TSLP Season 4 Ep. 25 Stop the Over Work Cycle

🎙️ Stop the Overwork Cycle | Transformation Station Leadership Podcast with Dr. Melanie Gray Busy does not always mean productive. And overworking is not a sustainable leadership strategy.

In this episode of the Transformation Station Leadership Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Melanie Gray to discuss how leaders can break free from the overwork cycle and create healthier, more sustainable habits for success.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed, stretched too thin, or caught in the belief that doing more is the only way forward, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about Dr. Gray:
Website: https://www.drmelaniegraytheconfidenc...
LInkedIn:   / drmelaniegray 

💬 What's one habit or boundary you've implemented (or need to implement) to prevent burnout and create a more sustainable pace in your life?👇 Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Until next time, stand tall, step bold, and own your transformation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

What if the very habits helping you succeed are also the ones that are slowly exhausting you? What if the constant hustle, nonstop availability, and pressure to always produce what if they're not signs of healthy leadership, but what if they're warning signs? That's right. Warning signs of something deeper inside you that's out of balance. I'm looking forward to talking about this and more in this upcoming podcast. Let's get started. I'm your host, Adrian Benson, and today's conversation addresses something that many high-performing leaders like us, it addresses what we experience but rarely talk about honestly. We're talking about the overwork cycle. And I'm super excited because today I have Dr. Melanie Gray with us, and we're talking about how leaders can break free from chronic overwork and how we can reconnect with our well-being and build success that is both impactful and sustainable. Now, before we have this amazing conversation, I want to remind you of a few things, and that is this. Number one, listen, Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. This is where leaders like you and I grow from the inside out. We meet every single week. So what that means is every week you can regularly join us. Matter of fact, invite two other leaders in your network to join us so that we can make a lasting impact in the communities and the organizations in which we serve. You can find Transformation Station Leadership Podcasts on Buzzsprout and Apple Podcasts and Spotify and Amazon and more. So be sure to subscribe one episode, not one episode, do you want to miss? And I'm looking forward to you joining us regularly. Now, let me tell you about our guest today. Her name is Dr. Melanie Gray. She is a nationally recognized expert in trauma-informed leadership, burnout prevention, and workplace wellness. As the founder of Melanie Gray Solutions, she teaches leaders, she teaches leaders and women how to move forward from reaction to regulation using her signature stop it method to slow down, set boundaries, and lead well while living whole. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Melanie Gray to Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. It is wonderful to have you with us today.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Thank you so, so much for having me. It's so important. This conversation is so important.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Absolutely. So, Dr. Gray, as we were, as I was preparing for this conversation, I was thinking to myself about leadership, right? And I was thinking this many of us as leaders, we have become conditioned to believe that our value is tied to productivity. I have found over the years, Dr. Gray, that over time it becomes more than responsibility. It actually starts to become identity, right? We start to believe that our value is based on what we do or what the system says we're supposed to be doing and how we were able to achieve that. So I wanted to start off by asking you this question. High performing leaders, that's who we're talking to today. But but here's the question: why do so many high-performing leaders and professionals, why do we get stuck in the overwork cycle, even when we know that it is unsustainable?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Well, a couple things. One, we don't know it's unsustainable because we have mothers, fathers, mentors, teachers, professors, uh, people at church, people in our lives who kind of told us it was sustainable because they did it for 30 or 40 years, and they got their house, two kids, and a picket fence, and retirement. And so it should work for you too. The truth of the matter, though, is work has changed. And in many of their careers, they didn't have enter it with in email, internet, texting, the culture of continual contact and ability to reach you. My parents went to work and came home. That's different, that's changed over the last 20 or 30 years. So, one, we haven't seen models of uh it not working. The other thing is we start so early, right? Think about it. How how old were you when someone first asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Oh, I was very young.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I was probably three or four, right? And you get the nurses' kit, I did the doctor's kit, you know, the science kit, and and people are asking you at two or three, what are you gonna be? What are you gonna do? So we're programmed really early to think I need to be something, I need to have a title, and we have had role models that feel like if they don't okay to do what they did, then they're not being uh just to us, and we all drank the juice, but it's a different juice right now. The world is changing.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, when when you were talking about this just now, it reminded me of this leadership principle here. And so all of our leaders are listening and watching, we want to we want to remind you that your worth is not measured by your workload. Dr. Gray talked to us about how back in the day, you know, they didn't have all of these technology that makes things so convenient to still stay attached to work. And so they were able to come home. Work was work and home was home. And nowadays we have many distractions. So we want to remind you, even now, that your worth, who you are, is not measured by your workload. So create intentional recovery rhythms before burnout forces itself on you. Dr. Gray, what does it mean? What does it really mean to value yourself as much as your work? And and why do so many of us struggle with even that part?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Well, number one, we were told so early that our value came from our work. Look at the years that have been invested in getting good grades and highs in school, getting those ACT scores and SAT scores to get into good colleges. And then uh you're in college, and that's all you talk about is when I'm a sophomore, when I'm gonna graduate, what am I gonna do? Are you gonna have an internship? Am I not gonna have an internship? Is my life not gonna be right if I don't get the right internship? Who am I gonna? You know, it just all the things, and then we graduate and we look for that great aha moment, right? I'm in an interest of a position. How long is it gonna take me to get up? Do I move up? Am I gonna have to get a master's degree? Am I gonna have to get a D MP, D, uh, D, DMP, doctorate, PhD, whatever? All the things, right? And so so we never pause there. When in that life cycle, do we teach people to pause? When children, when teenagers pause, the parents get anxious. My son doesn't know what they want to do. Melanie, I have parents talk to me all the time. Melanie, can you talk to my daughter? She doesn't know what she wants to do. Well, she's 13. She's 13.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Or, you know, yeah, she's a senior. There's many more things to do. Maybe she does it. And honestly, some of the things our kids are going to do, workers are going to do, don't even exist yet with uh the rapid pace of AI. And look, and there's the fear factor. Did you, if you looked at the recent media on with graduation moments, students are booing the speakers that are talking about AI. Why? Because there's now fear. So we had fear, and fear was always, I think, part of the cycle we just discussed. Because woo, if I don't do all these things, then I'm gonna be sunk, you know. I'm nothing. And so it's a long term, there's been a long-term investiture in anxiety and effort around the title, the work, and we can't let go because we're afraid if we let go, what will I say? What will people think? How I support my family, what do I what you know, is it how do I pivot? There are a lot of questions that have to be answered when you had a lifetime of working toward one value system.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

