Burn baby burn! Until we BURNOUT that is! Today’s episode is a topic we all can relate to. The dreaded work burnout… and what a freakin topic and a half it is, right? Why does it feel like we got back from the great pause and boom! Work commitments accelerated like mad and there we are driving full speed down burnout road, where the only thing that will stop us is a brick wall!
Hang on tho, there is no way we are going to let our Clarity Fam take that kind of a road trip! So phew, take a breath and settle in a minute. This episode is here to force us to slow down and think. A reminder that although we all have a tendency to push ourselves a little bit too far day after day, we can’t forget to take time out to take care of ourselves. Our lives really do depend on it.
Burn baby burn! Until we BURNOUT that is! Today’s episode is a topic we all can relate to. The dreaded work burnout… and what a freakin topic and a half it is, right? Why does it feel like we got back from the great pause and boom! Work commitments accelerated like mad and there we are driving full speed down burnout road, where the only thing that will stop us is a brick wall!
Hang on tho, there is no way we are going to let our Clarity Fam take that kind of a road trip! So phew, take a breath and settle in a minute. This episode is here to force us to slow down and think. A reminder that although we all have a tendency to push ourselves a little bit too far day after day, we can’t forget to take time out to take care of ourselves. Our lives really do depend on it.
Barb 0:02
We've talked about self care. And you know whether it's a minute or an hour or a week, how important that is. And we've just this tendency to lose track of that as we start driving down the burnout road. Hi, welcome back to clarity cafe. I'm Barb and I'm here with my clarity sis Callie. And we have a wonderful topic today that was, like many of our topics this season has been a listener requests. So thanks so much for your request, keep them coming. This is a good one, work burnout. Now, if you happen to be one of the people that never is experienced this particular topic, you might want to listen anyway, just in case it ever happens to you. But I think all of us have been here somewhere at some point where we do a lot for other people, and we're trying to do our best job possible. And sometimes we tend to push ourselves maybe a little bit too far day after day, and start forgetting about some of the things we need to do to take care of ourselves. So that we can also be there for other people and for our jobs. In fact, I was seeing a article the other day that was just saying that for some people, work has kind of taken the place of other institutions where we used to, like even religious institutions that we get so attached to our work, and so identified with our work. And it's important to remember and set those boundaries and take care of ourselves in the midst of that so that we can be the best that we can not just at work, but in our personal lives and with ourselves. So let's jump into this topic today. Kelly, what are your What are your thoughts on work burnout today? And how are you feeling?
It's so perfect that this topic came up today for both of us busted is how there's probably a country song in there somewhere.
Cali 2:16
I just have fun because this is like this listener request. We had it on our queue of things to talk about. And so for season five, there's 12 episodes each season as well. So we've just been dutifully going through the. And it turns out that today's work burnout, and so has it always is my mind is gone in five different directions. That's the ADHD part. So let's
Barb 2:44
ADHD people never get burned out by the way.
Cali 2:49
Neuro divergence is a thing. Okay, let me take a step back. First, I was thinking inventory inventory. I was like, Well, let's start talking about what are the main themes that we each individually have that burn us out? And so before I could do that inventory, my ADHD brain said, But wait, what is work? Because we're all at different stages in our lives. And we're doing all of us do different things, work for pay work for volunteer, house work,
Barb 3:25
social work, community work.
Cali 3:31
So then I started inventory, what is work, and then six other thoughts came up. But I thought we might just acknowledge that first of all, we're saying work, burnout can mean any kind of thing. You could be retired, you could be pre your career. There's lots of things that fall in the bucket of work. And so I want to acknowledge that and then I want to say, what are the things that are unique to you, not drive burnout. So I want us all to just like take a deep breath. And recognize that we're gonna go in a little bit and see if we can untangle a knot or
Unknown Speaker 4:13
to get some clarity in there. So, Barb,
Cali 4:17
as I think about my, you know, I'm gonna say what are my top three things that lead to burnout. So I'm gonna, I'm going to queue those up in my mind, and I'd love to ask you the same question. What are the themes? You don't have to say like,
Barb 4:32
people play you know,
Unknown Speaker 4:33
but what are the themes that
Cali 4:35
you find over your lifetime or recent times that wow, when that theme comes up, but I'm riding along with it for too long? Burnout is the destination of the horse I'm on
Barb 4:51
this these roads seem to lead to destination burnout under percent. Yeah, it's such a good inquiry to, to be in and I think The first one that comes up for me is that I have a tendency to think, oh, I can just get that done. Even if someone else could do it. If I know something needs to be done, or I hear something needs to be done, I'll automatically think I'll just get that done. And then I'll get that done. I'll get one more thing. And one more thing. And one more thing. And before I know it, I've now got 15 things that I expectations of myself, that were not the things that I thought I was gonna get done in the next two hours. So some of this is prioritization. And, and also, some of it is just seeing that there's a lot of things I can do and having very high expectations and optimism about how much energy it'll take me to get them done.
