Whole Man
This podcast is for high-performing adults who have achieved external success but still feel burned out, disconnected, or unfulfilled. Many grew up in survival mode, built a life that looks good on the outside, and now feel like they’re only living half of it. This podcast is me figuring out how to become whole in real time and taking you with me.
Whole Man
#2: The Hidden Causes of Burnout
What if burnout isn't just a sign of overworking ourselves, but the result of something much deeper?
In this episode, I talk about the 3 most common symptoms of burnout I've identified through my work, the root causes of those symptoms, and how to address them.
Whether you're feeling burned out, not sure if you're burned out, or know you aren't and just want to learn more about it, this episode is for you.
Enjoy!
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This episode is going to be all about burnout. And when I say burnout, I know that's a pretty broad term. If burnout doesn't resonate with you, maybe think about emotional exhaustion, spiritual fatigue, that feeling of trudging through mud, no matter what you're doing throughout the day, that feeling of having a thousand pounds on your on your shoulders, on your chest, just an overall sense of dread. Feels like every single little thing that you do throughout the day requires all of your energy. That's what I mean by burnout. And I want to talk about my perspective of what the root causes of burnout are, and then also give you guys a little bit of nibblets of solutions to addressing those root causes of burnout. So typically, when I talk about this kind of stuff, there's three kinds of categories of people that listen to it. Category number one is the person who is not experiencing burnout. However, they want to be proactive. They know that there could be a point in their life where they start to enter the burnout cycle, say they want to prevent it from happening. Call that the proactive leader, right? Person number two is the person who is probably experiencing some burnout symptoms, but they haven't really connected the dots yet to what they're experiencing and that being burnout. So if you're that person, then you're gonna learn some stuff today. And hopefully you can catch yourself where you are in the cycle so that it doesn't transform into what the third person would be. And the third person is the person who knows they're burned out, realizes they're burned out. However, their perspective of why might be skewed. Um, the way I think about burnout is it's very similar to an injury. Where we think the root of the pain is coming from is not typically where the root is. So by the end of this episode, my goal is to help you guys just have a new frame and perspective around burnout and hopefully be able to take away one or two action steps to where you can really prevent it in your life and create more fulfillment in your life. So let's get started with this. Um, one of the first symptoms when it comes to burnout is emotional exhaustion. And the best way I can describe emotional exhaustion is that feeling that you get whenever you're talking to somebody and you almost feel like you want to take a nap after. You talk to somebody and you you notice that they're not really listening to you, maybe their eyes are glazed over during the conversation, it almost feels like that your life force is being drained as you're talking to them. Some people call these individuals energy vampires, right? It's the people that we almost we just don't look forward to talking to them, right? Uh that's emotional exhaustion and how it feels. And also, maybe if you're in a high stress job environment and you're talking to patients all day that are going through a lot of traumatic things. Maybe you're a therapist, maybe you're a nurse practitioner, a nurse, maybe you're a CEO, a high-level executive, somebody who manages teams. Um, all day you are the person that people come to with their problems. And over time, you're noticing that that's kind of draining your energy. It's almost like we're uh we're letting that affect how we're feeling. And so, yeah, that's what being emotionally drained feels like. Emotional exhaustion feels like. So it's more than just I hit a workout, now I'm tired. Um, I don't know about you guys, but when I hit a really hard workout, I'm tired, but I also have a deep sense of satisfaction. I feel almost at peace and relaxed. Emotional exhaustion is not that. Emotional exhaustion is I'm tired and I feel frustrated. Uh, I'm tired and I feel like I don't want to have a conversation with anybody. So yeah, exhausted is uh it's a different, it's a different level of fatigue. So emotional exhaustion is one of the first symptoms. And if you're experiencing that, then what I believe the root cause of that to be is misalignment. And I know alignment is a really overused word in a lot of different spaces. So let's break down what alignment actually is. Alignment is when our beliefs, our thoughts, and our behaviors are in accordance with the person that we came here to be, or the way I describe it, our true selves. And what happens, whether we're conscious of our value system or not, um, we are living out values every day. So a lot of us, as we grow up, we don't consciously embody our own value systems that we consciously choose, we unconsciously take on other people's value systems. And typically that would be our parents' values, society's values, our values from our job. And whether we're aware of these values or not, the areas of our life that we practice our values the most are the areas we tend to feel the most satisfied and energized in. And the areas that we feel the most frustrated and the most drained in are the areas that we're practicing our values the least. And again, a lot of times this happens on an unconscious level. Um, our conscious mind may be telling us, you're just being lazy, you should be feeling good right now, you just need to push harder. And that's where misalignment is very, very common. So I'll give you a really practical example of this. Let's say that you are working for a job that you really just don't enjoy. Let's say that like every single day, the work that you do feels like it's draining your energy. However, maybe you're good