So we've been conditioned, if I hear you correctly, totally conditioned. Totally conditioned by achieving and performance and what others what the community um values over our personal health and well-being.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

But think about it, everyone, you have to think about trauma, you know, and some integrate some thought around trauma-informed care because trauma is whatever you trauma transcends three generations. Let's take me, for example. My parents grew up, uh were born in 1927 and 1935, so they came up through Jim Crow, segregation, abusive treatments of African Americans. Their hope for me was that I'd have a better life. So they told me to drink all the juice, and their dream was that they could give me a life in which I could, right? Because they were afraid and they kind of instilled some fear in me that if you don't do certain things, your life is not going to be credible. And there are other people that have might have trauma, come up, and I didn't come up through poverty, but I have that cultural sense of being an African-American. There are people who have come up through poverty, you know, have to work their way through when they get when they rise and get to a point where life is different from that for them, they might be afraid to let go. So there's fear there too.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

So then what are some of the subtle signs that overwork has become a pattern rather than a temporary season? I know many leaders struggle with recognizing or paying attention to the signs. So, what are some of the subtle signs?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Well, the signs of burnout or stress can be both physiological and psychological.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Uh, the physiological signs might be headaches, not sleeping well, uh, weight gain because your cortisol levels are always at a high level, uh, stomach aches, uh, constipation, uh, immune, you're you're catching a lot of colds. When you're stressed, your immune system decreases. And then there are the psychological, kind of behavioral symptoms. You're over-vigilant, you micromanage, you respond without thinking, you don't engage other members of your team. You kind of feel like if you don't do it, it can't get done. Well, no one can that's unsustainable, and that's why it negates why organizations give you a team or have a team or why you're part of a team, right? But we have to learn to be part of one. Uh, when you sign find yourself uh looking at your email and checking all weekend long and after work, when you cannot set boundaries, when you cannot turn off, even when you've left that work environment, those are signs that you're not healthy because we're whole people, we're whole people. We have to celebrate, but no, you know, people don't celebrate you on social media for being old now. They celebrate you how hard you're working, how burned out you are, how you know they celebrate all your all the things of activity, and one activity does not define success. Say that again. Busyness does not define success or value. So people have to be willing to be courageous and set their own definition, a new trajectory for their future.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

