Next Level University

1 Way You’re Burning Yourself Out… (2047)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In today’s honest and energizing episode of Next Level University, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros unpack the sneaky cycle of burnout that hits when you're riding high. They explore why we tend to overdo it when we feel good—and what it really takes to stay consistent without crashing. From gym metaphors to trend lines, this episode offers simple mindset shifts to help you stop resenting your goals and start showing up in a sustainable way.

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https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkcuiupjIqE9QlkptiKDQykRtKyFB5Jbhc

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NLU is not just a podcast; it’s a gateway to a wealth of resources designed to help you achieve your goals and dreams. From our Next Level Dreamliner to our Group Coaching, we offer a variety of tools and communities to support your personal development journey.

For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com

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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email. We’re here to support you in your personal and professional development journey.

Instagram 📷
Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

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Show notes:
(3:15) The self-worth trap of inconsistency
(4:51) The tortoise always wins
(6:25) Everything in life is trend lines
(7:50) Anxiety, WhatsApp, and micro-habits
(8:48) Self-awareness over self-sabotage
(9:40) Next Level Dreamliner: The planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(10:06) 70% effort beats burnout
(12:36) Offense Vs. Defense in success
(14:03) Make sure you show up tomorrow
(15:34) Maximizing Vs. Optimizing
(17:07) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

Somebody asked me the other day. They said how do I become more successful? And I said when you're feeling really, really, really good, you have to start doing less. And here's why Because when you're feeling good, you overdo it, you burn yourself out, then you need to take two weeks off, then you feel bad about the fact that you took two weeks off, then you feel good again and you overdo it. It becomes this perpetual cycle that is jeffing your success.

Alan Lazaros:

However, it also works both ways. When you're down and out, you also have to do the minimums. So to Kevin's point when you're feeling really good and you're flying high, don't overdo it. Stay humble, Don't overdo it. But when you're down and out, not feeling well, you still got to hit your minimums.

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan Lazaros:

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life, love, health and wealth.

Kevin Palmieri:

We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success Self-improvement in your pocket every day, from anywhere, completely free.

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University, next Level Nation, today for episode number 2047. One way you're burning yourself out. We had a group coaching session last night and this is no shade to any of the other group coachings, because we've had amazing people throughout Maybe my favorite group ever. Whoa, yeah, this is my favorite. This is my favorite group ever. I love you. If you're in, if you've been in other groups and you're a good person, I love you. But this, this one, is something special. And last night was our first connection connection session. And last night was our first connection session and somebody said I feel like I'm in this cycle of burnout, then feeling bad and having shame, then being inspired and motivated, and then it just becomes this cycle over and over, and over and over again. And she said how did you guys do it like? How did you guys get there?

Alan Lazaros:

and I have pain failure massive.

Kevin Palmieri:

and I said that. I said, look, I I don't think using us as an example is going to give anybody anything they need right now. But I said if, if anything, we focus on consistent 70, 80 days, even when we're feeling good, I don't do 120, I mean again, the 70 now is way different than I thought it was going to be. It's still. There's still a lot going on. But I I had I used to have someone in my life.

Kevin Palmieri:

They would, they would get injured from over exercising. They'd be out of exercise for two, three, three, four weeks. They'd go to physical therapy. They get it taken care of and then, instead of coming back and walking a mile, they'd run for, get hurt. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Kevin Palmieri:

And what you're not seeing is behind the scenes. That is drastically affecting their self-belief and that is drastically affecting their self-worth and it's hurting everything in their life. It's hurting their routines, it's hurting their discipline, it's hurting everything. That's more. I mean, that's what we're talking about today. It's more an issue of when you're out of the arena for a long enough period of time, you start to feel shame about it and then you want to jump right back in time you start to feel shame about it and then you want to jump right back in.

Kevin Palmieri:

And I think the self-belief piece of this is super important, because if you think, okay, I just lost all of that time, I just lost all of that progress, I just lost all of that momentum, now I can't be successful, that's an awareness that I think we have to understand, that two weeks off is not great, but it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world that you took two weeks off. It can be the end of it If you take two weeks off and then you go hard for a week and then you take two weeks off. You're not going to get that many results If you do that. It just doesn't work that way.

Alan Lazaros:

At next level, live. I said all of us tomorrow, sunday, hypothetical universe. All of us tomorrow, sunday, hypothetical universe. All of us, everyone in the room, we're going to work out, going to the gym for nine straight hours. It's going to be brutal. I said that would not change your life at all. However, if I took that same nine hours and I broke it into half hour increments and you did 18 days straight of a half hour of exercise, that could create a habit that could change your whole life.

