Burnout Recovery

Ep#165 Powertool #10 Get Your Mojo Back

• Dex Randall • Season 3 • Episode 165

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When you feel smashed and hopeless in burnout, the last thing you imagine is that your mojo will come roaring back along with your energy. Yet it does, no matter what career stage you are at. 

Your passion is not dead, and when you tame your schedule and start taking exceptional care of yourself at work - as you can learn to do by practising the previous 9 Powertools in this series - it's on for young and old!!

​​​​​​​So, do you want your mojo back??
Discover how in this episode.

Show Notes:
Join 10 Burnout Recovery Powertools FREE at https://go.dexrandall.com/power for all resources and exercises

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[00:00:00] Dex: Hi everyone, my name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello my friends, here we are again, another day, another podcast episode. This is Dex, and what we're on to today is Power Tool number 10 from the Burnout Recovery Power Tool series. And as usual, I've saved the best till last. All the power tools I've shared up until now lead you to this point. So welcome to this week's episode on getting your mojo back from the depths of burnout.

[00:00:49] The central issue probably for anybody in burnout, getting your mojo back. And I define this as returning to your energy and passion at work. Specifically, stimulating creativity, top performance, engagement, leadership, problem solving, confidence, and healthy ambition at work. And being happy and harmonious with your life partner and family, friend circle, church, community.

[00:01:23] I think they go hand in hand really. So here's a question to ask yourself. If you had your mojo back, what would change for you? And think here about your work, your enthusiasm, working with your boss and colleagues, your patients or clients. Think about how you'd rest and play, sleep and of course wake up in the morning.

[00:01:48] Think about your physical, mental, spiritual, social and emotional well being. Think about your life outside work. And now go back and remember a time when you felt energized, not jaded. Remember having exciting projects to get your teeth into. Remember the fun you've had, excitement and adventure. Doesn't matter from when in your life.

[00:02:15] Remember when you enjoyed being you and remember enjoying the company of others, because thinking about all of those things gives you a target, a goal to aim for in burnout recovery. And if you like a stick to measure your progress by, and I promise you, if that was painful for you to think of those times, when you've enjoyed yourself, when you felt better, those aspects of you might be buried, but they are not dead.

[00:02:44] This episode is going to guide you to get your mojo back. We'll investigate why you feel broken, how you perpetuate that myth of failure with your self talk, and the principles that will guide you through to recovery. As you listen, see if any space opens up for you between the way you've been perceiving your life, your work, people, the world, and how it might be in the future.

[00:03:13] Because maybe a little twinkle of hope will flare up. Listen with fresh ears and simply observe if your inner critic leaps to extinguish that flicker of hope, that heresy to the ego. Because if you notice that, if you notice that little twinkle of hope, this is really good news. Even if you shut it down and deny it, because you're waking up.

[00:03:40] So take heart. That is the real you. Welcome back. And up until my own burnout in 2017, I personally believed that once a person or an animal's spirit is broken, it cannot be mended. A sad belief, really. But that thought contributed a great deal to my despair and burnout. I felt doomed. I couldn't access a future that was better.

[00:04:08] Because I've seen animals, I'm sure you have too, with their spirits broken. Psychotic bears in cages. Ancient ponies walking humans around indoor schools. Dogs routinely beaten, starved, and chained up. Do you feel a bit like them? I did. I was playing a game I couldn't win. I experienced shame at my very core about the person that I had become.

[00:04:35] Not good enough. Unacceptable. Unwanted. Unlovable. And, I'd had help as a kid arriving at that self view. And if you can relate, I guess you did too? But shame, a feeling which relates to our sense of intrinsic unworthiness, for which there is no apparent cure, is based on fiction. The inaccurate and baseless story that we're not a good enough human is inherited.

[00:05:08] It belongs to our forebears. who, trying their best to protect us from failure in life, in fact to protect us from the way they felt during their life, they tell us we're not good enough, to stimulate our growth. Implying, if you like, that we need to pull our socks up, but giving us no avenue to do that.