Cali 5:50
Yeah, that's so helpful. Yeah, and I have a similar one, oh, I'll just do that. And then I've got all just do that, do that, do that do that. So unrealistic expectations is a piece I might call out as a theme. And a part of that really does come with that ADHD brain. It's that I've joked forever, that I've not developed a working relationship with time, like we know of each other.
Barb 6:24
We heard till, like timelines.
Unknown Speaker 6:28
And it's interesting, because the way
Cali 6:30
that it is for me is it's not that I blow timelines actually, you know, barber, like, if we're going to deliver, we're going to deliver on that date and whatever. It's that I've time dented and time miscalculated. What I've taken on for me, I am great for those people working for me are reporting to me be like, Okay, you got a lot on your plate, let's prioritize and talk about how many hours that's gonna take, what do you think do we need to pull some stuff off. But I find that that attitude that I have, sometimes if I can just get that done, oh, and I'll just knock that out. Means that I've missed, calculated how much time those things are going to take for me. So there's definitely a gap in there, which is natural to ADHD. But also, I just want to call out that the effect of that is you take the expectations, I can just do these things. And the time miscalculation or disconnect, and then, oh, I want to make sure we deliver on time, or we, you know, keep our commitments. That's super important to me. And I think that that then gets into a pretty pressure free. sich.
Barb 7:45
Yeah, technical term, so much pressure, that's a pressure eats it. Yeah, pressure usage. And that pressure on that we put on ourselves, I think, ultimately, is what leads to that feeling of burnout, because it's impossible to meet every single expectation that we set on ourselves. So part of this is Oh, hey, what did we accomplish today, and what's left over for tomorrow? One thing I find helpful is that if there are things that I didn't get done, that I expected myself to do those, those expectations, if I just write them down on a piece of paper, or in the notes on my phone, then I'll say, I'm gonna get to those tomorrow. If I leave them rattling around in my head, that's what I'm going to wake up thinking about. And I'll guarantee you that I haven't got as good arrest if I'm trying to keep track of that list. So for me, it's very, very sort of seems simplistic, but just to the act of recording, it makes me feel like that's the first step to getting it done. And then checking it off. So you know, all the old sort of time management training we had in the corporate gigs about how to prioritize things A, B, and C and write them down on a list and cross them off. There's lots of value in that for me, because then I realized I actually did get a lot done today. And if I didn't get these three things done, I'm gonna get them done tomorrow, because I just put them on the list. Very simple kind of tool. The other thing I was thinking about is that I used to have a lot of suffering around time, and I identified it. And this is years and years ago that I was always expecting myself to be in more than one place at a time. Like I really should be had that should conversation which was shitting all over myself, which is, which is always a sign that you're heading toward burnout. If you're in that word a lot. That's a key word, keep an eye out for that way. Which was like, Oh, I really should be at home, taking care of whatever I'm supposed to be taking care of at home my relationships, you know, The animals, what are the things that I have set for myself at home, but, but I really have all these other things to do at work. And then I have these other things. So the different parts of my life of feeling sort of torn between them. And I remember just making a conscious decision to be like, You know what, I can only be in one place at a time. And if I'm going to be in that place, let me be present in that place. And so that just simple being present in that moment, with a breath, and all the other sort of tips that we have for being present, taking a minute look outside, you know, walk away from your computer, when you feel a little overwhelmed. All of those kind of burnout signs that feeling of overwhelm or anxiety, by just being present, can realize this is what I can get done in this moment. And this is what can I get, I can get done in this next moment. And there shouldn't be, should there's I should again, and there isn't any suffering possible in that because of being present?