All right, leaders, you're listening, you're watching. I know that Dr. Gray just stepped all over your toes. So I want you to say ouch right now. Go ahead and say ouch. She talked to all of us and described many of the subtle signs that are not so subtle, actually, that we are all journeying through. And uh, you know, Dr. Gray, for me, one of the subtle signs that I try to stay aware of is when exhaustion starts to feel normal. When I hear myself saying, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I'm so tired. But but it's like I'm saying it as though this is an acceptable way of like, I'm so tired, I'm not gonna do anything about it. I'm just gonna stay tired because this is the way it's supposed to be. That for me is one of the subtle signs that wait a minute, we've got to stop and bring balance back. Right. When when I start to see that my emotional capacity is decreasing, I'm moody, right? I'm speaking sharp, or my thoughts are tending to be negative, negative, negative. Wait a minute. All right, we gotta stop right here. We gotta pause this that we need to renew, refresh, revive, restart. Absolutely. So you've said that uh we normalize exhaustion as a badge of honor. How can we begin to stop glorifying burnout?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Well, you have to be able to redefine who you are and say, you know, this is not how I want to live. You work to live, in my opinion, my humble opinion, you don't live to work. And you have to decide what is the legacy that you are really trying to leave or impact you really want to make in the world, and is the life I'm living allowing me to have relationships with my mom, my parents, my siblings, my kids? Am I building the relationship with my significant other that I want? And do I feel like I want to feel? Am I getting to do the dreams I have on my list? I want to learn to play the piano. Am I taking care of myself, giving myself real capacity and being intentional? Because you have to be intentional to take about your self-care. You have to be intentional about valuing who you really are. You didn't get to where you are because you were unintentional. Leaders, you know, you you were specific, specific, strategic, and strategic, and you have to continue to be.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, we we we stop glorifying burnout by changing what we celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

That's what I hear you say, changing what you celebrate and understanding that there is life after work and after your career, right? We work really hard the first 20 years to get to be able to do things we think we want to do for the next 30. But remember, people are living longer. So at 50, 55, even 60, when you're thinking, maybe I want to not be in my career full time. What do you want said? What are you gonna do for the next 20 or 30? And and the reality is the very sad, and the very sad reality is once you leave your organization, you are forgotten within 60 days. Is it even 60, Dr. Gray? I'm I'm I'm trying to be kind, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I've seen so many times where like somebody leaves, and maybe like the the the first week, two weeks, people they miss the the routine of how that person fit into the culture. Week three, oh man, week four is like and then like literally. Who used to do that? Yeah, and then he said talking about you like like you were around 10 years ago as opposed to a month, you know, a month, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And we learned you do all this work, and you think your children and your family value it, and uh they don't even know what you did. I I've gone to you know uh homegoing services and meet the family. I said, Oh, I loved working with your mother. They did so, so so they said, What she do? Nobody knows, nobody remembers. So you're in a sense, I mean, unless everyone everyone's not gonna get to be Bill Gates, maybe leave these big mansions, you know, big legacies, big philanthropic um service programs, but you can make a difference in the world and you can make an impact, right? Um, but you have to define what that is, but and you have to give yourself the time to do it. And hey, what's wrong with just sitting down and enjoying a book and a glass of wine? Because that's what you like to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So here in Transformation Station, we always give our listeners and viewers a moment during the podcast to just stop and really understand what's resonating with them and take a moment to assess. And you know, Dr. Gray just asked us a really good question. Like, and actually, I'm I'm gonna reframe it and just ask it this way like, when was the last time that you just stopped? That you just stopped and paused and gave yourself an opportunity to just be, not be responsible, not run here, but just sit down, whether it's with a book, whether it's just sitting by the beach or what just being quiet and just be being present for yourself in your own life. Uh, you know, Dr. Gray, I've found as a leader myself that we normalize what the culture is in our workplace, and they follow, they they follow what we model. They do, you know, and so leaders, we want to invite you like you are the ones that have to create healthy work habits openly within your organization so that the culture can become healthy. And on that note, I want to ask you this question: what systems, what boundaries, or even what mindset shifts are most effective, Dr. Gray, in breaking the overwork cycle without sacrificing the impact or the excellence?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Well, when you come to work, you come to do your best, right? Correct. Do it for the time that you are assigned to do it eight to four, eight to four thirty. If you're finding that, or five, whatever it is, if you find that you're not able to complete your work with excellence in that time frame, honestly tell your leader there has to be a conversation because we don't work in a vacuum, right? And then organizations have to encourage people to work in teams, they have they can do things for their team members. Why do you have to have meetings after 12 o'clock on Friday? Why not let people clean their desk? Why do you have to start Monday morning, eight o'clock with a big meeting? Why can't you give people a chance to transition into their day? Get a feeling for what they need to prioritize for the week. Why are you sending emails to your team at 10 o'clock? You could certainly schedule it and let that same email release in the morning. Because when we don't, those subtle things do create messages about work and then an expectation that that's what people need to do.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

