178 - You’re Not Burnt Out. You’re Under-Recovered.

Most people who think they’re burnt out aren’t actually burnt out. They’re under-recovered.

In this episode of the Getting After It Podcast, we break down why burnout is so often misdiagnosed—especially for men—and how exhaustion, under-fueling, lack of rest, and emotional overload can make everything in life feel wrong.

When you’re under-recovered:

• The work you once loved feels pointless
• Discipline starts to feel heavy instead of grounding
• Motivation disappears
• Quitting feels like the only option

But making permanent decisions while operating in recovery debt is dangerous.

Using endurance training as a metaphor, we explore the difference between true burnout and depletion, why rest alone isn’t always enough, and how intentional recovery—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—can restore clarity before you walk away from something meaningful.

This episode is especially relevant for:

• Men dealing with quiet burnout or emotional detachment
• Runners and athletes pushing without proper recovery
• High performers who feel stuck, flat, or disconnected
• Anyone considering quitting something they once cared deeply about

Before you stop… Before you quit… Recover first. Then decide.

Keep Getting After It.

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I hope today’s episode sparked something within you to pursue your dreams and unlock your true potential. If you found value in it, consider sharing it with someone who might need that same push.

Getting After It is for those who. want to silence their self-doubt. Refuse to be owned by comfort. Understand their limits are man-made and breakable. We live in a time of constant comparison. Social media drowns us in highlight reels and overnight success stories. But what most people don’t see is the grit behind it all. The reps. The quiet mornings. The sacrifices. The failures.

You are just getting started. Keep Getting After It. 