Cali 10:58
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's interesting to allow ourselves to inventory, what some of the themes are, that bring us to burnout. And also, I think you've brought up this concept of what I'm going to call like, signs on the road. So if you hear I should, or you see a sign, it says I should, or you're hearing that a lot. That's like a great Ooh, that sign tells me I'm headed towards a burnout road. That's fine. And then, you know, for me to couple of things that have simplified that pressure a staff is one I schedule on my calendar, the time to get those things done. And so if I have a list of stuff similar to you, Barb of writing it down, but for me, what I have to do is put it in the calendar and schedule the time. And label in that time, even if it's time by myself to do the work. If something comes up and I need to reprioritize and trade out, I don't delete that calendar time. I actually move it move it. So I see gosh, I am sure juggling a lot right now. And so that piece and then the other piece is I've really been simplifying by. Okay, there's a lot on my plate. And what is the one thing that if I got done today, like what is the most important thing today? And if I get that done, there may be a second thing, but what's the most important thing now I know, that's difficult with you know, priorities. And you know, so much comes at us. But I mean, one big thing a day, I try to make sure that I make the time first to accomplish that with the energy that I have. So that everything else is an add on. And that's really brought a lot of stress down as we're, we're doing a lot BB, aren't we? And so, the other part about burnout that I think I want to bring up is if you'd asked me 10 years ago, what burnout is, I would have said, well, you know, I run a team of 60 people, I've got this, that and the other going on. And by those, by the way those 60 people are trying to work across an organization of 1000s of people and half the people aren't doing their job that they're trying to get the I've run project and product management. So they you know, they're trying to get other people to do stuff. And they're not necessarily delivering. So it's how to resolve all of that. So there's a lot of different types of stress. And I would have said, you know, gosh, I'm really not enjoying having to work with these departments or aren't doing their work or whatever. In so my focus would have been different now. I love everything I'm doing and guess what? I want to share a secret with our clarity fam. Now Barb, and I sat down to record today. And we just needed to chit chat a little bit, get our vibe going because we're tired, because we're doing a lot of great stuff. But I love everything that we're doing. So burnout doesn't necessarily have to come. Because you're working in projects, or companies or organizations are doing things that are fun like that. That's that's a quicker way to burnout. But you can also get burnt out doing all the fun stuff like a kid at a party. They're getting young, and they go to a party and they're loving it and share it wiped out because they had so much fun. So I wanted to share that perspective of burnout, it doesn't imply that you're not enjoying what you're doing. 100% 100%
Barb 14:32
Absolutely. In fact, I think there's a tendency for both of us at the stages of our lives where we've, you know, been through various things as you were talking about in corporate environments. I wish that this was different, or I wish that this were different. We've manifested that we're doing all these amazing things. I personally, everything I'm doing I love which makes a whole new set of challenges because everything's a really high priority because I love doing it and he And I love the fact that today, both of us were feeling a little burned out a little tired. And we gave ourselves the space to sit and have a little personal clarity Cafe time, and then say, Hey, is it time to record a podcast? Awesome, let's do that, because it's something that we love. And it's an honest, authentic conversation to have, because everybody gets to this point, at some point in time, we were just, you know, demanding of ourselves, we live in a very sort of demanding culture, I think. And as a high performance person that really cares about other people, you want to do things for other people, all of those things that we that we love to do, if we have a, you know, a friend or a loved one that has, you know, a health issue and that we didn't anticipate. So now that adds to our plate, we're obviously going to take care of that. And we kind of imagine we can juggle all those things, and then suddenly realize, oh, I need a little time to myself, I need a little break, I need to take a I need to take a walk, I need to take an afternoon off, I need to take a weekend off. Whatever those things are, there's so many ways we can, you know, we've talked about self care, and you know, whether it's a minute or an hour or a week, how important that is. And, you know, with this, this tendency to lose track of that as we start driving down the burnout road. So keeping an eye out for that feeling of like catching ourselves before we're at the point of, okay, I really can't do anything. Now, that's a lot a lot harder to recover from that. I do want to point out one thing that happened this week that I found particularly amusing that we were talking about putting things on the calendar, and I actually found myself doing that as well putting important items on my calendar so that I, they acknowledge that I'm going to make time for that. And sort of those of us who spend have a lot of projects, and we kind of live by our calendars in many ways. If our calendar ever goes awry, it can lead to some amusing things that happen. And that might have happened to us this week. It happened to us. Yes, because we realized yesterday that while we had a lot of meetings scheduled for this week with each other for various projects, that our calendar showed those meetings at entirely totally different times, not just an hour off, not just like, Oh, that's not Hawaiian time isn't that funny, but completely randomly distributed all over the place. So anyway, that was a really fun, kind of fun part of the week,
