360 ~ Is "Burning Out" A Real Thing?

your energy needs protecting this year...

join me for this episode where we explore whether burnout is real, why loving your work doesn’t make you immune, and how rest can be intelligent rather than lazy. 

overview:
• defining burnout as energy depletion, not a moral failure
• debunking the “you’re not a candle” argument
• aligning work with values while holding boundaries
• recognizing early signs of exhaustion and responding
• building a whole life: friends, family, nature, hobbies
• using short, focused work windows and real downtime
• choosing listening over extremes and drama
• reframing burnout as a normal signal to pause

you are human & you naturally need to recharge

never be ashamed to rest

love, Madison Mindset x

Chapters

• 0:00 Is Burnout Real
• 0:55 Energy, Alignment, And Misconceptions
• 3:12 Rest As Intelligence: Lessons From Cats
• 5:20 When Passion Becomes Exhaustion
• 7:07 Whole-Life Balance Beats Overwork
• 9:12 A Softer Take On Burnout
• 11:20 Choose Listening Over Extremes
• 16:35 Gratitude And Review Request

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Is burning out a real thing? I've recently heard a lot of people talking about burnout. Some people are really burnout. Other people are saying things like, you're not a candle, so how do you burn out? Let's actually talk about it. Is burning out a real thing? Should we keep an eye out for signs of burnout in our life, or should we ignore it completely? What a beautiful topic. This is a short episode just to talk about burnout because it's been something that has is not an it's not a new thing. I've read about burnout, I've heard about burnout. I could say I felt like I've burnt out in my life, and I've heard of other people burning out, but recently it's kind of come up in the state of either burnout is definitely real, or is it perhaps not a real thing? I have heard people describe burnout to be something that is just not possible because the biggest example I've seen is, you know, you're not a candle. You know, and there's other there's other, you know, ways of explaining this as well, but that's just the one that made me go, hmm, true, but I'm not a candle. How do I burn out? Makes a lot of sense. However, you as a human being have energy, right? You are energy. Your whole state of being is energy. You can convert energy, you can manifest energy, you can change frequency, you can connect with the frequency and the energy of others, and you can change the frequency of the energy of the planet. You know, but you know what? There's also tiredness and running out of that go-go energy, which we've all felt. Have you got to the end of the night and literally worried about how you're gonna get yourself off the couch to the bathroom and then to bed? You've literally run out of energy. I mean, to some level, kind of feels like being a burnt-out candle. That's completely real. I think there's a lot of misconception with burning out. You know, the real idea of, you know, you're not a candle, how can you burn out? When I've found things that, you know, people are saying something like that, like burnout's not a real thing, it's usually to do with the fact that if you're in alignment with your job, you know, in your life, if you're doing things that you genuinely love, then you're not going to burn out. Right? If you really love your job, then doing it every day is like a holiday. Doing it every day is like the best thing in your life. And it's not a lie. You know, I tell you what, you have a lot more energy for the things that you love than the things that you don't, right? But that's because your heart's aligned with it and your energy naturally flows to it. But that doesn't mean that you won't burn out, right? I mean, you need a break. You need time to refill your cup, you need time to cleanse your energy, to revitalize your energy. You need downtime, you need time where you're not moving.