Transcript

Underrecovery vs Burnout

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most people who think they're burnt out, they're actually not burnt out at all. Most people are constantly running in a deficit they've been ignoring for far too long. And the dangerous part is this when you're underrecovered, everything starts to feel like it's the wrong choice. The job feels wrong, the training feels pointless, the discipline feels heavy. Even the things you once loved start to feel like obligations rather than hobbies, activities, or like I said, something that you actually used to enjoy but now don't. And that's tough. That's when people make permanent decisions based on temporary depletion. Today I want to talk about why burnout is often misdiagnosed, especially for men, and why recovery isn't quitting. It's part of the work. Welcome back to the Get and After podcast, my friends. Happy to have you here as always. It's uh my favorite time of the week where I get to sit here and talk about things that I'm learning that hopefully are helpful to you and give you a little bit of insight onto how you can uh succeed in your goals. Uh maybe take some insight to deal with some of the pain that you're going through now. But today's episode is called You're Not Burnt Out. You're under recovered. Now, Brett, why would you do this? Why would you talk about something like this? Uh it's kind of sounds like you're you're pulling the weak, the weak stuff, right? Like you're trying to talk about how it's important to recover rather than to push through the pain, to be more disciplined and to actually get it done. Yeah, that's what that's what I used to believe. I used to believe that that's what you needed to do. You needed to just dig deep. You needed to put yourself out there and continue pushing, even when everything inside you is telling you that that is not the right move. So this is a conversation I wish men more men heard before they walked away from the good things in their lives. Because, you know, it's we know the word burnout a lot. It's thrown around, it's tossed around so willy and nilly. You hear things like, I'm burnt out, I just need to stop, I can't do this anymore. And sometimes that is true. But most of the times, in my own experience, that hasn't been the case. True burnout is rare, and it's not just some kind of exhaustion. Uh, the reason we're talking about this today is because this has been something that I've struggled with for the past two years, I would say. Uh I am someone who likes to go, go, go. And at times, that's great. A lot of the times I would say I try and keep that mindset. I try and push myself and try and do the next best thing I can. But most of the time it requires me to step back. And if I'm feeling burnt out at any areas of my life, I try and understand why that's the case. So, with running specifically, we'll talk about running quite a bit in this, but again, I want you to take that metaphor that we talk about, which is running, and try and think of some ways that you can apply it to your own life. Um, try and think of some ways that just because I'm I'm saying running, you know, running requires things that life requires, and that's consistency, it's discipline, it's it's um actually doing the training, showing up. And it's not easy. A lot of the times people can get burnt out with running, and that's why another reason I want to talk about that today. But what does let's first define what burnout looks like. And I believe that you can find someone who's burnt out by identifying these things: cynicism, detachment, loss of meaning, quiet resentment towards the thing you used to care about. Those four things are are usually the biggest signs of burnout across the board. And I want to spend a moment on cynicism because this is one that I've learned. Sometimes I used to be cynical about how I would think about my training or my work or my job. Um, and I had to look up the definition of cynicism, and this is basically after doing that, this is what I came up with. What cynicism looks like is what's the point? That becomes your default thought. You roll your eyes at the things that used to excite you, you assume people have bad intentions, you stop caring about quality, you just get it done. You feel emotionally flat or sarcastic instead of engaged, and that's why cynicism is a burnout signal and not just fatigue. Because all of a sudden, you do not care about the things that used to excite you. You kind of threw that out the door into the trash can because you didn't want to have to deal with that anymore. And I would say when you become burnt out, you become numb. Your body, for some reason, maybe because you're pushing it too hard or whatever it is, it doesn't know how to process the emotions that it's feeling. I want you to make between um burnout and actually just fatigue and under-training, under-recovering. And here's the key distinction. If rest fixes it, you are not burnt out. If you take some time and you step back and you relax a little bit, you let your body recover and you feel better after that, that's not burnout. That's just being tired. That's that's pushing yourself and learning how to deal with that. And it's not necessarily it's not a bad thing to be tired. In fact, you probably should be every now and then when you're chasing big goals. Because if they're not making you tired, they're probably not big enough for you. And you might need to set your sights, you might need to set your sights a little bit higher. It's not bad. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Like most people are dealing with fatigue, not failure, and depletion, but not disinterest. But when you don't know the difference, you assume the problem is the thing you're doing instead of how you're recovering from it. That's a very common thing that I see. And I've seen it in myself, I've seen it in others. But we'll go back to running. That's that's one of the biggest ones, is I I have helped coach people in the past. And a lot of the times there gets a point in the training where they're they're going for a couple weeks, and then you know, when you're first training how to run, that takes a lot from your body. Your body is not used to those miles yet. Your heart hasn't built up the required cardio in order to actually get you through those workouts. And a lot of the times, those athletes like they'll come talk to me and they'll say, actually, like I don't think I can run. I don't like I'm I'm more tired than I've ever been, I'm more sore than I've ever been, and I just don't think running's cut out for me. I would tell that person, just as I would tell you today, take a few days off. See how you feel after that, but do not make a decision when you're emotionally unstable like this. You don't want to make decisions when you don't have all the information, all the data. And in order to get all the data, you might need to rest and say, okay, well, actually, I feel good now. So I think that might mean I need to adjust my training regimen. And maybe I need to sleep an extra hour of the day, whatever the the protocol is that's calling for you. You need to follow through with it. But don't just give up because things get hard. Things will always get hard. That's what life is. Life is difficult, it is hard, and it's meant to be. Because the lessons that we learn through hardships and through trials, tribulations, whatever you call it, that is what defines you. That is what forges you into a character that you are proud of. And you can't get there if you just decide all of a sudden that you're burnt out with everything you're trying to do. If that's the case, if you are ending up thinking that you're burnt out, then maybe you need to switch things up. And don't be afraid to do so. If your job is requiring so much of you, start applying to other places. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be anything deeper than that. And when you get um a letter from someone that says, hey, let's actually let's interview, then that's what you focus on. But you don't focus on that interview until you get to that point. And burnout for me has actually a lot of it has been thinking in the future too much. Like a lot of the times with the podcast, you know, I'm I'm not astounded, but I I'm pretty surprised that I've been doing it for four years and it really hasn't grown too much. Um and back in the early days, I used to think so far into the future about where I would be and what I would be doing and who the guests I would be interviewing would be. Um I would think about you know what it would look like if I was successful in this in this endeavor, and what would it mean to me if I was able to actually build a community and help them achieve their goals, help them get one step closer to what they're trying to accomplish in this life. And that would create a lot of anxiety for me because here I am looking at my downloads, um, and you know, I have 15, 20, 30 downloads every episode or so. And if I want to make an impact, if I want to have that huge, if I want to be able to change the world in some way, that's not really gonna work. That's not gonna be a great way for me to think, hey, I'm gonna get to this spot just by thinking in the future. No. The way to get better the way that I've decided that I'm going about getting after it is taking it episode by episode. And if each one improves a bit, that I'm proud of the effort that's going into the podcast and what it's becoming. Again, this is a selfish endeavor for myself. The podcast itself has always been something where I want to one reflect on the lessons that I've learned so my kids can learn them. Really, this is a podcast for my kids. Like you might be listening now, and I appreciate you listening, but at the end of the day, I want this for my kids so they can go back and listen to what I their dad had to say. Um, and that's what's important to me. It's not having a big audience, it's not uh trying to become you know top 10 podcaster in the world. I would love that, that would be great, but really what's important to me is just making sure that I am the man that I say I am, and hopefully can teach some of those lessons to my children. So, little random tangent there, but let's bring back the metaphor of running. Yeah, everyone's favorite thing, right? It's definitely mine, so we're gonna talk about it again. But running is a metaphor, and if you've ever trained seriously, especially in endurance sports, you know this. There are days you wake up exhausted, heavy legs, foggy head, zero motivation. And even sometimes before the run run, everything feels wrong. You question yourself, you're like, why am I doing this? Why did I decide to be a runner? If I knew that this is what I was gonna have to put my body through, and then something interesting happens. When you move, you warm up, your body starts to adapt, your the fog starts to lift. And it's not because the run was easy at all, but it's because your body remembered how to function once it got what it needed. Movement, warm-up, that's it. Now flip it. If you train hard with no deloads, no poor sleep, underfueling, and constant stress, eventually every run will feel miserable. And here's the trap you assume you hate running now, but you don't. You're just underrecovered, and that same thing happens in life. Quick side note yesterday I ran 24 miles on a treadmill, and it wasn't ideal, it wasn't that's not my favorite thing to do, is run on a treadmill. But I spent three hours and 23 minutes on a treadmill running 24 miles, and I like having a distance like that that you're trying to go after on a training run can be very intimidating sometimes because you're running, then you look at your watch or whatever, and it says five miles, and you're like, great, I just have uh 19 to go, and then you just have to keep trying, right? You have to keep going, you have to stay motivated. But motivation is fleeting, and so when I was doing that run yesterday, I had to truly ask myself like, what is the point of doing this run? But once I had an answer, the answer was, well, I want to be ready for my 50 miler in April, then the work itself was not easy, but it was actually helpful to understand that what I'm training for now will get me to that point to where I can run 50 miles. And I couldn't do that under fueled, and actually, like this is a funny story. This past weekend we were up at Solitude um in Utah skiing and hanging out with our family, and um it was Friday night. We were watching Alone on uh, which I'll talk about alone in a little bit, but we were watching alone on TV, and uh I was gonna go lay down with my wife on the couch, and she said, Have you eaten some carbs? And I said, No. And she said, Do you want to run 24 miles tomorrow? And I said, Yes, I do. And then she said, then go eat some pieces of toast. She didn't want me to be underfueled, and I really appreciate that because I I felt like I was pretty strong throughout that entire run. So shout out to Allie for keeping me accountable and making sure I eat. We all know I've dealt dealt with an eating disorder before, and so it's not easy. But I also had great sleep leading up to that run. I had a good mindset on the reason why I was doing it. I was fueled up properly, I had electrolytes and everything. I was ready to go. I had to prepare. And the point of me talking about this story is think about the things that you're you're pursuing now. What it could be fitness, it could be your job, it could be relationships or hobbies, activities, whatever. How can you prepare for that? To have the best performance, to have the best outcome with whatever you're trying to do, what can you be doing now to get ready for that moment? So that's just something that I would suggest you think about. And and maybe you can do that exercise a little bit, but this part this matters. This part matters especially for men. And I want to talk about why this hits men a little bit harder. Um I was taught, and I think a lot of other men are taught, to endure quietly, carry your weight, do not complain, and do not slow down. And I believed those things for so long. I still honestly kind of do sometimes. Um I believe you should endure quietly, unless there is something you need to talk to someone else about, but I think you should carry your weight, I think you shouldn't complain, and I think you should always try and get not faster, but doing more things. Like, don't slow down in that sense. Now, those are all not great things, but those are all good things, I would say. Not necessarily detrimental to anyone. But the thing I want you to remember is that societally, men typically are the providers, and there's a lot of pressure on men to actually do that thing. And there's the pressure comes from understanding that you have people at home that you need to take care of, understanding that if you want to be successful in your career, you have to work incredibly hard to push yourself and and and be a man. You hear that all the time. But in reality, what do we do if that happens? We push through exhaustion, we ignore signals, we numb out instead of refuel, and we call it discipline. But strength without