at this job. Maybe it's something that you logically understand really well. It's something that you your whole life have felt like you should be doing. It's something that your parents believe that you should be doing. And because of that, you went down that path because it was the practical, logical way that your life should have gone. And now you find yourself in this career to where you're competent, but it doesn't really excite you. It doesn't energize you. It feels empty in a way. Maybe that's what's happening with your career, but then on the side, you are a life coach, right? Maybe on the side you are a musician. You have this passion, this side thing that every single time you do it, it lights you up. It's almost like it gives you energy. It gives you life, right? Maybe there's some people at your job that drain your energy. They're like energy vampires, but then other people in your job that give you life, right? That give you energy. So that's a signal, that's a that's a sign that there's a little bit of misalignment going on. And it's not super black and white. Sometimes we feel exhausted and drained, not because the thing we're doing isn't the thing that's in alignment with our values, but sometimes the way we're doing it is not in alignment with our values. So for example, if you love what you do at your job, but then you have a manager who is micromanaging the crap out of you and they're trying to force you to do it their way as opposed to the way that you believe in, then you're gonna feel drained. Right. That's maybe happened to all of us, I believe. Maybe we start out doing our job really well, we really love it. There's a change in leadership. All of a sudden, this new leader is super controlling, micromanages the crap out of us, and then now all of a sudden we don't like our job. So misalignment typically stems from either doing something that's not in alignment with our values in general, meaning the job itself, the things that you're doing are just not things that excite you or energize you, or doing it in a way that's not in alignment with our value system or the way kind of our energy works. And I'll give a practical example from my business. So the way that I've built a lot of my business up to this point, we're told a lot as business owners to do things like cold calling, right? Which for the not business savvy people here, it's calling people who don't know who you are to try to get them to buy the thing that you sell. And that never really resonated with me. Every single time I tried to do it, it would just feel disengaging, it would feel draining, I wouldn't be excited to do it. And it's really important to add here that there's a difference between misalignment and learning something new. And both things are uncomfortable, right? So, in order for us to really gauge what things are not aligned with us and what things are, I believe it's important to get to a certain level of competency. So I don't really know if I enjoy something unless I get good at it first. And that's been the case for me for a lot of different things, but in my business specifically, when we're talking about trying to get customers, right, trying to get clients, um, I learned pretty quickly how to cold call, how to send cold emails, cold DMs, whatever. I learned how to do it. And that's how I knew that it wasn't aligned with how I want to do things in my business. Because even when I was successful at doing it, it felt draining. Even when I hit the goals that I wanted to hit through doing it, it felt draining. And so I was like, okay, well, let me try a different way. What would I like to do better? And what I found for me is a better way to try to build my business is through really building deep relationships. It's going to structured networking groups, it's uh building referral partnerships, it's doing speaking engagements where I can provide value to the people in the room and people are seeking out the things that I have to say. Like the person listening to this podcast, you're probably somebody who cares about fulfillment in your life. You probably care about getting out of survival mode. You care about living an authentic life in a way. If not, you wouldn't be listening to this. So, yeah, all of that to say misalignment typically is a result of doing something that is not in alignment with your value system or in a way that's not in alignment with your value system. And what that creates is like a lot of emotional exhaustion and feeling drained. So if you find yourself doing stuff that consistently drains your energy, then that is a sign. You got to evaluate is this in alignment with my values? Yes or no? And really important to understand too, you gotta experiment. So this isn't just something you can intellectualize. You can think about what your values might be, which is great. But the thing that most people don't do is they don't go and try and experiment whatever they intellectualize. So you gotta, you gotta test it out. If you think that you value um talking to customers in your job more so than filling out spreadsheets, then you gotta give yourself an opportunity to talk to more customers. And then a sign of alignment is do you feel more energy doing that thing? Do you feel like you're coming alive? Do you feel expansive? Do you feel excited? And if that's not the case, then that's just a sign that it's not the right thing for you. And the key here is a lot of people, including myself, have stories around how we're feeling. So the key is to not judge ourselves for feeling drained, not judge ourselves for feeling exhausted doing a thing. It's to use it as data, it's to just use it as a way to experiment, right? If a check engine light comes on in our car, it's kind of a waste of time to try to figure out what the problem is. It's more of a sign that we don't need to go get the car checked out. It's not, we can't really come to the conclusion around what's wrong unless we're a mechanic or we have that skill set. So just like a check engine light in the car, if you're feeling drained and exhausted doing a thing, it's it's a call to action to dig deeper and to check it out. And some people have the ability to do it themselves, like if you were a mechanic. And then some people need advice or