Episode 11: You Didn’t Burn Out — You Drifted There

Most people think burnout hits all at once.

It doesn’t.

It builds—quietly—while everything still looks like it’s working.

You’re showing up.
 Getting things done.
 Handling your responsibilities.

And telling yourself you’re fine.

In this episode, we break down how burnout actually starts—
 the early signs most people miss,
 the myths that keep it going,
 and how you end up putting energy into things that don’t move your life forward.

This isn’t about fixing yourself.
 It’s about noticing what’s already happening—before it costs you more than you realize.

If something feels off…
 start here.

If this hit, share it with someone who needs to hear it. 

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Presented by Madison’s Path
https://madisonspath.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most people don't notice burnout when it starts. It doesn't show up as a breakdown. It shows up as I'm fine. I'm just busy. You're still getting things done. You're still showing up. You're still handling your responsibilities, but something is off. Your energy's lower. Your patience shorter. Things that used to matter, they don't hit. It's because nothing's technically wrong. You just keep going until one day it is. Welcome to the Man in Motion Podcast, Episode 11. Burnout Doesn't Hit. It builds while you're pretending you're fine. I'm Bob. This is a show about paying attention to what most people don't while you're in the middle of living your life. No hype, no fixing. Just awareness, responsibility, and the work that doesn't get talked about. Ever forward. Let's get into it. Burnout doesn't usually come from doing too much. It comes from doing too much of what doesn't actually move your life forward and then not noticing the shift. So I alluded to this uh back in episode two that I had hit a point where I was I was I was burned out. I was very bad. And, you know, it came for me, it kind of snuck up on me. Um I was I was at a point where I was working close to 60 hours a week. Um I was on on an afternoon evening shift, and you know, it was just I was I was in a building phase, you know. We were just opening Madison's path up. Um we had been building the unstuck program. I was involved at my church, and I'm I'm a minister at my church. Uh so you know I'm I'm helping there. And we were still working the grief share program. All of this on top of dealing with the grief of losing a daughter, trying to keep my family together and keep them going, um, and still trying to provide. And it just felt like I was living in a fog. Nothing, I didn't feel anything except irritation. And I felt that very quickly. But the the positive emotions, the happiness, the joy, the love, uh, laughter, I hadn't laughed in weeks. And I was, I was, I forget what I was working on. I was doing something uh related to our Unstuck program, and I came across this worksheet, and it had all these symptoms listed on it, and I was going down the list. I'm sitting here going, yeah, yeah, I've I've I've got that one. Um, yeah, I've I've got that one too. Uh yeah, that one too, that one too. And I went down the whole list, and I mean it was literally a page and a half of just lit of things, and I I hit probably 90% of them. And in that 90%, like I'm like, what is this even for? So I looked at the top of the sheet and it's a clinical burnout diagnosis checklist. And as you can imagine, the oh shit moment I had right then and there was it was pretty significant. Um I knew something had to give, something had to change. And it wasn't there wasn't a clear path. You know, and I I had missed all the signs. I had missed all the signs, the the physical signs, the fatigue, constant fatigue, not sleeping well. And when you do sleep, you still wake up and you're just as tired as when you went to bed. And constantly being sick. It felt like I always had whatever sniffle or cough or whatever was going around. Yeah, I had it. Heartburn, huh? Heartburn was my best friend. Uh, but but then there's also the the mental aspects of it. I couldn't focus on anything because I was trying to focus on everything. And because of that, I always felt overwhelmed. Like I could just, like I was just struggling to keep up and keep my head on head above water. And like I said, I was always irritated, always angry. Those emotions, man, they were right there constantly. But the positive emotions, the ones that make life really worth living, man, I I struggled. I struggled with them. And when I did feel them, it was like I was watching a movie about them. They were muted and they were distant, they weren't mine. You know, and even my wife noticed it. She said I was very detached from everything and everyone. And I had no motivation. I was trying to do everything, but I was finding it hard to start on anything. You know, and that's that's a tough place to be, guys. That's that really just it's not great. It's not a great place to be. So what do we do with this? Let's look at how we got there. How do we get there? We live in this world today where there's this idea of the hustle culture, you know, oh, everyone needs a side hustle, everyone needs a side hustle. And I don't disagree, but I don't think