unknown: 3:25

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 3:26

You need time where you're relaxing. I mean, look at cats. I love cats, you know, I think they're great. I don't know if a fan of having them in the house, but I've had them in the house since I was a kid. And they sleep most of the day. They're the world's most powerful animal, you know, and I say that from just like looking at how cleverly their bodies move and how smart they are. And, you know, cats are unbelievably cool. You know, they're really cool. Even the domestic ones, you know, they're just they're super strong, super awesome, their body works beautifully, they're quite intelligent beings, right? They sleep for most of the day. And then there's this short period of time where they allow themselves to exert energy, to move, to play, to, you know, go hunting in the case of a cat, you know, to go and achieve their goal of, you know, catching whatever it is, and then they return to sleep. Right? Would you say that a cat is lazy? No. That's just their nature. It's their nature. It's the way that they preserve energy, it's the way that they help heal their body. You know, we've lived on a farm, my whole life I've lived on a farm, and I had a beautiful cat, he passed a few years ago, but he used to bring brown snakes home for us. Now, if anyone who's not Australian, I don't know if brown snakes are anywhere else in the world, but brown snakes are very, very poisonous. If you get bitten by one, they say you've got about five, ten minutes until that's it, right? Very toxic. If they bite you, if they bite your dog, you know, pretty freaking bad, really bad. And my cat used to pick them up, and he used to have them dangling from his mouth, and he'd drop them at the door. And I used to watch these snakes flick up, bite him in the face, and then just fall back down. He was bitten by snakes two or three times in his lifetime. Two or three times. Now, the first time he was bitten by a snake, we didn't see it. And we let him inside and he was a little bit docile. He wasn't quite himself, so we're like, hmm, keep an eye on it. By the time we got home in the afternoon, he was paralyzed on the floor. And we thought he was paralyzed. What he was actually doing was saving his energy. He is incredibly intelligent, right? He knew that he had been bitten by this thing, and the best way for him to survive is not to run around like a crazy person, not to go, oh I got bitten by a snake, I was bitten by a snake. You know, don't do that. He knew that you lie still and do nothing. And it was actually sh apparently, I can't fact-check this, I don't know, but I have heard, because my father is Aboriginal and I I love it. I love being connected to the Aboriginal community in Australia, but apparently, Aboriginal people, if they got bitten by snakes, they would lie down under a tree and stay there for days. And people would bring food and water to them and they would live, right? But in this day and age, we get bitten by a brown snake, you've got to do all the all the first aid, get to the hospital, they give you the anti-venom, and then you're fine. Which, thank goodness for modern medicine, right? It definitely saves lives. But that was how Aboriginal people dealt with it. They didn't have anti-venom. They just lay down on the ground, stay there, and your lymph system literally fixes everything, right? And again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, I don't understand how this works. I'm just sharing with you what I have learnt and what I have seen my cat do, right? Lie down on the ground, don't move. And when we took him to the vet, it had been so long since he'd been bitten that they couldn't give him an anti-venom. They just had to give him a drip and hope that he rehydrated and came through, and he did. He saved himself. And he had been bitten so many times that we couldn't, when we took him to the vet, they said that we literally cannot give you any more anti-venom. We just have to put him on a drip and hope that at last, and he pulled through every single time. One of the most poisonous snakes in Australia, and he kept pulling through. That's smart. It takes intelligence to sit down and take a break sometimes. Sometimes that is the most productive thing you can do. And I tell you what, I love my job. I love my work, I love being a yoga teacher, I love, you know, working as a mindset coach and doing these podcasts and making music. I love it. I can't see myself doing anything else, but I can tell you right now, I have most definitely got to the end of my tether with it sometimes. If I create a life where literally all I do is work, and I have had these situations, you know, teaching yoga from 6 a.m. till 7:30 p.m., the breaks in between are filled with podcasting and coaching and eating when I can. And I have literally no hours for myself, I can tell you right now that I don't love podcasting or coaching anymore. I don't love teaching yoga anymore because I've run out of energy for it. I need to rejuvenate. I need to refill my own cup. I need to sort myself out. I need to attend to other things because you have other things in your life. Right? You have friends, you have family, you know, you you might have a partner, you might have kids, you know, there's self-care to consider, you know, there's sorting out your physical environment, there's exploring, being outside, being in nature. There's so many other things to be doing than just the thing that you keep doing, right? I don't think it's healthy to do one thing too much. I've seen that in my life, I've done it myself. I've had family members who are big go-getters, and that's all they focus on, and they completely lose purpose in other areas of their life. Do you have a hobby? If you don't have a hobby, that's a problem. It's a problem. You've got to have fun. You know, you've got to have fun. I watched this incredible documentary, which is it's quite old, so you might have seen it, but it's called the Blue Zones or something, something like that. It's about the people who live the longest in the world. And literally all of those people, they do not work themselves to the bone. They have purpose, they definitely work hard, but they work hard for like four or five hours in the day, and then they have fun and they relax and they