Burned Out Or Done

You took the PTO. You did the spa weekend. You downloaded the meditation app. You set the boundaries. And you're still sitting in your car before work wondering why none of it worked. That's because you're not burned out — you're done. And those are two very different things with two very different solutions. In this episode, I break down how to tell the difference, why misdiagnosing yourself will cost you years, and what to do when you realize the problem isn't the pace — it's the path.

With podcast microphone

Transcript

Energy, Perimenopause, And Anxiety

Showing Up In The Messy Middle

Today’s Focus: Burned Out Vs Done

Defining Burned Out And Done

Trying Fixes That Don’t Fit

The Litmus Test For Done

Why Staying Feels Safer

Courage To Notice Midlife

First Step: Say It Out Loud

Naming It As A Beginning

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Welcome back to the Unleashed Podcast. Friends, it has been a while. A real while, I think. Um, yeah. So before I jump into today's episode, I wanted to share where I've been and why I've not been uh recording. So, well, I've been here. Nothing bad has happened. Um, but I've been in this space kind of emotionally, physically, partially because, you know, perimenopause, partially just because um, I don't know, running a business is freaking hard. Uh, and so I have been really focused on trying to manage the energy that I have because I'm in this phase in my life where it seems like energy is finite. When my boys were little, for whatever reason, I was exhausted all the time, but my energy felt infinite. It felt like I gotta keep going, I gotta do, I gotta chase these little dudes. And now it's very ironic because I actually have more time. My kids are so independent, they're in sports, they're all over the place. And I'm finding that even with more time, with more space, with more capacity, I'm actually having less energy to do things. And I don't know, there's probably, if I'm being honest, there's probably some like touch of depression in there, um, for sure, a bunch of anxiety. And so I'm just like in full transparency trying to work through all of that with my therapist and um my family. And so, yeah, so it's been kind of hard to show up um in a way that feels like I have something important to say. And so, yeah, I it's been a couple, it's been a moment, it's been a minute. Uh, but I'm back. And I can't promise that the things that I have to say will be enlightening or interesting, but I I have decided that I'm really committed and have always been committed to uh showing up and not just showing up when I have the answers, not just showing up when everything has been solved and the things that I have to share make sense, but showing up in the messy, mucky middle, showing up when I'm in the middle of a hot flash if you're watching online, and I need to be in a t-shirt in February in Minnesota. Um yeah, and showing up in the ugly when I'm not organized and not put together uh because I think there's so much beauty and power in the in-between. And so that's what I'm talking about today. Um, I'm talking about like what I've been experiencing and um what's been on my mind. So with that, let's get rolling. So I think um something that's been on my mind lately is I think there's a difference between burned out and done. And I don't think people are making that distinction. I think it's actually ruining some of our lives. So I want to talk about it. For me, burned out means that you love the work, but it's the pace that's killing you. And done mean means that the work itself has stopped making sense completely. Burned out is I need a vacation. Done is I need a different life. And the reason that this matters, I think, is that because the prescription for each one is different. And if you misdiagnose yourself, I think you're gonna waste years applying the wrong fix. And I know this because I did. I told myself that I was burned out for, I don't know, two years, three years. And I did all the like burned out things. I took the PTO, I did the spa weekend with a girlfriend where we drank wine and said, this is exactly what I need. And then we went back to our lives on Monday. And truthfully, nothing changed. So what did I do? I downloaded the meditation app. You know the one, the one everyone has it, the guy with the calming voice telling you to observe your thoughts without judgment while you're, I don't know, sitting on your bathroom floor at 5 a.m. trying not to fall asleep. I did the breathing exercises. I tried box breathing in my car, if you know what that is. It's four breaths in, not four breaths, four count breath in, hold for four, four count breath out, hold for four, and you do that over and over and over again. Um, what else did I do? I journaled, I set boundaries, or at least I've tried to, which I don't know, at work mostly means you send a slightly less enthusiastic email at 9 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. Um, of course, I read all the books. If you're watching, you can see them behind me, my favorites. I tried the morning routine. I tried waking up at 5 a.m. and get ahead of the day, which is, I don't know, it felt like just code for starting misery earlier. And for me, none of it worked. And not because the strategies were bad. They're really fine strategies if you're actually burned out. But for me, they didn't work because I wasn't burned out. I was done. And no amount of bubble baths fixes being done. You can't like spa weekend your way out of done. You can't deep