific: a poor diet, inability to delegate, or self-doubt that causes worry. Next to each weakness, write down the minimum movement to reduce or eliminate them. Buy healthy pre-made meals, turn your calendar over to your assistant or talk to a coach about doubts. Small progress on weaknesses can replace feelings of disappointment with consistent accomplishment over time.
Seek new OPPORTUNITIES to grow. Focus on things you can do without significant preparation or cost, using skills you currently possess. Add one more conversation with a prospect weekly. Set aside an hour to coach staff. Share training with your salespeople. Learn a new technique you haven’t mastered yet. As you pursue opportunities, your progress starts to squeeze out lingering lack of motivation.
4. Reactivate Your Big Goals
Remember the thrill of becoming a new leader? Big, exciting goals driven by a bold vision for success. Reignite that enthusiasm and optimism by updating your current plans. If they’re not exerting a strong pull on you, recharge them.
Get business bold. Get your team together and assess your strategy. Use recent data, leverage upcoming industry changes and push the limits to regenerate a bold vision that excites your heart and mind.
Go for a quantum leap personally, too. Ask yourself what’s been dormant - stuck beneath stability and safety, while you’ve been suffering from stress? Transform burnout into a breakthrough by releasing your desire for quantum leaps in financial, physical, social and spiritual goals that have been on hold for too long.
📘 Pick up a copy of Dr. Price Pritchett’s book Quantum Leap Strategy for a good push, too.
5. Set stricter boundaries
Recovery won’t matter if you eventually slip back into stress and anxiety. Build a plan to prevent future burnout relapses with stricter boundaries against unhealthy influences.
Keep a stress diary. Get clarity on things that weigh you down. Some are tactical - long days, over-commitment, financial risk, etc. Others may have been hidden beneath symptoms: Overcommitting at work meant missing too many family events. Pursuing the wrong clients meant compromising on important values. A diary makes tangible and intangible stressors visible, so you can be on the lookout and prevent them from seeping back into your life.
Say No more often. Here’s a hard fact: A healthy leader declines the majority of things offered to them, like meetings, projects, committees, and busy-work. They protect their critical contributions against dilution — the most destructive of which is the state of burnout. Many things that look like good opportunities turn out to be stressors in disguise.
Make technology work for you. Keep burnout from recurring by revising your relationship with technology. Explore ways to use technology more effectively - such as voice dictation, AI to generate transcripts of meetings, delegating emails to an assistant, listening rather than reading content, and reducing social media. New tools are wonderful, but staring at screens for every meeting, note, data-point and decision takes a toll physically and mentally on our well-being. Upgrade your hardware, software and soft-skills to create a healthy working environment that supports your rekindled mental state.
Three Powerful Quotes to Rekindle the Mind
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book
“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” – George Lorimer, editor, The Saturday Evening Post
“A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure.” - Unknown
🔗 For additional reading, check out How Burnout Became Normal - and How to Push Back Against It in this month’s Harvard Business Review.