take naps. And those are the people in the world who are living the longest. They focus on community, on family, on connection. Those are the people who are living the longest in the world. So to me, that is more than enough evidence that you should not be working yourself to the bone. I don't care how much you love your job. I'm in love with my job. But when I don't have any more energy for it, I hate it. You are a complex being, okay? Like and hate, love and hate, very close quarters. Okay, in the morning you can love working out, can't wait to work out. And then when you, you know, before you go, you just don't want to work out. Oh, I hate working out. Oh, I love this job, oh, I'm so tired, I hate this job. You know, and have you ever had an experience where you get obsessed about a certain type of food? Like, for example, I've been really into rice paper rolls or summer rolls, whatever you call them. I love them. I ate them all the time. I'm obsessed with them. I'm making them, I'm ordering them. And then I get sick of it. Really sick of it. Can't look at another one. What's with that? It's because I'm complex. It's not that simple. You know, you go through seasons and cycles and things change and your priorities and your values change. You've got to allow yourself to flow. So is burnout a real thing? I think it is a real thing, but it doesn't mean you're broken. You know, so many people advertise burning out, and they say they're burnt out as if they've hit rock bottom and now they've got to climb their way back up. I don't think it's that dramatic. You know, I don't think it's that dramatic. You know, when you go to the gym, you burn out, right? When you're with family or dinners and things like that, do you not burn out and just you're ready to go home now? You know, when a candle burns out, when the wick goes out, is that a horrible thing? No. You can just switch it back on. Get a flame and ignite your candle again. Give it a rest. Or refresh it. Get a new candle, light that candle, and it'll burn again. You'll always burn again. But if you are so tired that you can't move, that you're mentally exhausted, and that you you know you just need to take care of yourself, all you need to do is listen. You will not burn out if you're listening to yourself. You know? I'm doing four or five hours of work today, and then I'm gonna stop thinking about it, I'm gonna move on with my life. But it's taking me a long time to learn how to do that. Right? So, no, you're not a candle. So technically, no, you can't physically burn out, but what about solar plexus chakra? That is fire, that is a flame, and I've seen that flame go out in people, and I've seen it burn way too bright. Okay? Burning out is a real thing, but it's not as dramatic as you might think. It's actually quite normal. We don't want to hit rock bottom with our energy. If you've been working hard for 10 years, you've never once taken a day off or listened to yourself, you've never done anything you like or developed any hobbies, you spend no time with friends or family, then yeah, it makes sense that you feel pretty rotten after all that. But if you're listening to yourself, and every day you're taking care of yourself, you're spending time nurturing your relationships, laughing, moving. That's a whole life. Your whole life is not work. Do you really want to get to the end of your life and go, well, I worked 24-7, worth it? It doesn't matter what kind of work you're doing. The work I do is about trying to help others, and that is incredibly soul-nourishing. But if I don't help myself first, then what use am I gonna be in helping others? I'm not gonna be strong enough to carry others. I don't care what your work is. If you had a doctor, you know, if you had someone perform a surgery on you, or you're gonna go to a doctor and ask them some questions, or you're gonna go to the dentist, or an accountant, or a lawyer, would you want them to be working 24-7? Might be handy, you might get some extra appointments here and there, really easy to book in. But are they gonna be mentally there? Of course not. You want your doctor to have had a good night's sleep, to have eaten some good food, you know, to feel pretty good about themselves. You want them to be pretty, you know, grounded, steady, energetic energy. 100% you want that. As if you want a doctor who hasn't had a day off in 20 years to perform a surgery on you. No way. No way. I wouldn't want that. So with this whole big thing where everyone's talking about burnout, especially at the end of the year. There's a lot of books, there's a lot of people talk about, oh, how to not burn out, or you know, are you at the state of burning out? Stay grounded with it. All right? It's not there's no such thing as burnout, and everyone's burnt out. It's not extreme. I would encourage you to return to the word listen. Listen to yourself, go with the flow, be present, do one thing at a time, and make sure you're living a whole life. Make sure you're nourishing every part of your life. And if one part of your life is lacking, maybe you've got no friends, or you don't have someone to share your life with, or you don't feel like your environment is very nourishing, or that your food's been nourishing. If something's been lacking, give more attention to that. We are our happiest when we are complete, when we are whole, when we are paying attention to the whole picture, not just work. And in this current world where everyone's promoting work and business and side hustles and all these things, it takes great strength to sit down and slow down. So that is my take on burning out, and I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it gave you some insight and maybe helped you balance out some of the extreme views of burning out or not burning out. Take care of yourself. That's the ultimate lesson. Take care of yourself, listen to you, and you'll have an infinite supply of energy. If you don't take care of yourself and you don't listen to yourself, you might run out. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave a rating or a review on the platform that you listen to this podcast through. You are helping me reach new people, you are helping spread this love, and I appreciate you for that. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you in the next episode.