recovery doesn't make you tougher, it makes you detached. A lot of men don't break down, they don't cry, they don't ask for help, they just quietly disconnect. At least that's what happens to me. I'm not one to cry. It's really hard for me to ask for help. Instead, typically, I'll just disconnect. I've gotten much better now. Like, I I feel like I have a an understanding of my emotions, how they work, and how to control them. But for years, that's how I felt. Which sucks. Um that's not great. And the thing that I think is interesting is yeah, people will push through. They'll do what they need to do, they'll they'll try and become someone who they they think that they should be, and they call it discipline. Discipline is very precious to me. That word discipline means a lot to me. But let's not confuse discipline for pushing through when you shouldn't. Let's go back to the piece where I was talking about that men quietly disconnect. They do it from their work, their training, their marriage, their faith, and sometimes themselves. And because they don't feel sad, they assume they're done with those things. But what's actually happening is this. They've been putting output they've been outputting for years without restoring what was spent. And I have lived like this many times. The reason I wanted to record an episode about this today is because I know what it is like to think you're burnt out when in reality you're just overworked. I've seen it in my job, in my training, in the podcast, and in by relationships from time to time. And the key is you must not become a cynic. You need to look at your life through an honest lens to see if there are places you might need to pull back from. That's not a bad thing. It requires you to be strong enough to say, I need to change something. I must keep the momentum, but I cannot quit. If you tell yourself you are going to set out and do something, you must be able to adjust in order to endure that goal. Again, it's not weakness, it's awareness. Now, this is where I'm going to talk about uh alone. Alone is a show where 10 people go out into the wilderness and they have to survive. And the last one went standing, uh, wins$500,000. And I think if you get to 100 days, you get a million dollars. Anyways, I'm watching season 11. That's the show we've been watching. And there's a guy in there whose name is Timber. And Timber's a goofball. He is uh someone who actually I would love to have on this podcast. Um maybe if someone has any connection to Timber from alone, send this to them. I'd love to get him on. But really, this Timber guy, he's one of the most self-aware people I've ever seen. Like, it's hilarious because one time he was bow hunting and he was gonna go kill a moose. And it's so funny because like he's talking to the camera, he's like, I always get over, uh, I always get a little overhead, or I always get a oh wow, I always get a little ahead of myself, and I need to stay disciplined, and like all these things. But like throughout the show, he just says all these really self-aware things. And so the reason I brought up Timber was sometimes we all need to be like that. We need to be aware of what's going on, like how we act, how our bodies function, um, what motivates us, what makes us angry, how do we avoid those things? Um, but being aware, that is a very important principle when we're talking about how to not be burnt out, when we're talking about rest versus recovery versus burnt out. Um it requires you to be aware of how you're feeling, of what you're doing, and the things that are bothering you. So be self-aware. Um talking more about recovery, it's not just for sleep. Like, it's not just sleep, I meant. Recovery is not just relaxing, laying down, hanging out. There are four buckets that most people typically neglect. The first is physical. That looks like chronic sleep debt, undereating, too much caffeine, no deloads in your training, and no nervous system recovery. You cannot outdiscipline biology. So get that through your head. Number two is mental. There's no white space, there's constant stimulation, never thinking, only reacting, no journaling and no stillness. If you want to have a strong mental health, I would highly recommend those last two things journaling and stillness. And a lot of the times they come hand in hand. But if you sit for a minute and you're just still and you think about what's going on, what you're doing, who you're becoming, then maybe that transitions to a journal entry. And the more that you write out your thoughts, the more you can understand where you're coming from and what is actually affecting you negatively. Or you can go back and decide if you need to adjust or decide to fully eliminate that activity. A cluttered mind feels like burnout. Number three is emotional, and that's carrying responsibility alone, never processing fear, loss, or pressure, being the strong one all the time. That weight doesn't disappear, it only compounds. Especially if you feel like you have to be the Strong one all the time. I felt that way when I was first married to Allie until I had some severe medical issues and I broke down a lot. I was definitely not the strong one during that time. Allie was. But I relied on her and she helped me through. She pulled me through. And so you shouldn't expect that you have to be the strong one all the time. You should try. You should try and be that man all the time, that woman all the time. But there are gonna be situations in your life where that's not the case. And that's completely normal. That's just what life does to people. And so that would be my takeaway here is just make sure that you have someone that you can rely on when you can't be the strong one. Number four, spiritual. Discipline without purpose turns into punishment. And output without alignment drains you fast. And if you're not, if you believe in a God, if you have that um belief yourself and that faith, and you're not spending time with God, you're going to feel his absence in your life. Having a spiritual mindset is just, it requires just as much work as training does, as your job does, as your relationships do. And if you're not filling that bucket, you'll start to feel it if you believe in God and in everything like we've talked about. So what do you do in that situation? Well, for me, anytime I do feel that way, that I have um not gone far from God, but I don't feel his presence as much in my life, I will get on my knees and pray. And I will study the scriptures. I will trust just invite Christ back into my life. And it happens through action. So don't let that part fall. Because if you don't know why you're doing the work in general, with the four buckets that we're talking about, if you do not know why you're doing the work, the work will eventually resent you and you will resent it. It's a slippery slope. So just be careful there. Now, the dangerous lie people tell themselves, and this is what I was saying earlier, that sometimes people too just quit too early. Here's the lie that gets people into trouble. I need to stop. Most of the time, what they mean is I need to recover differently. People quit the gym, running, careers, relationships, and even callings in the church. Not because they were wrong, but because they were depleted when they were trying to do it. And quitting feels like relief because rest was overdue. Kind of sounds feasible, right? Like, oh man, I haven't had any time to take a rest.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Maybe I need to quit. Not the case. That's not the case. Don't don't fall victim to this lie.