it's universal. Let me let me explain. For me, my regular job, because I still have a regular job, unfortunately, full-time podcasting is not pay very well. So, um, so I have a job to put food on the table and keep my kids clothed. And it's a great job. Don't get me wrong, it's a great job. And I'm thankful for it, and I'm grateful for it. But it's not personally fulfilling. Doesn't hit me where I live, it doesn't fill that need in me. That that that spark that passion. So for me, having a side hustle just makes sense. I get to do the thing that I love, and you know, I get to scratch that edge. I get to scratch that creative aspect of my life. You know, I've I've said it before, I'm a maker, I enjoy building things and creating things, and I'm I'm a minister in the Methodist Church, which by definition means I like helping people. Uh and this this is, you know, the Madison's path and the and the man in motion. This this stuff helps me scratch that itch. So it's it's good for me to have a side hustle. But if you have, if you're one of those blessed individuals who gets to climb out of bed in the morning and you're excited because you get to put your shoes on and go do something that you dearly love. First off, I I hope, I hope you're wise enough to recognize that, that how blessed you are with that. Because you never have to work. You get paid to go do something you love, and that just changes life. It really does. But let's go back to some of these uh hustle culture myths, right? You know, people people talk about how you have to grind to be successful. Grinding to be successful. That's just I thought the whole point of success was not grinding at all myself. I mean, I I my goal is always to make the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. And I think that's most sane people, but you know, but we confused the idea that output equals effectiveness. And it doesn't. You know, when I was when I was burnt out, I was I was constantly producing, but I was producing everything at 15 to 20% of what I was capable of because I couldn't focus on any one thing, and my energy was distributed everywhere. Um and let's not overlook the fact that recovery matters. That downtime, we always talk about downtime. We need downtime. Downtime is actually very important. We know from basic biology that muscles need rest to rebuild themselves. I mean, that's what you're doing when you're in your gym. You're you're f you're fatiguing and um breaking down the muscles in your body that it as it does the work, the muscles break down and then your body builds them back stronger. And that that recovery time, it's it's not optional. Like it your body needs that. Your brain's no different. You know, you do most of your learning while you're asleep. Your brain writes everything in the short-term memory, and then when you go to sleep, that's when your brain actually processes this stuff and holds onto it. That's why they tell college students study and then go to bed before a test. The sleep is where the work is done. Recovery matters. And then the other portion of this is if you're constantly grinding and you get to the point where you're burned out, your consistency is going to be shit. Because whatever is good enough at that moment, that's where your output's gonna be. The idea that everyone needs a side hustle. And like I said, if it's if it's scratching that itch inside of you and you can manage it, it's life-changing. Really is, especially if it's something that's fulfilling. If it's just I'm chasing more dollars, well, then that side hustle might not be serving you as well as you think it does. I mean, obviously, guys, we're providers. You do what you got to do to put food on the table, and there's no judgment in that. But if it's not a, if it's if it's not a situation like that, if it's a I'm doing this because I want to do this or I'm trying to build something, you know, the advice I give my my daughters, figure out what you love doing and then figure out how to get paid at it. If you can work that equation and you can make that work, it's it's gonna be huge. Because you will never ever go to work. You'll always be going to do something you love. If I could figure out how to get paid to talk to people and help people, or shoot guns, or cook. I mean, cooking is an easy one, but you know, I did that commercially for a while and it kind of sucks. No offense, guys, if you're a cook, I've lived that life, and that is definitely a young man's game. That is not my game anymore. Respect for doing it, it's necessary, God love you for it. But those days are done for me. The other idea. Sleep is optional. How many times have you heard someone said, Oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead, man? Yeah, you will. Yeah, you will. But we already talked about how most of your learning is actually done while you're sleeping, and the mental recovery aspect of sleep is huge. It helps you regulate your hormones, it helps you helps your body um set up a rhythm because we are creatures that are built to work on a rhythm. And, you know, it just regulates so many processes in our body that sleep it's huge for us. It's so huge for us. And then the idea that, and this this was something I was guilty of for