help or guidance, which is where you would hire a coach or whoever, right? So, yeah, that's the first thing. To summarize, I know that was long-winded. One of the main symptoms I see when it comes to um burnout in general is emotional exhaustion. The root cause of that is misalignment. Misalignment is caused by doing things that are not in alignment with our values or in a way that's not in alignment with our values. Number two, let's talk about one that's maybe unorthodox a little bit. Procrastination. And I'm sure everybody listening to this procrastinates in some point of their life, at some point in their life. And uh procrastination is one of those things where it's really easy for us to think it comes from laziness. We think that we don't do things because we just don't have the willpower to do it. And in some cases that may be true, but if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably somebody who's decently motivated, decently disciplined, somebody who's high performing. So I I would bet that that's not the main reason why you procrastinate. Procrastination has two threads to it. There's two root causes to what causes procrastination. Root cause number one is it's actually fear, believe it or not. So one thing I'm gonna talk about a lot in this podcast is identity and our sense of self. And as I told you guys a little bit in the last episode, all of us have belief systems. And our belief system is developed from the time we're zero to the time we're seven years old. And so whatever I believe to be true is how I see myself. So when we procrastinate on things, it's typically because the thing that we're trying to do contradicts a belief that we have, it contradicts a part of our our identity in a way. So, for example, let's say I've been procrastinating on going to the gym. I've known for a long time that I need to get healthier, I need to prioritize my health and well-being. However, every single time I try to go to the gym, I feel this level of resistance within me. It's almost like I'm pumping the gas trying to go to the gym, but then at the same time, something within me is putting on the brakes. If that happens, there's a that's a sign that there's something within you that contradicts the thing that you're trying to do, the thing that you want. And so a lot of us fall victim to the story that we tell ourselves, and that's why we keep procrastinating. So, this is the sequence of how it works. I try to go do a thing, something within me hits the brakes, and then I tell myself a story. And that story is, well, I don't have enough time today, or well, like I can put it off one more week, or well, I've worked really hard today. I can just, I deserve to go home and watch Netflix. Our brain is really good at creating stories that reinforce whatever we believe to be true. So that's one reason that we procrastinate, is because there's a fear that we experience because when we try to do something that's out of alignment with what we believe to be true about ourselves, our brain interprets that as a threat. And it's not a threat that's actually real, it's a threat to the identity that we have, a threat to our sense of self. So I hope that you understanding that will help you in those moments because you can choose to either give into the fear, which then reinforces the old identity. So if you choose to not go to the gym because of the story you're telling yourself that comes from the belief that's not serving you, then that's going to reinforce the old identity, and that's what's going to keep you in the loop. It's going to keep you procrastinating as opposed to what you could do instead, is instead of giving into the fear, you let yourself feel it. And then you ask yourself the question how can I reinforce my values as opposed to give in to my fear? So you can choose to do it anyway. You can choose to act despite fear, which is now gonna change your beliefs about yourself. It's gonna build evidence in your life to suggest that your old identity is not who you are anymore, and it's gonna help you build a new identity. So, really important. And then the other end of the spectrum, the other reason why we procrastinate is because we're not clear. So, one thing our brain is really good at as well is kind of spiraling and making things seem a lot of making things seem really vague. And it's really important when we're procrastinating on something to know what the next simplest step is. So, for example, let's say that my goal is to climb a mountain. Let's say my goal is to climb Mount Everest. So if I think about that, if I think about being on top of that mountain, that's gonna seem extremely overwhelming. It's gonna seem like there's a huge gap between where I am and where I want to be. And it's easy for our brain to catastrophize that in a way and to tell us all the reasons why that's not a good idea, right? Because it's a super broad focus. However, if I focus on, okay, well, if I want to climb Mount Everest, what's the next thing I need to do to prepare for that? Well, step one is I probably need to start looking up gems in my area, maybe rock climbing gems. Uh, or maybe I need to figure out an area where I can hike at uh in the city that I live in. And what that does is it goes from a vague focus to a narrow focus. It's really important to understand that fear lives in the vague and suffocates in the specific. Our brain has something called the particular activating system. And the way that it works is the more specific we are about the way that we want to achieve a goal, the easier it is for our brain to try to figure out how to get there. But the more vague we keep things, the harder it is for our brain to help us get there. So the two reasons why we procrastinate are either fear, because what we're trying to do contradicts something we believe to be true about ourselves, it threatens our identity, or lack of clarity, meaning that we're not clear on the exact next step that we need to take in order to get there. So, symptom number two of burnout is procrastination. And a lot of times, think about a computer for a second. So think about what happens to the battery of a computer, the more tabs that are open. The more tabs that are open in the computer, the more it drains the battery. It's the