[00:05:32] And that's where I think the broken spirit comes in. A creature's spirit breaks when it understands itself to be permanently and incurably inadequate and unacceptable. Incapable of creating a satisfying life for itself. A broken spirit is a loss of hope, that one can be respected and valued, worthy of belonging and care.

[00:05:57] And I think burnout is an expression of this. How about you? So let's say this is true. If we don't feel worthy and shame flows in our blood, then our spirits too will break. Despair is the natural consequence and so too are all the symptoms of burnout. But if you've ever heard tales of unlikely redemption, resurgence against all odds, you will know that a broken spirit can be mended.

[00:06:26] Remission from cancer is perhaps a redemption experience we can relate with. Or something like rehabilitation of African child soldiers, another big one for me. It's within our human capabilities to declare who we are going to be, because already we are who we tell ourselves we are. So to a large extent, we are our stories and beliefs, particularly our limiting beliefs.

[00:06:53] We become what we focus on. If we decide we're going to be survivors, we stop submitting. We stop being a victim. We decide to grow stronger. And instead of focusing on what's wrong, we now give all our energy to being in the solution. We focus on the future we want to create. I believe, therefore, we can transcend our suffering.

[00:07:17] Because if that didn't work, then the placebo effect would not exist. And bear in mind that many studies show the placebo effect to constitute up to 70 percent of healing. So does that mean faith healing works? I leave that to you to decide. But surely, then, our human spirit can return to life as an intention to heal.

[00:07:44] And if you can, dig deep for that intention in you. Ask yourself, How can I heal burnout? What do I have to do to move towards healing? And what do I have to stop doing that's keeping me stuck or making things worse? Because I now believe a broken spirit can heal. When it came down to the wire, I healed my own.

[00:08:06] And I've also healed from a heart attack, when they thought they were going to lose me. And from a road accident, when they told me I'd be lucky to walk again. And by the way, my normal beach run now is 10k. I've recovered beyond medical expectations so many times in my life. Because really, what they tell us is often a worst case scenario.

[00:08:31] What we receive from the outside world is not fact. But I think, one of my best wins was recovering from burnout. And I'm not a special snowflake. I am in one way quite determined, but probably you are too, right? But I'm also at times weak and defeatist.

[00:08:49] I'm not a superhero, but I really do understand now how burnout recovery works. What the dynamics of recovery are, what problems need solving in order to transcend burnout. And happily, because I understand that, I can teach you if you'd like. Even though you might now be miserable, exhausted, overburdened and demotivated, you can have your mojo back

[00:09:17] at any time. That passion still lies within you, dormant, waiting for the sun to shine. And you probably think the sun is outside of you and should shine on you until you bloom again. But the reason you've waited so long in torpor and despair, if you are in burnout, the reason you haven't emerged until now is that the sun is actually inside you.

[00:09:42] The sun must shine from the inside in order for you to have unconditional happiness, peace, energy, and fulfillment. You are your own source of wonder. But life, of course, has taught you to ignore that. It's taught you that external forces determine your worth, your worthiness, how much you deserve to thrive.

[00:10:06] This is inaccurate. You are, and always have been, at a fundamental, irreducible level, worthy of having your needs met. Of taking up space in this world. Of expressing your true nature. There's only one you. You're not who you are by accident, but by design. So you can deliver your unique potential, and take your rightful place in the scheme of things.

[00:10:34] Although, you may well have spent years, decades, probably, trying to guess what others want from you and to meet their needs. But all you ever had to do was be unapologetically you. In your quest to please others, always doomed to failure, you've squashed your own needs and shut down probably whole departments of yourself that were necessary, vital even, to your personal evolution and thriving.

[00:11:05] But also to delivering that full potential you possess out into the world. You compromised who you are to gain acceptance, but you still didn't get enough to fill the hole of your need. That dopamine hit of approval was each time painfully transient. It's a bit like eating the first chocolate cookie from a pack is never enough.