a long time, where I'm stealing from sleep, where I had so many responsibilities, I was constantly busy, busy, busy. And at the end of the day, the wife would be in bed, the kids would be asleep. And I had the choice between sleeping or doing me things. Even though I know I needed to sleep, I would go and do those me things, justifying that, oh, I need the mental downtime. Actually, your body needed to sleep, and you're stealing from the thing that's actually going to make you feel better the next day. More so than playing a couple rounds of Call of Duty or reading or doing whatever it is you're going to do at nine o'clock at night when everyone else is in bed and you're sitting there binging, you know, three episodes on Netflix. I think you need to look at that. And then there's this idea that passion prevents burnout. It can. It can. But even if you're passionate about it, the rip risk is very real. Because what often happens is we let that passion override any structure we have set in place. And things that we shouldn't be chasing, we start chase, start to chase, excuse me. And that leads, that leads, your time starts getting very short. And that that passion starts taking over things that it shouldn't. And it's gonna lead you to start resenting it. It's either gonna you're either gonna resent what you're doing, or you're gonna start resenting the things that you have to take care of other than what you're passionate about. You'll start resenting the things that are outside of that passion because they're dragging you away from it. Not recognizing that it's actually the burnout that's killing you on all of it. So you gotta be careful with that. So that leads us to this idea of what is busy work versus what is real productivity. Effort doesn't mean progress, time does not mean value. And this this is where I was guilty because I was so scheduled, I had so much on my plate and so many commitments, and I had so much activity going on that I couldn't see the fact that I had stagnated, I was stuck, I wasn't making any real progress. Because I was giving everything 10, 15, 20% of my attention and my time, and I wasn't getting any final results, I wasn't getting anywhere with any of it, but I was always busy, and I just thought, oh, I'm busy, I'm working at it, so therefore things must be great, right? Yeah, not so much, because if I'm doing five things at 20%, it's gonna take five times as long to accomplish any one of them. Whereas if you focus your efforts and you give it your time and energy, things are gonna grow quickly. We lose sight of the fact that we start prioritizing the effort over the outcome. And I think this is something a lot of us are guilty of. See, we fail to define what we're looking for. Like we fail to really focus on a goal. And we don't actually def really define. You know, for me it was, oh, I'm just gonna do a men's men's mental health podcast, or a men's health podcast, or a men's culture podcast. That's great, but that's kind of like saying I want to drive to the store. It's kind of broad. Doesn't really tell you anything about what you're gonna do once you're there. See, the key result that we really need to look at is what impact are we having? Yes, we want to do this, but what impact, what what is the impact we're after? What is the goal? What are we trying to accomplish with this? And if you're like I was, you're not gonna have an answer to that. Your answer's gonna be this this big, gigantic, lofty ideal, and in having that big lofty goal, we lose sight of the actual thing that we want to do. In my case, when I was coming up with the idea for the man in motion, it was I've been the guy that's been on his knees and was just begging for someone to take his hand and help him up. And there was there was one man who did. And I wanted to pay that forward. I wanted to pay that forward. And when I started this, and you can probably tell, you go back, you listen to some of my earlier episodes, they're they're a little rough, I'm not gonna lie. And I'm still a work in progress. I'm still figuring this thing out. But we're figuring it out together. But the one thing I did do is I defined what I'm trying to do. And what I'm trying to do is to help you all do the thing that I never did. And that's to actually look at yourself. Think about where you are, think about who you are, think about what you're doing. Because we're we're on on all we're all on autopilot. And that's the biggest problem. Is we just run from situation to situation, we react autonomously, without thinking, just on automatic, and then we go to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And there's no intention, there's no thought, there's no plan. It's just I'm doing the things society tells me I'm supposed to do. But that needs to be tempered with you getting what you need out of society as well. And that's that's where we miss this. That's that's where we screw it up. And then we end up spending all our time doing stupid shit. Stuff that is low impact. They're just time dreams. You know, they're things that you could get rid of entirely or delegate to someone, and they draw you away from your focus. When we need to be focused on the things that actually move that needle, things that