Shamelessly Ambitious I Helping Ambitious Women Prevent Burnout + Create Nervous System First Success in Business, Motherhood, & Life

204. Shamelessly Reclaiming My Ambition: The Disconnection Epidemic

• Ashley McDonald, Therapist & Nervous System First Business Mentor • Episode 204

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 16:41

I've talked a lot about burnout, but so has everyone else in this space. I'm starting to think we've been diagnosing the wrong thing, because the women I work with aren't always JUST exhausted. They have capacity, however they seem to be lacking the desire they once had. They're functioning, often even performing well, but they feel flat… uninspired && disconnected from the drive that used to make them insatiable.

That's not simply burnout, that's disconnection. In this episode I'm breaking down the difference, why it matters, && what I've been doing to actually reclaim the aliveness I thought I'd lost.

TOPICS WE EXPLORE

  • Why burnout && disconnection are not the same thing
  • The difference between anxious-overwhelm && depressive-flat
  • Why resting your way through disconnection makes it worse
  • Curiosity as a North Star instead of certainty
  • How to find aliveness in micro moments
  • The body-brain connection && why transition routines aren't optional
  • Why I stopped trying to minimize my ambition && what changed
  • Language as identity: "I'm overwhelmed" vs "I'm feeling overwhelmed"
  • What reconnection actually looks like in practice

THE POINT

You can recover from burnout && still feel completely, utterly disconnected from your life. If resting isn't working, maybe what you need is to reconnect.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

MORE ABOUT ASH

I'm Ash McDonald — the Entrepreneur's Therapist. Trained therapist, seasoned entrepreneur, mom of 3, && the person you call when your business coach doesn't get your brain && your therapist doesn't get your business.

I built the thing I couldn't find anywhere else: whole-picture support that holds your strategy && your humanity in the same conversation at the same time. 

LINKS:

SPEAKER_00

I'm your host, Ash McDonald, the only therapist who speaks fluent entrepreneur. Welcome to Shamelessly Ambitious. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast. And my first true solo episode in a little bit. We just finished up with the grief series, which if you did not tune into that, I highly, highly suggest that you do because, man oh man, it was so stinking good. Oh my God, it was so good. We had such incredible conversations with such extraordinary women. And I'm just really grateful for how deep it all went. You never know. You know, you have these ideas about a series or certain conversations that you want to have. And it can go many different directions, but I'm really proud of these conversations and I'm proud of the depth. And so I hope that you've had a chance to tune in. Whether you need to hear somebody be really honest about their business journey and some declines they've experienced, or you need to hear somebody else who has truly navigated grief, significant grief while building a business, or you want to talk about deconstructing religion, or you want to talk about grandparents and what you thought they'd be versus what they became or divorces or marriage or motherhood or aging. I mean, literally, we covered it all and it was so good. So, anyways, hi, I'm so excited to be back. I'm so excited to be back on the solo episodes, even though it was so stinking good. I cannot believe that we are in the middle of August. Today, the day that the podcast goes live, rather, is the day before my kids' first day of school. So crazy times. I don't know how we got here. It felt like summer flew by, and also it felt like it was really long and really beautiful and really wonderful, but I'm not actually here to give any personal updates. That will be next week's podcast. I'm coming back for an Ash Unplugged episode that will come out on August 25th, which is the week of my birthday, and I'll be diving into all things personal, behind the scenes, raw, kind of chic, all the things. So I'm so excited. Today, I'm thinking of like what I wanted to talk about in the first return of the solo episode. I honestly have this very polarizing idea that I want to talk about. And it kind of goes against a lot of what you may have heard me talk about in the past, not against, but it's unpacking something essentially, and that is burnout. I feel like, God, every conversation in entrepreneurship has revolved around burnout. Mine too, to be honest. I'm talking about it as well. And I think that's because a lot of people have been experiencing a multitude of symptoms that can, in fact, feel a lot like burnout. And I know that for me, those feelings of burnout and my attempts at solving them and then it not so working so well, and all the things that have happened have made me realize that it was much less, not entirely not burnout, but much less, less about burnout than I had originally thought. And so I've just found myself, well, one, let me just say this: burnout is absolutely real. Okay. It is absolutely real and it absolutely deserves every bit of attention that it has received. It is very serious. And that's why I've come on and talked often about whether it's in my email or on social or on my website, how to prevent it, how to recover from it, how to finally stop feeling so exhausted. But lately, as I've been thinking about it, I found myself wondering if we've become a little too focused on burnout that we're actually missing what I think is a bigger issue right now, and that's disconnection. The women that I get to work with, they're just the more I work with them, the more I talk with them. I'm like, I don't, this isn't burnout. Like maybe a little bit, maybe that's a little bit of burnout, maybe that's a little bit of burnout. But honestly, I'm seeing less of exhaustion in people and more disconnection, more feelings of like discontentment, feeling numb, feeling uninspired, feeling unfocused, like flat. That's a word that comes to mind. And I know that I have felt this. Like I have gone from, oh, I'm so exhausted, I need to take a break, and then I go take that break, and then I come back, and I'm just like, where is that part of me that was so insatiable and just excited and wanted to do all the things? And I think that's what I'm seeing the most with my clients is they're taking time off or they're delegating, or they're obviously hiring a team to delegate, they're stepping back, they're slowing down, they're taking things off their plate, they're minimizing their offer suite, but they still just don't feel like themselves. And that disconnect, when I say disconnection, I'm talking about feeling disconnected from your intuition, from that ambition, that drive that I was referring to, from relationships, from obviously the work that you're doing. And I think that that is more of a driving force than this idea of burnout because we can essentially we can require, or we can require. We can hire. I am also Lydia. We can hire. Oh my God. I'm trying to say recover and somehow require and hire are the two words that came out. Why? What is that Freudian slip? Anyhow, we can recover essentially from burnout, but we're not gonna make any sort of symptomology go away if we're still really disconnected. So I was thinking about what would be important for you to hear, which is really what the difference between the two are, so that you can identify like is burnout my issues? Is burnout the thing that I need to put attention and focus on? Or is it something different? Is it this idea of disconnection? So when I think of burnout, I think of your nervous system being overwhelmed, right? So that everything feels like too much. Think, think more anxiety. Not there, it's not black and white, it's not this clear. But when I think of burnout versus disconnection, I think anxiety versus depression a little bit. Okay. Just when, and that's just because I think that you can probably imagine that in your head. So maybe it's easier for you. But like with burnout, it's like everything's too much. I don't have the capacity. I'm in survival mode. I'm doing the the the bare minimum because I can barely even do that. Like you sit down and it's just too much, right? And you're tired, you're so tired. You feel chronically exhausted. When I think of disconnection, I think of someone who does, in fact, have the capacity. Like if they were really to audit themselves, they would not say, Oh, yeah, I have zero capacity. They're busy. I'm obviously busy. My clients are busy. The majority of the people I work with, myself obviously included, have children and their careers and marriages, partnerships, you name it. There's a million things that they're holding. So busy, yes, but they feel like they have the capacity. What they don't feel like they have is desire. So they're functioning, they're maybe even like performing pretty well, but they don't feel alive. And they're just kind of going through the motions. They're just checking boxes, they're just writing that to-do list, getting it done, but there's none of that passion. That's why I kind of see it a little bit like depressive. You're just like, yeah, I'm here. I'm doing what I can. Obviously, severe depression, you can't do anything. Severe anxiety, you can't do anything. So these are just ways for me to see if I can't help you understand it better. But the difference from overwhelm and it's too much and like overstimulation to eh, I just don't want to. I'm motivated. I have the time, but I'm sitting here staring at my computer and I don't know what to do. And the problem with identifying your disconnection as burnout or vice versa is that you're gonna keep resting or or taking more off your plate or taking that nap or taking days off, which none of these things are bad. But if what you need is a re-engagement into your life, that's not gonna help. In fact, it might take you further away from what it is that you're wanting. Similarly, that like stepping back idea when reconnection is what you need is like you're taking yourself further away from the very thing that's so deeply required for you to get to this next level, to feel better, to feel more connected, to feel like you know what you want, to have that drive again. Right. Okay, I'm gonna interrupt myself for like 20 seconds because very, very excitedly, I have to tell you that next week officially opens on September 21st. This is my signature audio program, and