So sometimes the quieter times for me are late at night or early in the morning, and sometimes I will that's when I can get work done. But I begin to realize the impact that was happening when I started sending emails at this late night. And it was good for me, but not good for others. And so what I did was I now have a line in my signature block that says, I sometimes will do work late at night or early in the morning. If you receive an email from me after working hours, please respond during the next business day.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, or just schedule it. You can schedule it to go out because I'm not gonna read it. Just schedule if you wrote it, just schedule it for tomorrow for the time that you want it.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, absolutely. So let's let's turn the corner just a little bit. Um, we do have two more questions, but this one I you know, I'm hearing a lot of conversation uh and leadership. Groups that are talking about the nervous system. And they're talking about how the nervous system is impacted as we are making decisions and choosing, you know, how we are leading. So I want to ask you this question, Dr. Gray. What role does the nervous system play in burnout and recovery? And how can we reset it daily?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Well, in brief, when you're when your nervous system fires and it it fires because of stress, you're you know, you're reacting and you never stop, it never pauses. So then you set off a reaction in your nervous system, and then it just goes on and on. It never burnout is not turning off. So you're um it never turns off. And so that constant burning uh the activation of your nervous system, the stress centers never turns off. And so that just that leads to ongoing potential life-changing health problems. I I wanted to stress is not that we're talking about your job. This is but we're not in your stress, but it's not just about the moment that you're experiencing, it's about the impact, it's about the fact that stress leads to hypertension. Yeah, stress can lead to having strokes, a greater risk for strokes, for heart attacks, for overweight, for uh, even they said they're saying some cancers. If you have hypertension, you're then at risk for renal uh problems, being on dialysis, is your weight gains and you get increased weight in your midsection, in your midlife, you're more at risk for type 2 diabetes. If you're type a diabetic, then you're going to have trouble with weight loss, you're going to have stress on your kidneys, you're going to put str uh we call uh create challenges with your vision, you're going to create problems potentially in your vascular system, which again puts you at more risk for more problems. So we're not just talking about the nervous system being on. We also want to uh frame how uh the long-term impact on your whole life and well-being.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

