So I was talking to my friend Leena yesterday, and we're both freaking exhausted. We both have a tendency to do too much. So it got me thinking, because almost every single person I know right now is burned out. And I was like, "What the heck is going on?" It's weird because we're all smart people. Like, we all know that we need more sleep, more exercise, we need to take more breaks, and eat better, and work less.
And yet most of us aren't doing any of those things, even though we know we're supposed to. And of course, I wasn't any different. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have dialed back right now if my doctor hadn't recently told me that I was in autistic burnout. And even then, I don't think I fully understood how far over the line I'd pushed myself until I started having these severe headaches over the last couple of months, like every week.
And even before this, I'd already suffered some pretty serious physical stuff over the last five years. Like, I remember this one time my entire right shoulder and arm just stopped working for several days. I couldn't move or lift my arm because it hurt so much. Like, it hurt even just sitting there. And then there was another time when I had TMJ for an entire month.
I couldn't eat normally. Now, today, the symptoms I'm feeling are, of course, I'm really tired. My head feels weirdly too full. I already mentioned the severe headaches every week. And I think all of this is happening because I've been running on such low energy for so long, where maybe a couple of years ago I could just kinda push through it, but now I literally have nothing left.
The burnout is so bad that even after, like, just one hour of work, sometimes I feel like I'm about to collapse. The old me used to think that I was somehow being weak, but now I realize that I'm suffering the consequences of having ignored my limits for so long. From everything I'm reading, I think I've basically fried my circuits to the point where my system is just shutting itself off if you even look at it funny.
Now, I've noticed that several of my friends sound like they're also burned out. Which makes me wonder, why do smart people do this? Why do we push ourselves, not just a little, but, like, way past our limits, even though we need to dial back, but we don't? And I think what's happening is there are a couple of things lurking under all of this that make it much harder than just someone giving us the steps.
Because we already have the steps. This is not an information problem So that's what we're getting into today. If you wanna hear the why behind all of this and maybe actually get to the root of the problem, and maybe it'll help you actually make healthier choices, then stick around for the rest of this episode.
You're listening to This Is How You Think, the show that remodels your mindset. I'm your host, Jule Kim. Let's dive in.
As I was thinking about me and Leena, where if you're someone like us, like someone who's always pushed, and pushed, and then pushed even more, it's kinda like we've broken our own gas gauge.
Like, we've ignored the gauge for so long that we don't even know how depleted we are until it's too late. But it's not only that we can't read the gauge, it's also there's nothing that actually makes us stop. It's like a car, right? Like, if you don't fill up the gas, then your car isn't going to work. We all know this.
So if you're cruising along and your gas goes completely empty, the car stops moving. This is not a surprise. Like, duh. So a big part of the problem here is that as humans, we can ignore the warning signs. Our bodies don't have that kind of hard stop, at least not right away. Your body can take so much abuse, which is kind of a miracle, right?
We have this beautiful living machine, but also it means that we can ignore the threshold where the line is of what we can realistically sustain for a very long time. And that is how you get through the day today despite being so tired, and yet you're still getting the work done. It's how you work through lunch, and you're technically okay, or how you skip the workout and nothing bad happens tonight, right?
That's the problem, because we don't see the immediate consequences because they're so delayed. And then when they finally do show up, they feel like they're coming out of nowhere, like with my shoulder and the constant headaches. So logically, you would think that knowing what we should be doing would be enough to make us stop, but obviously it isn't.
Like, we all know that we should take a break more often, that we actually need to take this vacation, that we shouldn't work on the weekends or at night, and that we should probably get some more exercise in, and yet here we are. And the crazy thing is, this is almost all of my friends and clients. So many of my clients will ask for coaching to help them lose weight and exercise more And when I ask them how come they don't exercise, they will always say it's because they have to work, they have bills to pay.
And I've always found that one really hard to respond to because bills are a real thing, right? Like, we have to pay the bills. But at the same time, I don't actually think that's the whole answer because I'm not telling them to stop working for three months. I'm saying, "Well, hmm, how about you go from working 60 hours a week to maybe 50?"
And that's when I get this immediate resistance. They just won't do it. Or they might say yes, it makes sense, but then they go back to doing the same thing. So then that's when I'll take a step back and be like, "Hmm, something else is going on." That's always the case in coaching. So when I mapped this out over the last couple of days, I realized it's not just the fact that we have these delayed consequences with our bodies, but it's combined with this other thing here because there's also an immediate reward for working more, right?
Doing more work often gets you something, like you get to finish the project, maybe you're a completionist, uh, maybe you feel relief of not having this thing hanging over your head anymore. You might make some more money. People might give you praise or validation. You get to feel like you're good at what you do.
You get to feel accomplished. And somewhere in there, you might also feel like this is how success is supposed to go. This is you being a good, productive citizen. But I think that's the trap. Overworking pays off now, but the bill comes due later. And because you do this over and over, your brain starts to learn that blowing past your breaking point is the right thing to do.