breathe your way through a life that's no longer yours. And so here's how I think you know the difference. And I want you to be honest with yourself right now, because this is one of those moments where truth is going to be uncomfortable and you're gonna want to explain it away. Burned out feels like exhaustion. Done feels like emptiness. Burned out is Sunday night dread, that like pit in your stomach, the racing thoughts about Monday, the countdown of hours. Done is Sunday night nothing. You don't even dread it anymore. You just feel flat. Like someone turned down the volume on your whole life, and you can't find the remote. And you're not even mad about it. You're not even sad. You're just there going through the motions that used to mean something. And when you're burned out, you fantasize about rest. When you're done, you fantasize about being someone else entirely. Not a better version of yourself in this job, a different person in a different room doing different things. You catch yourself maybe in meetings, looking at the people around you and thinking, do any of you feel this? And you can't tell if they're all faking it or if you're the broken. Burned out, you complain about the workload. Done. You just stop complaining. That's the one that scares me. Because people around you think that you've made peace with it. They think you've found balance. Your boss thinks you've finally figured it out. Your husband thinks you're less stressed. She seems so much calmer. She's not fighting it anymore. She's not stressed anymore. No, she's not stressed because she stopped caring. She's on autopilot. She's executing at a high level because she's been doing this for 15 years and she could do it in her sleep, and that's basically what she's doing, sleeping through her own life with her eyes open. If you just felt something maybe in your body or in your chest, if something just tightened. If you're nodding your head, you're not burned out, you're done. And here's what I want you to hear because this is the part that nobody says. Being done is not a failure. It's not. It does not mean you weren't grateful. It does not mean that you weren't good at it. It doesn't mean that you wasted your career. Being done is just information, friends. That's it. It's your entire system, your body, your gut, your intuition, whatever you want to call the part of you that knows things before your brain catches up. It's that part of you telling you that this chapter in your book of life is just over. Not because you couldn't hack it, because you already did hack it. You hacked it so well for so long that there's nothing left to prove here. The game is over. You won. The problem is nobody gives you a trophy for winning the wrong game. Nobody throws you a party for realizing that the thing you've been excellent at is the thing that's been slowly draining you. So you stay. You stay because leaving feels ungrateful. You stay because people would kill for your job. You stay because the mortgage and the benefits and the 401k and the stability. You stay because you don't know what else to do with your time and your hands. You stay because you've built your entire identity around being the woman who handles things. And if you leave, who are you? You've been this person for so long that the idea of being someone else doesn't feel exciting. It feels terrifying. Like jumping without knowing if there's water below. So I want to tell you who you are. You're the woman who's awake. You're the woman who noticed. Most people never do. Most people ride the autopilot all the way to retirement and then wonder why they feel hollow at the finish line. They get the watch and the cake and the speech and they drive home thinking, was that it? Was that the whole thing? But you, friend, you noticed in the middle. And that is not weakest. That's the most courageous thing that you can do. Admit while you're still in it that this isn't it. So, what do you do with done? Okay, what you don't do is you don't blow up your life tomorrow. I'm not telling you to write a resignation letter tonight. I'm telling you to stop treating done like burn. Stop applying rest to a problem that isn't about rest. Stop meditating your way through a life that needs changing. Uh, stop telling yourself you just need one more vacation, one more boundary, one more coping strategy. Don't read another self-help book, friends. I mean, you could, but that's not really what you need to do here. You need to just start with the truth. You need to say it out loud to one person, not your whole friend group, not your Instagram, just one person that you trust. I think I might be done. Not I'm stressed or I'm tired or I need a break. Done. And just see how it feels to hear yourself say it. See what happens in your body when that word leaves your mouth. Because here's what I've learned the moment you name it, something shifts. You can't unknow it. You can't go back to pretending it's a rough quarter. You can't download a meditation app and convince yourself that that's the fix. The knowing is out. And now you have to decide what to do with it. And you don't have to decide today, but you do have to stop calling it burnout for the love of God. Stop calling it burnout because burnout has a cure, and you've tried it and you're still here, which means this is something else. And that something else, it's not a problem. It is not a problem. It's actually a beginning. So I want you today to go out into the world with courage and confidence to name the thing that maybe you haven't been naming.