Alan Lazaros:

Tortoise and the hare thing. Now imagine, in the tortoise and the hare analogy, the tortoise was getting a little faster. So instead of the tortoise just being super, super, super consistent and super, super, super persistent, imagine that same story. Tortoise and the hare. Hare is starts and stops, arrogant, starts and stops, naps, starts and stops talent. The tortoise is just unrelenting, just going along. Now imagine same thing, except the tortoise gets a little faster all along the way, and sometimes the tortoise isn't feeling well and it goes a little slower. Sometimes it's feeling really good, it goes a little faster, but it stays consistent. But the the next level, next level, next level of the tortoise is a little faster, little faster, little faster, little faster.

Alan Lazaros:

That's why I always talk about trend lines and I'll explain it just for anyone who is a new listener your weight, your bank account, your net worth, your relationship. It's ups and downs. So on a graph over time, it's ups and downs and ups and downs, and ups and downs. Your mood and downs, your mood ups and downs. I, uh, you and I were meeting at 12 30. You got here at 12 35, but there was a moment 20 minutes prior to that where I was like, wow, I'm fucking tired and I I got some little caffeine, caffeine to try to pick my state up. Now again, it's not always with caffeine. I also could do something else, whatever. Usually, caffeine.

Alan Lazaros:

Stimulant timing is very important? I think yeah, but my point is is everything is ups and downs, everything. You're not going to be 100% all the time. You're also not going to be 20% all the time. Every time I ever get sick it's always like damn, why wasn't I more grateful for when I wasn't sick? What was easy for me three days ago is now so hard for me to fucking do, and I know other people have been there. When you are up and you have a peak state, use it, but don't overuse it. Don't abuse it. When you're down and out and you're struggling, you still got to hit your minimums, you still got to be the tortoise, and I am convinced that that is one of the most important success principles in the game is just consistency is an absolute superpower.

Kevin Palmieri:

For sure, and eventually your minimums for lack of better phrasing become more valuable. In the beginning, the minimum might be I don't know if I have a good example For us, the minimum is record a podcast episode. That's always the minimum I can't miss. Now, do we do one every day? We release one every day. Do we record one every day? No, we usually don't record on Sunday and we I won't say oftentimes we don't record on Saturday. Some days we do, but that is one of the minimums. But now some of the other minimums are like for me batch WhatsApp.

Kevin Palmieri:

Essentially, I look at WhatsApp every single day. Some days it's mayhem and it's like oh no, here we go. Other days I literally I've been doing this where I batch it at like 8 pm and then I know when I go to sleep that there's no messages I'm going to wake up to in the morning. Most likely it's one way to cure anxiety, to avoid what we might be able to solve now for later. But I just think it's.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's not about this is what I said. This is what I said to the person who asked the question. I said we have to really check in with. Are you thinking of how can I be successful today, or are you thinking of how can I prolong the amount of time I do this for? Because those are two very different conversations, depending on where you are. If you're literally saying I have to do everything today that I can possibly do to be successful, cool If that's sustainable. If that's sustainable, cool Other days.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's how do I just make sure I don't lose any momentum? And we have to figure out what side of that ratio are you on. If you feel good and you say, okay, I have this and this and this and this and this and I'm going to do all this stuff, and then I do that for the course of a week and I burn myself out. I start resenting my goals, I start resenting my habits, I start resenting my routines, I start resenting my passions, I start resenting my purpose, obviously you're not going to want to do them. But what if we leaned so far into self-awareness that we woke up and we said I'm feeling really fucking good today? And every time I feel really good, I go to the proverbial gym and I try to squat more weight than I can handle and I blow my shit out, not gonna do. I'm going to do a little bit less this time.

Alan Lazaros:

Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener. Thank you, as always, for listening to Next Level University. Real quick. I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner. This is a journal that I use every single day. Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's always dangerous saying do less. It's always, always, always dangerous. But if you're somebody who overwhelms yourself by doing more and then you do nothing, doing less to Alan's point is still going to move the trend line in the right direction. Where again? Lori Harder said this when we interviewed her a long time ago. She said consistent 70% days are better than spotty 100% days. And if you, if you run the math on that I'm not a mathematician, but if you run the math on that if you do seven 70% days, do seven 70% days, that's 490, seven times seven, 49. If you do, even if you do four 100% days and then three 0% days, that's only 400. So 70% days will get you further than spotty 100s for sure. And it's just a matter of how do we get that to land within ourselves. Logically it makes a lot of sense, emotionally it doesn't always.

Alan Lazaros:

I was in the gym earlier today doing push day and I was feeling really good. I don't know why, but for some reason today I hit several PRs. I have PRs for my 20s and PRs for my 30s, so this is PR in my 30s. Interesting yeah, I had to reset Interesting. I was very thrilled about it, but anyways. So I call it a PR because it's Alan in his 30s. Pr pisses me off. But I was doing close grip bench and I had already PR'd and a couple other things and I was like I'm feeling really good today. I think I'm going to put on 185 for close grip. And I was like Alan, don't be dumb. Emilia's on the other side of the gym, no, don't be dumb. So I ended up only putting 45, a 10 and a 15.