[00:11:30] But the real enduring solution is to be unapologetically, unreservedly you. Offering yourself all the compassion, care, approval and love you always wanted. However your life plays out. However being you plays out. Because really, the only place there's an unlimited supply of self approval is inside of you.

[00:11:55] But that approval that is inside you, you can tap into at any time. It's a free resource that's always available once you connect with it, once you learn how to connect with it. Because really, truly, people do need you to be you. You're going to relax more as you, and you're going to be more delightful to be around.

[00:12:17] No more walking on eggshells. If people currently seem to reject or judge you, seeing your weakness and exploiting your vulnerability, really it reflects the exact same deficiency in them that you suffer from. What they say or do is never really about you. They're just trying to massage their world so that they can belong and feel okay.

[00:12:44] It's a strategy that didn't work for you and it's not going to work for them either. Most of the world is locked into this ego driven battle to be right, to feel in control, to be accepted, to rise into some invincible elite position where they finally feel powerful and safe. Each person is doomed to failure in this impossible task.

[00:13:06] It's a mirage. Nothing external can protect you from life or from yourself. Our culture naturally stimulates this egoic infighting because it weakens us, it makes us malleable, and it saps our commitment to creating a more loving, supportive, engaged community. And today I invite you to reverse that, to be part of the solution for you, your work, your family, the wider community.

[00:13:38] Because when you recover from burnout yourself, the scales are going to fall from your eyes in indefinable ways that you can't yet see. You're going to fall in love with life again, with people, with possibility. It will awaken your desire to extend compassion and support to yourself first, but then to others who suffer unbearably alongside you.

[00:14:02] You're simply going to cheer up, feel more positive emotion, and see the world through a different lens. You might find people quite a bit less threatening and you'll enjoy working with them at a deeper level. It might sound a bit unfeasible to you right now, might sound a bit unlikely, but really it's the transformation available to anyone who dedicates themself to transcending their burnout.

[00:14:29] You can ask any of my clients who've been on this journey. And here's how you might experience that as it's rolling out and as you start to feel better. You're basically going to drop cynicism, victimhood, judgment, resentment, the sense that life is unfair. You're going to stop the war that you're waging on life, in favor of an open and caring heart, that sees the good in people, so you become willing to believe in, engage with, support, have compassion and empathetic joy for, the people around you.

[00:15:07] You will more fluently and naturally manage any negativity that pops up in you. Negative thoughts, beliefs, feelings, judgments, and of course moods. Things like violence, temper outbreaks, sulking, withdrawal, demotivation, complaint, blame, backstabbing, compulsion, and of course anxiety. You will naturally start to give yourself grace and diffuse all of those bombs before they go off.

[00:15:40] We can't eliminate negativity, but we can manage it much more elegantly. And besides all of that, being you is gonna seem like more fun. You'll get the twinkle back in your eye. Life just won't get you down when you stop taking what happens so personally. A lightness of spirit and a sense of humor will return.

[00:16:02] So, the story of Burnout Recovery is about you learning that it's safe and enjoyable to open your heart. Which allows you to plug back into the trust and the milk of human kindness. To see what I see as the basic goodness of the universe. When you can brush off human dysfunction, take it with a pinch of salt, you're going to see this goodness anew.

[00:16:28] The unquenchable richness that you can then contact in those tiny moments where you delight in a sunrise or a puppy or the smile of a child. And you can look back in early life, it might be true that your caregivers didn't meet all of your childhood attachment needs. And, feeling vulnerable, your young heart closed.

[00:16:52] You might have learned little then about human bonding, trust, and intimacy. If your confidence, self support, and self esteem struggled, you might have become a compensatory high achiever, demanding, but a bit emotionally shut down, which really results for you in a sense of alienation, lack of belonging, avoidant behavior, low capacity for intimacy, distrust of others,

[00:17:21] frequent triggering and all the other symptoms of burnout. Yet your desire to protect yourself through exemplary performance, it just doesn't work, does it? You need safety from other people, yet you're not giving it. And probably you distrust any that's offered anyway. That time is gone. That's old news.