actually make a difference in our lives, the things that are going to make the biggest changes for us, the things that are going to align what's in our hearts and in our head with what we're doing. And the things that actually affect the world. So how do we do that? How do we do this? You know, I had intended to talk about boundaries today, but I don't think I will because boundaries needs to be an episode unto itself. That is a big topic. It's probably the hardest part of doing all this is establishing and setting and maintaining those boundaries. So I think next week we're going to have a whole episode on boundaries, setting them and how to manage them and what happens when the real world intersects with one of our boundaries and something has to give. So we'll we'll talk about that next week. But understand that a portion of this is going to be understood that setting boundaries is a big part of this. So what do we do? What else can we do besides setting boundaries? Obviously, reducing load is kind of a given. You know, get rid of the stuff that really doesn't matter. I mean, honestly, if it's if you're doing it to check someone else's box off, not yours, and that's not important to you, get rid of it. Yeah, I kind of alluded to this earlier. Rebuild your basic rhythms. Sleep, eat, self-care. I can't tell you how important something is stupid as sleeping and taking care of yourself and showering and proper nutrition, drinking some water, eating something that's goddamn green once in a while. I can't tell you enough how important that is. Focus on getting one win a day. One win. Could be something small. Hey, I had a salad today. Or hey, I went to bed at a reasonable time and I actually got six hours of sleep tonight. Or whatever. Whatever you whatever you want to check it off as. Hey, I crossed three three things off my honeydew list. One win. Shoot for one win a day. Subtract before adding. Start offloading some commitments before we add new ones. I'm owning this, guys. Those of you that know me know that I fucking suck at this. I'm constantly committing myself to new things that I don't have time for. And I'm working on it. I'm a work in progress on this. We want to detach our identity from our output. The idea that, you know, I'm the guy that gets things done doesn't have to be your identity. We we get that confused. Especially in our professional environments and our jobs and businesses, they they reward this ideal. And you are more than what you produce. You know, so we've we've created space now. What do we do with it? Do we just charge headlong back into hobbies? And no. Because that's you'll burn yourself out on hobbies too. You want to rebuild slowly. Make one change until it no longer feels like a change. But do it one at a time. Until it no longer feels like a change, where it no longer feels different. And honestly, follow your curiosity. If something seems like that might be pretty cool, try it out. What's it gonna hurt? New experiences are awesome, especially if you approach them without any expectation. You know, it's something we teach in our program. We encourage people to get rid of their expectations, to be open to the experience as they're having it, and then just go experience whatever this new thing is. And the results are ridiculous. You know, we start with something small, just picking up an orange and exploring it with our senses. Get rid of the preconceptions of you know what this is. You know, we sell it as though it's it's an alien piece of fruit that just dropped on the planet, and you have no clue what it is. You've got five senses, and you've got to figure out what this is. And the response to this is huge, it's ridiculous. We had one woman who told us she's hated oranges her entire life, has never enjoyed the taste of an orange. And after she did the activity, she loved eating that orange. And then the other thing I would caution is to let momentum return on its own terms. You know, if you're rebuilding your life, you don't have to charge ahead. It's okay to just take it as it comes. We've already talked about don't change everything all at once. Make one change a day. Or one change until it feels natural. And you're not struggling with it, then you can go to the next one and the next one and the next one. But let that momentum set its own pace. Don't set false deadlines. Oh, I'm gonna free up three hours a day, and then I'm gonna start doing this hobby, that hobby, and I'm gonna build this business. All you're doing is rescheduling, changing the items on your schedule. You're not changing anything. You know, I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again. We deserve better than we give ourselves. Every single person. We all do. At least I think you do. And I hope that this makes you at least look at it. At least look at what you're doing. Because burnout, it does not hit all at once. It builds very quietly. And if you don't notice it, you don't correct it. So pay attention. Pay attention to your energy, to your focus, and to what your life is actually moving towards. Because drifting is automatic. And it's easy right up until it costs you something. So that's it for today. Take what's useful, leave what is not, choose, and keep moving.