The Four Recovery Buckets

SPEAKER_01 25:07

This is why people say I took time off and I still feel empty. Because rest without recovery, or rest without because rest without recovery with intent doesn't restore meaning. So I want to I want to leave everyone with this. I know this is a shorter episode, but we have friends coming over, so so be it. Before you make a big decision, I want you to do what I'm calling a seven-day recovery audit. And for one week, you need to assess your sleep consistency, your food intake, especially carbs and protein, your training intensity versus your recovery, your silence or stillness, your emotional outlets, screen and stimulant intake, and your overall schedule. Recover on purpose and then ask yourself, how do I feel now? If clarity returns, you were not burnt out. You were underrecovered. And I hope that's the case. Here's the takeaway. Don't abandon the life you're building because you're tired. Don't label exhaustion as failure. And don't make permanent decisions while operating in a recovery debt. Getting after it doesn't mean constant intensity. It means honest effort, intelligent recovery, and staying long enough to see who you become. That's really it. And there's a lot of lies that we can tell ourselves to there's a lot of lies that we can tell ourselves to fortify the argument that you are burnt out. But again, do the seven-day recovery audit. See how you're doing. Assess the areas in your life where, you know, that are important for recovery. And then come back and make a decision. Because who knows? You might be on the brink of something big. And if you quit now, you'll never know that that feeling. And you don't want that. I don't want that for you. So you definitely don't want that. But I appreciate everyone's time today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I uh as always, it just means the world to me that you guys decide to come and listen to me for a little bit. Um, because I'm just a regular guy, and so it's pretty fun. But thank you again. If it helped at all, please share it with someone. Um, if there's someone who you you think might be burning out, maybe send it over to them and like and rate the show. That helps it gain more traction and attention. Um, and until next week, my friends, keep getting after it.