[00:17:45] Anytime you now feel something like, Inadequate, Insecure, Vulnerable Ashamed, Guilty, Anxious. And you react to that with fear and aversion, you can simply sit back and be the observer and notice that your body is temporarily in an unconscious memory from that earlier time. It's not something that's happening now.

[00:18:12] So returning to your body, your breath in the present moment is a way to notice that the memory is just that. It's not real now and it doesn't need to collapse you now into fear and doubt and withdrawal. The antidote to burnout in short is love and authenticity, acceptance and self compassion. It's the goodness you have.

[00:18:37] You've got plenty of all of those in your heart right now, but in burnout you're probably not connected to it. You're probably blind to it because really most of your attention is focused on threat avoidance. Pain avoidance. Your antennae are a mile long, but they're only scanning for threat and attack.

[00:18:57] It's life in the red zone, right? So that's all your antennae are picking up. And although you're seeking reassurance from outside, no amount of reassurance sticks. You can't really afford to let your guard down. War on anxiety that's happening inside you is running on preemptive strikes, not really waiting to see if things are going to turn out.

[00:19:21] So, all of that , is not to blame anybody. It's not to blame you. It's not to blame your parents. It's not to blame anyone else. It's just when I'm talking about all of those things, if you can relate to that in yourself, I really want you to know that there's another way to live that is accessible to you.

[00:19:38] I don't want you to blame or criticize yourself for ending up in this place. Because really, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of that is the societal influence these days. But I just wanted to mention that I'm rereading a rather helpful book that you too may be able to relate with called The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan.

[00:19:59] It's really about creating happiness from a wanting heart. Because what most of us do when we're under stress is we seek extrinsic happiness, whilst ignoring the fountain of happiness that we can create ourselves, once we're able to invest belief in a better future. A little bit chicken and egg. If we choose to see the future as rosy, we will pour good energy into making it so.

[00:20:29] If we see the future as Armageddon, same! Which is probably what's happening now in burnout. Self fulfilling prophecy. But in that book, The Gap and the Gain, it talks about some strategies for helping yourself switch from the gap, what's missing and wrong in my life, to the gain, what's great and good in my life already, and that I can build on to create a better future.

[00:20:52] So burnout recovery really is this, consciously switching our focus away from threat, and towards thriving. And it's giving up the endless striving and strain, and coming home to inhabit our full and loving heart. This is what mends our spirits. Cultivating new habits of what we think, what we scan for, what we perceive, and therefore what we feel and achieve.

[00:21:23] We can offer ourselves the acceptance, support and nourishment we need without hanging out wondering where the next little bit's coming from. We can learn how to open the tap and keep the goodness flowing. I can't really describe it in any other way than that. And that might only resonate with you as a distant mirage, but it's far more real than the way you're living now, if you're in burnout.

[00:21:51] It's far more true. It's how you're meant to be living. It's your birthright. It's a resource that you may not have dared to connect with, but still can. It's really your mojo, waiting right back there where you left it, waiting to be claimed. And I can help you incrementally reconnect with your heart and all that's good about you, so you start feeling safe enough to deploy that wonderful energy back out into the world.

[00:22:21] This process really restores a sense of confidence, resilience, and comfort to be in the world and also boosts enormously your enjoyment of the game. So that's what I have for you today. Don't miss next week's episode, Bringing It All Together. It's about where to from here. With your newfound knowledge through this series and that little nibble of hope, what can happen?

[00:22:46] How can you make all of this happen for you? How can you attract it to you right now, so you can enjoy your year, your career, your family, your future? Stop being old you. It really is time, if you're listening to this, to upgrade your life. And this can happen through coaching in under three months. Of course, you don't have to believe me, but if you're curious, come and talk to me for free, and let's make a plan for you to recover quickly and sustainably, and get back to your best performance,

[00:23:17] leadership, success, and most of all enjoyment, inside work and out. You can book an appointment at DexRandall. com. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me reach more people in burnout by rating and reviewing the podcast and sharing this podcast with your friends. Thank you for listening. Catch you next time. 

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Dex Randall

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