But I think for some people it goes even deeper than that. Like, productivity isn't just something they're doing, it's how they're proving their worth. And that's why whenever I suggest dialing back just a little, it feels much bigger than taking a break because it starts getting into all this other stuff like, if I'm not working, if I'm not producing, if I'm not making money, then who am I?
Why am I even here? Now, it's not like I haven't done this myself. I am so guilty of this as well. I remember the hardest points in my life were always when I was between jobs, and it's also why I had such a hard time with prioritizing exercise. Like, I used to struggle with consistently exercising because my brain didn't equate exercise with anything meaningful on the productivity side, right?
It wasn't making me money. If anything, it was costing me money. Now, the thing that finally changed everything was one day I heard myself literally saying aloud, "Hmm, where and when can I fit in my exercise today?" And when I heard myself, I was like, "Wait a minute. Why is exercise the thing I'm trying to fit in around everything else?
Why isn't everything else fitting in around my exercise and nutrition? Why is all the stuff I do for other people coming before the support I need to give to myself?" And that was the click I didn't like hearing myself say that at all. Why was I always deprioritizing myself for other people and other things?
I hated this feeling. No wonder I always felt less than, because I was literally always placing people higher than myself on the list. I was teaching myself that I mattered less than other people. That was when I decided, "Well, fuck all of this." So that was where I said, "No more. My exercise, come hell or high water, is permanently on the schedule every day no matter what."
So thinking back to that time, I think that's the lesson for me. I need fewer decisions in the moment and more rules that I've just already committed to, that I've already decided on. Because I think from everything I'm describing, if you are anything like me or some of these people I'm describing, we've already proven to ourselves that we don't listen to our internal gauge of when we need to stop.
Okay? So then we can't trust ourselves to wait for that feeling of I'm tired or, hmm, I don't feel good, because by the time we get that feeling, it's usually too late. So this might be why we kinda need a blueprint or even borrow a page from other people. So for example, my husband has very strict work boundaries.
He works 9 to 6, and that is it. He doesn't work on the weekends, not on the evenings, and he definitely doesn't work on vacations. He doesn't even take his laptop with him on vacations. Whereas for me, the work just kinda sprawls into any hour of any day. There are no weekends. I don't really have holidays or vacations either.
So when I look at my husband, seeing how he handles his work versus not work life, it makes me realize this is actually possible. Now, I think part of my struggle, though, is being neurodivergent, having both ADHD and autism, but I don't think that's really an excuse either, because I know there are people with ADHD and autism who have good work boundaries.
I just happen to be someone who resists. Like, I hate stuff landing on my schedule, and maybe there is something to learn about working with myself and not against myself And honestly, just between you and me, I think it's the ADHD. My autistic side loves routines and organization, but my ADHD side will be like, "Oh my God, no, I need freedom."
It is so ridiculous. Anyway, bottom line is I know that what I'm doing now isn't working, so I gotta change the plan. That's always the choice on the table. You either stay in the mess or you choose to do something about it and hopefully get out of it. Which brings me to what I think is actually going on.
I think most of us don't understand just how far we've pushed ourselves or hustled ourselves, because I certainly didn't. I do think we know we're tired, but we only seem to intellectually know we're working too much, and we might kinda know that something needs to change, but I don't think we believe it, right?
We don't feel it in our gut, which is why we keep treating these signals like suggestions instead of hard lines. Now, for some people, especially if you're younger, maybe you genuinely don't know where your physical capacity is. But when you get to this age where you're in your 40s or above, I think a lot of us do know, but we just keep going anyway because we don't actually believe those limits are real until something really bad happens, like we get a major health scare.
That was my mother. She wouldn't stop smoking until the doctor told her that she might die in two years if she kept going like this. And then guess what? She stopped smoking cold turkey like magic, which proves we can do it. So I think the work is to figure some of this out before we hit this rock bottom, right?
Before we get to that point, and sometimes that point is actually too late where we can't do anything about it, and then that's really scary. So if you wanna change this, there are some real questions to answer. Number one, what signals have you been ignoring? Number two, what are you getting from pushing past your capacity?
And number three, what do you think will happen if you stop? If you can start to answer those questions, that's when you actually make different choices. And I mean really think about these questions, not just for 10 seconds and then forget all about them. Like, take some time, maybe 20 minutes for all three questions, and try to answer them for real.
And it's even better if you sit down with someone and talk through these. I find that most people do better with learning about themselves when there's somebody else with them as a sounding board. All right. That's it for this week. If you know someone who needs to hear this, which honestly I think might be every woman in your circle if you're listening right now, do us both a favor and forward this episode to them.
If anything in this episode resonated with you, feel free to message me on LinkedIn or text me at the link in the description.
As always, thank you so much for listening. And remember, I believe in you. See you next time.