Cali 17:40
it was so fun. I was thinking about how to unwind from burnout. And there's so many I mean, my gosh, you could just search that and find so much information. But I wanted to talk personally about for me, I absolutely love to go travel around in the motorhome and go see new things and spend time in nature and spend time with my dogs. And that's how I am able to unplug and relax and obviously doing guided visualizations a ton. But rather than that I wanted to focus on spending time with others when we're burnt out in like work specifically as traditionally defined as work. And I think it's important because I want to just touch on social experiences as healing experiences. So when we are in a traditional work setting, we may have to socialize if you will, or be around a lot of people. And it can take a lot of effort because those roles and responsibilities are these constructs. And this way of being this masking that we go through to survive and make a living and all of those trade offs. But what I find in our day in our lives now is that sometimes it can make it difficult for us to go and want to have the energy to connect with the people that we really vibe with our friends, our family, you know those easier spaces and and be like, Well, I really was gonna go do that. But I'm just too tired. I can't and I want to encourage us to set our friendships specifically in a vibe where we can show up however we are we don't have to be in a valence. We don't have to be acting or pretending that everything's okay or that we're not tired. And I think that the reason in the gym of this whole podcast for me is the reason that we're here and then Barb and I weren't just like I'm tired. Let's do it another day. Is that coming to spend time with our clarity fam and with each other? is a way that gives back It brings us more energy, it's this beautiful virtuous cycle of being able to spend time together and raise each other's vibe by just being where we were at. And in the beginning was very, we were very tired. And because we have that relationship, and with our clarity fam, we're just who we are, we're not putting on a valence, we're not being anything other than who we are, it's a pretty effort, less space to be in. And because of that, showing up and being present becomes a healing for us, and a revitalization, right, rather than a drain. So I just want to encourage those of you who are finding that you're stealing from your social time off of work, because you're so exhausted with how you have to be in that environment socially at work, I encourage you to kind of shift it so that it's effortless to spend that recharge time with people not at work.
Barb 20:59
Wow, really glad that you put that that way, Kelly gave me a great visualization of pulling up to a charging station, you know, and, and being able to just kind of effortlessly plug in, and how that was what that felt like, like I was kind of read a little bit low, I just kind of slid in here, plugged into this charger over here, didn't didn't have any expectations or demands. But you know, within 1015 minutes, I was like, hey, yeah, let's do a podcast. And so that's what like really happened is it it really is we're like our phones or you know, our car batteries or whatever else, we have lots of energy that we give ourselves through, you know, sleep and food and exercise and, and happy and social, you know, and don't forget about those things, because they're such an important part like it the blue zones around the world where people live, you know, happy long lives, the social part is always such a critical piece of that just those moments of sitting together, watching the sun, go down and enjoy a snack or just having a laugh, sharing a giggle, can be so rejuvenating. And as you say, effortless. And let's spend time with those people in those situations that give you that vibe and give you that energy. And that's a good way to evaluate relationships too. Do you feel drained? Or do you feel rejuvenated? Select for the ones that make you feel good.
Cali 22:26
I don't think we could have ended that podcast any
Unknown Speaker 22:28
better. That's it, right?
Barb 22:31
Yeah. So let's all select for each other and, and help each other feel good. So wonderful, really enjoyed exploring this topic. And I feel a little more energy now than I did when we started. So thank you for that, Callie.
Unknown Speaker 22:46
Thank you, Barb. And thank you clarity, fam.
Barb 22:50
We appreciate you and love this topic. Thank you so much for all the listeners suggestions. We're going to continue to work our way through those in the next few podcasts. And, you know, give us some more we really appreciate all your comments. We appreciate all your feedback, your followers, your shares. We're working on getting our merch store to have even more good options. So check that out as well. And thanks so much for everything we'll look forward to. to hearing from you. However you want to communicate with us.
Cali 23:20
We'd love you.
Barb 23:22
Take what works for you leave the rest and be well