I love that because that's something that we really don't think about. A lot of times we think about the right now, but we don't think about the long term. I have a couple of instances, unfortunately, of uh having co-workers that spent years overworking, like working themselves into the ground. They retired, and I know two that retired, and within about two to three months of retiring, they had a heart attack, they had a stroke, like think all these things. It's almost like the that book, The Body Keeps the Score. It's like this body said, Oh, we finally started okay, let's go. Come on now. And and all of and all of these health issues all of a sudden started to develop, but it's because of the years.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, it wasn't all of us, it was progressive. Yes, yeah, and and that's why organizations need more than you know, offering us offering a salad bar for lunch and and yoga. You have to live a created culture where people are not stressed, where they're valued, teaching them how to take care of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yes, absolutely. So, what are your top strategies for setting healthy boundaries without guilt, especially for caregivers, especially for women leaders? What are your top strategies for setting healthy boundaries without guilt?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Well, first say no unapologetically, and then I have a framework the stop it method. One, you got to scan your body, scan your life. How do I feel? How do I look? Am I happy with my neck aches, my constipation, my bloating? And then say, tell your T, tell yourself the truth. This is not working. I need to do something different, and then oh, you have to own the fact that you need to change, you have to own your no, you have to be true to yourself about your bad behaviors that cause you to say yes all the time, that you are enabling people who just come to you because it's easy. We have to sometimes also move people out of our lives. There are people who have capacity in our lives that don't deserve it. Yes, and then we have to pee prioritize ourselves, put ourselves on our calendar, be intentional about that walk, be committed. You know how to commit, you know how to follow through. You're a leader, do it for you, and don't be afraid of the past. And the other thing about prioritizing yourself is that sometimes you have to the job you're in is not the job you need to stay in if you're going to be able to prioritize because your lives change, yes, right? Your needs change, and what I needed at 30 or 40 might be different as I move forward. Sometimes you have to maybe say, I need to step down. I want to stay with the organization, but I need to step down into a role that maybe doesn't require as much of me, and so you have to sometimes set your life to do that, maybe you know, set your bills, set do whatever you need to do, but you might need to make some pivots and prioritize yourself, and then I you have to be intentional again in doing that because the behaviors that we're in it takes 90 days to change your behavior. My people's mindset is not just changing your mindset, it's making a decision to change your life. Yeah, breathing breath work is great in the moment, but breath work in the long term is not going to help your long-term health if you're not intentionally taking action. If you need to see a therapist, if you need to see a physician, if you need to get a personal trainer, be intentional. And then T, you have to be willing to transform, you have to be willing to change because we have to admit that sometimes there's secondary gains from being the it, right? Oh, you like it that everybody said, Oh, girl, you always get it done. Oh, I we can always count on you. Oh, we you are go-to person. I mean, if that means more to you than your life, your family, you have to make that decision.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yes, yes. I love it. The stop it method, and we're gonna talk in a little bit about how people can engage with you to learn more about it. But as we turn the corner on this conversation, we have listeners that I know beyond shadow of a doubt and viewers that are saying, okay, I resonate with what Dr. Gray is putting down, and she is absolutely correct. I'm learning something today. If you could, if if listeners could take one step today to move forward to calm the chaos in their lives and to create a life that feels like them again, what would you recommend that they do?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

I recommend that they uh schedule some paid time off their vacation time, take a take a half day, a full Friday, schedule it today, take a long weekend, put it on your calendar today, and take some time away to really relax because it takes three to four days to relax. You don't really relax the first day. Give yourself three or four days off away, listen to your body, sense how you feel, and write a list of what's important to you and what you're willing to give up. Because the truth is, in my in in stopping it, the bad you know, the next the things you don't want to do, you have to do some new things, and it means you have to give up something. The generally you do the all the idea of having it all, you have to decide what your all is. Your all is not what everybody says on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever social media platform you're looking at every day. Yes, the all is what works for you. I love it, and so you have to be intentional, make the time, take the time off right now, put it on your calendar and don't let it move.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

I love it. What is resonating with you in this conversation? I know that there is many, there are many gems that you have been able to pull from what Dr. Gray shared with us today. And I want to invite you right now to go ahead and put it in the chat. We want to hear from you. Dr. Gray, this has been such a value-added conversation for our leadership community. I know that there are listeners and viewers that want to engage with you. So please talk to us a little bit about your resources and how we can best do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yes, you can reach out to me at dr. Melaniegray.com and also Dr. Melanie Gray, the confidence coach. I work with organizations, I help them create uh cultures of wellness. I also work with individuals who want burnt help to overcome burnout as a burnout coach. I help them set new priorities, walk through with someone with courage to change because it takes courage to change, and you are courageous. We aren't always able to do that alone because we're made to live in community.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, viewers and listeners. You see, the link is here on the screen. Dr. Gray's other social media links are in the description box. I invite you to click on the links. And a matter of fact, I need you to reach out to Dr. Gray and let her know that you saw, you heard this episode. Share with her what resonated with you. And also, if you have any questions, she is a guru and expert. I need you to reach out because the community that learns together grows together. Dr. Gray, it has been wonderful having you here on Transformation Station. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It has been awesome.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Absolutely. Well, there you have it. Listen, today's conversation with Dr. Gray reminded us that leadership should not require self-destruction. No, the strongest leaders are not the ones who carry everything endlessly, but we are the ones who lead with wisdom and boundaries and intentional. You hear that word that Dr. Gray used today, intentional care for ourselves as we care for others. We want to thank Dr. Gray for helping us to rethink what healthy, sustainable leadership truly looks like. Now, I know that this episode resonated with you, so I invite you to be sure to subscribe to Transformation Station Leadership Podcast. And as a matter of fact, today you need to go ahead and share this particular episode with at least two, you heard me say, two leaders in your network that you know right now they need permission to pause, reset, and reclaim balance. So until next time, stay grounded, stay healthy, and keep leading forward with clarity and with purpose.