it's gonna help you stop getting in your own damn way. So you can build a business with more confidence, more clarity, more freedom, and a whole lot less self-habitage. It's where we remove the invisible ceiling to be still and I do women's stuff. This helps those strategies that already know work. Actually work. But the only way to join is through the wait list. So if you're ready to stop fighting your own brain and experience a completely different way of approaching entrepreneurship, hit pause, jump in on the show notes and get your name on the list, and then come right back because we've got a whole lot more to cover. And more importantly, it it just sucks. Like if you feel that you've identified or, you know, because the world is kind of over-identifying with burnout and you're like, yeah, that's totally me, and you're doing all the things that the burnout experts are telling you that you need to do, and it's not working, that's just really frustrating, right? I've been there, trust me. I mean, a five months sabbatical and then coming back with, you know, only taking on 50% of what I was doing prior. And I, it just wasn't really working, right? A lot of the same habits were forming, which that's originally what I thought was like, oh, well, this is the problem. Like all the same things are happening. But here's the thing: I am an ambitious woman. I'm always when I am passionate, when I am eager, when I'm insatiable, like I said, I'm gonna do things in a very ambitious way. And that's not a problem. That's not the thing that makes me feel like maybe I'm a little burnt out. It's actually when all of a sudden I'm disconnected to what I'm doing, or I'm doing things in ways that actually weren't a good fit for me to begin with.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So how do we how do we create connection? How do we stop being disconnected? I guess is what we'll say. And I was thinking through that, and some of the things that I've really done, especially over the last year, year and a half, is curiosity. So that's like my North Star, my cornerstone of everything that I do, being really, really curious. So rather than seeking more of like the certainty in life, like more of like, I know this is gonna work or I know this is the right way, being really curious. I've talked a lot about this on the podcast of like being being willing to test things out and not just in an open-ended like, let's just see if this works, but I'm gonna give it my all for these three weeks. I'm gonna run this experiment for these five weeks, whatever the case may be, and then collecting data, coming back around and deciding if it's the right fit for you. I've been doing a lot of that and it creates a lot of excitement for me because it's not this like, oh God, I'm just gonna take on this new fucking challenge for the rest of my business, which feels like a lot of pressure. And then it feels like there's no end inside, and then I'm tired and it's overwhelming. And if it's not working right away, then I'm questioning, you know, hello, we know what this happens. That doesn't serve me. But like, ooh, I'm excited to see what happens by really giving this my all for X amount of days. So that's been something that's really been of service. I think additionally, and this might seem really simple, but like paying attention to what makes you feel alive and calling more of that in. I have talked about this in so many different seasons of my life, and I will still say this is a massive component to connection and whatever it is that you're doing. But whether it's changing up your environment or, you know, I had a client recently who was like, I just wish there was more adventure in my life, but she has four young children and just can't necessarily leave. And so I was telling her, like, but how can you bring adventure into your days in these micro moments of adventure? They don't have to be, you know, yeah, hopped on a plane to Bali. Obviously, we want that, but that's not realistic for many of us, whether financially or time or whatever the case may be. And so really paying attention to what makes you feel alive, I think in general, and this is definitely a burnout-related thing as well. So, hello, two birds, one stone, is making sure that your body and your brain are connected. So a lot of people want to just like move from one thing to the next. They want to, you know, get up and get directly into work. But if you don't create the connection between your body and your brain, it just doesn't exist. So we have to take time to do so. We have to take time to get into our body and create that connection. Again, that's something I've been doing for a really long time. So it's not like, oh, that one particular thing is gonna solve a lot. But if you identify as you're listening to this, like, oh yeah, I am just popping into work, popping out of work, going into this next thing, I think that transition routines are, again, something I've talked about a thousand times, but so deeply imperative. I do not go from I'm recording a podcast to I'm being a mom as much as I can help it. Now, I I'm never ever gonna pretend like it's perfect. But even if it's a quick, you know, three breasts stretch with my arms moving up and around my body, whatever I can do to just tell my body, hey, we're moving into a new role now, right? Now, another thing that has been really important for me as of, you know, again, the last year or so, is looking at my own ambition. Because for a long time I found that I was really trying to minimize it, maybe it's not the right word, but like lessen it because, yeah, I'm burnt out because I go too fast. I'm burnt out because I take on too much, I'm burnt out because of blah, blah, blah, all the things people say. Except for doing things in those ways was actually of service to me. It was just, it's not about like how necessarily I do things, but how I'm connecting. Does that make sense? So, like I need to always be aware of how I'm evolving my idea, my definition of ambition and what it looks like. And remembering too that our language has power. And so if I'm saying things like I'm overwhelmed, again, that's an identity marker. So I'm overwhelmed, your brain goes, Oh, that's not changeable. That's who I am. I'm feeling overwhelmed, very, very different. Similarly, I don't have any ambition anymore. Identity marker. I'm curious how I can activate a higher level of ambition today. Oh, your brain's now looking for something different. And those kind of things help a ton with just intuition in general, right? So we're looking at where are we experiencing more instead of trying to opt in optimize and perfect and and time schedule and all these things, we're looking for aliveness instead of just the productivity, but we're also setting ourselves free from this idea that being productive is negative or spending a little bit of time every day or a lot of time every day working is negative. There's no right or wrong way to do it, but to do it just to do it, that's the disconnected way. And that, my friend, I promise you, will cost you in the long run. So again, let's see if I can get this word right this time. You can recover from burnout and still feel completely, utterly disconnected from your life. And so maybe, just maybe, and tuning into this, you realize that this next season for you isn't any longer about recovering, but about reconnecting to yourself, to your life, to your work. And maybe that's the thing that you need more than a fucking nap or whatever else people are doing right now to feel rest. Because with three kids, I'm like, I don't have time for naps. But I'm realizing that the more connected I am to the work that I'm doing, the more connected I am to each moment that I'm in, the less I have those feelings of like, eh, meh, meh feeling. Should I title this podcast, this episode, meh? So, anyhow, in case these were things you were thinking or this is stuff you needed to hear, I just felt like it needed a place. So thank you as always for listening. If you love this podcast, I can't ever ask enough or be grateful enough for you to leave a review. That's how I ensure more and more people get to listen, to share it with a friend. Those things are truly life changing for me as a small business owner. I really hope to bring so much value to this space and very grateful in any way that you have to share it. So have a good day, my friend. I will see you on the next one.