same way with our brain and our energy. So a lot of times we get drained and we start feeling burned out because of all of the unclosed loops in our head or all of the open tabs, all the things that we're starting but not finishing. All the it's the overthinking, right? It's the overthinking, underdoing. And so for that, a lot of times burnout doesn't come from doing too much stuff. It actually comes from thinking too much and doing too little stuff. And again, the way we can do that is we can see the fear that we're experiencing as a sign of growth and do the thing anyway, and then just get clear on what. The next step is. Number three, this is going to be the last symptom I talk about. It's going to be feeling overwhelmed. And maybe as a threat of that, overcommitting our time and energy. So let's talk about feeling overwhelmed. Fundamentally speaking, there's a quote from Tony Robbins that's coming to my mind that I want to lay in here. We don't experience life, we experience the life we focus on. So no matter what, there's always things that are out of our control, and there are always things that are in our control. Feeling overwhelmed comes from focusing on the things that we can't control, fundamentally. It comes from focusing on things that we cannot change by placing value in the things that ultimately we have no authority to decide on. And by default, what that creates is a victim mentality. Because if I'm trying to change things I can't change, then I'm missing all the opportunities to change the things that I can. Really good example of this is let's say you are, I'll use I use business as an example a lot, but bear with me. Let's say that you are working for someone who you feel does not treat you well. Let's say that you work for a boss and he is super domineering, he is not empathetic, he's just very, very much so an ego-driven boss, and you can't stand it. He disrespects you, he talks down to you, and it just makes you feel miserable in your job. Well, what you can't control is his behavior. What you can't control is how he treats you. But what you can control is the way you interpret it. What you can control is the boundaries that you try to set, and what you can control is the things you do outside of work to make sure that you're charged up so you can deal with that shit. Right? So the more that we focus on what he's doing and how he's making us feel, if we continue to focus on that, we're just going to feel more and more frustrated and more and more overwhelmed in that situation. So that's a really practical example. And there's so many other ones. Um, one thing I'm also thinking about with this is the serenity prayer. So I used to go to Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, and before every meeting, we would always say the serenity prayer, which is God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. The things that are within our control are our thoughts, our behaviors, and our responses. The things that are out of our control are our environment, other people, and essentially that's it. So the next time you're feeling overwhelmed, just understand that it's coming from a perceived lack of control. And what's crazy is even the things that we can control, sometimes our brain tricks us into thinking we can't control it. Because, again, it maybe it's a way of our brain reinforcing an old identity. Maybe it's our brain's way of making it so we're repeating a pattern that's not serving us. So just be really careful about that. So the solution to really being able to address feeling overwhelmed is prioritizing the right way. And what I mean by that is prioritize doing stuff in your life that is revolved around what you can control. Um if you do that, then at the end of the day, instead of feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and like you didn't do anything, you're gonna feel satisfied, you're gonna feel fulfilled, and you're gonna feel a lot better about yourself. Because what's interesting about how we operate as humans is that we can have two identical days. We can have two days that are both super busy. However, one day we can feel really frustrated, like we're running in place, like we didn't do anything. And then the other day we can feel super satisfied, energized, and like we did a lot of things. And truly the only difference is what's the ratio of stuff we're doing that's within our control versus what's out of our control. The day that we're spending our time and energy focusing on things we can control is the typically the day that we're gonna feel more energized and satisfied. And the day that we feel the most out of control and frustrated is because we're focusing on the stuff that's out of our control, right? It seems really simple. I'm not gonna say it's easy in practice because it's not. Our brain really likes to trick us into focusing on the things we can't control. So easier said than done. So to summarize, when it comes to burnout, from the way I see it, from a holistic perspective, there's three symptoms that I see in a lot of people. Uh, one is emotional exhaustion, feeling drained. And the root cause of that is misalignment. What I mean by that is when our the things that we're doing on a daily basis either do not align with our values or we're doing things in a way that do not align with our values. Uh, two is the symptom is procrastination. The root cause of that is either fear, because what we're about to do is going to threaten the identity that we currently are operating in, or a belief that we have about ourselves. Or the other cause of that is lack of clarity, not knowing what the next step is. Uh you can't really stop procrastinating unless you're clear on what you want and what the next step is. And then, three, the third symptom is feeling overwhelmed. And the root cause of that is typically focusing on the things we can't control, or in other words, struggling to prioritize. So uh that's it, really, for this episode. I wanted to break down my perspective of what burnout really is and then how you can address it. And I pray that this was helpful for you. So remember, you're way more powerful than you think, and you have the power to change your life. It's time to stop surviving and start living. I'll see you guys next time.