Alan Lazaros:

10 and a 15, a 10 and a 5?

Alan Lazaros:

55, 60, 120 plus 45. So you're looking at 165. So I ended up putting 165. I got it up for five by myself, unassisted. But the old me probably would have put on the 185 and only gotten two or three and it might have gotten injured.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, I think it's arrogant. I do, and I don't mean to call anyone arrogant. I think I'm arrogant and I don't think I'm super arrogant. I think that sometimes when you feel really good, you do. You don't conserve. It's offense and defense. When you feel good, play a little offense, see if you can do a trick, switch, kick or whatever.

Alan Lazaros:

Insert metaphor here I'm thinking soccer. I don't know why I'm thinking soccer, but you're on offense. Yeah, maybe try a 360 dunk. If you're feeling really good, give it a shot, but don't only try to dunk from the foul line. Resource yourself, take care of yourself. And when you wake up and you feel like shit, one of my clients is not feeling well, he he canceled our call on Monday. He actually had his wife email me and I said okay, no stress, let's see if we can pull it off on Thursday. Because she said can we reschedule it later in the week? I would rather you show up less than ideal and imperfect than not show up at all, and I do think a huge, huge, huge advantage is just keeping momentum when you're down and out.

Kevin Palmieri:

That I have a question. We don't have time to do it because it's a deeper question but what's the difference between maximizing and optimizing Nice? That's one of the things that I have adopted Again 35, alan's 36, things are different than they were in the 20s.

Alan Lazaros:

Are you 35? Still I'm still 35.

Kevin Palmieri:

My birthday's in August, so I still a fairly good amount of time yeah. Another three months, almost four months, three and a half months. I was talking to one of my buddies at the gym and I said I heard an interview with somebody one time and he said the older you get, the less it is about maximizing your workouts and the more it is about making sure that you can come back to the gym tomorrow.

Kevin Palmieri:

And I was like Ooh, oh, that's, and that's exactly what we're talking about today. Yeah, that is exactly, except what it should have been, even when you're young I know, I know, but it's different. It's different in productivity because, in theory, the older you get, the more you can do with less in fitness. It's the opposite. As you get older, things get heavier in your body. It's your body's just not what it used to. Opposite as you get older, things get heavier in your body. Your body's just not what it used to be.

Alan Lazaros:

But as you get older, cognitively, you're capable of more. Yeah, organizationally yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

Right. So if anything, as you learn how to do this more and more and more, you just showing up, tomorrow is going to be way better than it was a year ago, and we just have to believe that, because if you don't believe it, you won't do it. Obviously Right. If, if, if something does not seem worth it, it would be a logical to do it. But if you're falling into that position and you feel like you resonate with that, yeah, I, I have cycles. I feel terrible because I'm not doing it, and then I I guilt myself into doing it and then I overdo it and becomes the cycle. This is something potentially that's applicable to you.

Alan Lazaros:

What if I told you that consistency compounds more than you think, especially in the long term? You asked me about maximization and optimization.

Kevin Palmieri:

We have a couple minutes. I have two minutes because I got to get out of here and I got to get into another room for a podcast episode because I got to get out of here and I got to get into another room for a podcast episode.

Alan Lazaros:

Maximizing is trying to reach a pinnacle point in the future. I think maximizing is an infinite game that never ends you never. There's no one on earth who couldn't get a little stronger if they tried. So maximizing is a long game. Optimizing is how you maximize. So optimizing is what you do and don't do in the present, based on what you're trying to maximize. So what are you optimizing for Right now? I'm optimizing for getting this said in the next 30 seconds so kev can get out of here. I'm optimizing for the value that I can provide in in the next 30 seconds. I'm maximizing the value of this podcast that's it.

Kevin Palmieri:

Okay, I don't know if that was a dramatic pause. You had a couple seconds left. I thought you might want to use it up. No, I think that's it perfect all right cool next level nation. If you are looking to see, that was a dramatic pause right there. If you are looking for a group of like-minded humans who are into personal development and talking about weird stuff and, uh, self-awareness and self-belief and hype for consciousness, we have a private facebook group called next level.

Alan Lazaros:

We will have the link below in the show notes and if you're looking for a book club, nice Reset by Dan Heath. This will help you design your life in a way that will help you be consistent, especially, yeah, when you're down and out. Keep after it. Try to keep momentum when you're really flying high, stay humble Boom.

Kevin Palmieri:

All right, as always. We love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. And at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros:

Keep it consistent.

Kevin Palmieri:

Next Level Nation. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University.

Alan Lazaros:

We love connecting with the Next Level family. We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly.

Kevin Palmieri:

Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes. Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host