Let’s talk about how to stop feeling burnt out. Because the truth is when it comes to healing from burnout, we can’t just take a vacation and come back feeling better and magically recovered. Obviously taking a vacation is important, but If we go back to the same habits and situations that created our burnout in the first place, it won’t be long before we are burning out again.
In order to recover from and prevent burnout we must reshape the structure and ecology of our lives.
In the book, “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” (aka my Burnout Bible), Emily and Amelia Nagoski talk about three critical habits we must implement into our daily routine.
We must learn how to seek connection, rest, and practice self compassion. By incorporating these three tenets into our lives, we can set our lives up in a way that makes them effectively burnout proof.
Let’s dive more deeply into each habit and how we can implement it in our lives.
How to stop feeling burnt out #1 Seek Connection
If you want to know how to stop feeling burnt out, you have to understand the power of connection.
One of the ways burnout is healed and prevented is through establishing authentic intimate connections, aka friendships. Loving, positive connection has the effect of generating energy, and is as vital a need for humans as food and water. When we are feeling isolated and lonely, that means we are deprived of connection and essentially drained of one of our basic biological needs.
This is not just about social interaction or surface level connections. To have the energy generating effect, we need deep, soul level connection.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to test if a friendship meets the criteria of true connection.
- Are we there for each other?
- Can we come to each other with difficult emotions and feel seen/heard?
- Can we share intimate parts of ourselves without judgement?
If you can answer yes to all three of these, congratulations you have yourself a solid friendship.
If you don’t have any friendships like this currently, it’s so important to start seeking them out. You don’t necessarily have to make new friends (although that can be fun), you can also think about deepening current friendships. Taking them to the next level. Who in your life is just an acquaintance that you would like to get to know better and turn into a closer friendship?
I know that it’s not easy to create connections like this. Friendships require putting yourself out there and being vulnerable. It requires taking chances, inviting people to do things with you and risking awkward moments. Believe me I know it well. 6 months ago, when I realized how important friendships were in this whole, preventing burnout thing, I made a commitment to create deeper connections.
One thing I did was to establish a sister circle. I contacted four friends that I connected with through instagram; people I only knew on a pretty surface level, but admired and respected deeply. I reached out to each of them asking if they wanted to commit to being a part of a weekly circle where we share our feelings and support each other.
I was terrified to do this. To reach out to people who I didn’t know very well, and basically ask them to spend 1 hour a week with me for all eternity. What if they didn’t respond? What if they laughed at me or thought I was a weirdo?
Those were all possible outcomes, but I decided to risk it anyways, because connecting was such a priority for me.
Thankfully, they all said yes and now we have created this beautiful tradition. We meet every week to share our struggles, and celebrations and support each other as we all grow our online businesses. We’ve been meeting regularly for 6 months now and it’s become a staple in my life.
So, if you don’t have at least 5 people who fit the above description in your life, I challenge you to go out and make more friends! Connection is so important when it comes to how to stop feeling burnt out.
I promise you there are people everyyywhere right now who are craving connection. If you prioritize connecting with others and make it a regular part of your life, you will feel the energy generating effects
🙏JOIN US: If you are looking for a community of like minded healthcare professionals seeking fulfilling and non-traditional careers, come join the Life After Medicine Facebook Group
How to stop feeling burnt out #2 Rest
According to the Burnout Bible, we need to spend at least 42% of our time resting. That is 10 hours out of every 24 hours. This is not negotiable, and it’s not something we should try to shortcut.
In the book, “Burnout” they say that “if we don’t take the time to rest, then our bodies will revolt and force us to take the time.”
What counts as rest?
Everyone’s rest can look different, so it’s important to do things that are truly restful for you. In general, I would say any sort of screen time doesn’t actually count as real rest. It’s more of a zombie, trance like state.
When deciding what activities feel restful for you, you can ask yourself these questions:
“Does this activity make me feel more rested and recharged?”
“Do I feel better and more energized after this activity than before I started?”
Sometimes, activities that are truly restful, are not necessarily passive. For example, physical activity can count as rest. It seems counterintuitive, but moving your body allows your mind to rest, it energizes you and turns off the stress response cycle in your body. These are all things that make you feel more energized and recharged.
Spending time with loved ones can also be considered rest, because the right kind of connections with other human beings actually generates energy. For me, it is usually casual one on one time with others that I consider restful, whereas parties and bigger social gatherings are not all that restful. Depending on where you fall in the introversion, extroversion spectrum, your definition of rest may vary.
For me, these are some of the activities that I consider restful:
- Sleep (obvi)
- Reading books
- Stretching/doing yoga
- Meeting a friend for coffee or dinner or ice cream
- Going on walks
- Meditating
- Cooking or preparing food for myself in some way
- Watching a movie with a friend
I challenge you to make a list of what activities feel restful for you so you can easily schedule them into your life.
Schedule your rest into your calendar
Rest is so important in your plan for how to stop feeling burnt out. I recommend to actually schedule this rest time it into your life. Rest time isn’t just any time that is left over in the day when you are done working, but actually intentional time you are taking out of your day to rest. It makes a HUGE difference.
When I am making my to do list for the week, I find it so helpful to schedule out the rest times and actually write down ideas for what my various rest activities will be for the week. I schedule in work outs, yoga time, coffee and meal dates with friends and walks.
How to stop feeling burnt out #3 Self Compassion
How a lack of self compassion leads to burnout
When was the last time you beat yourself up about something? Mine was a few days ago when I woke up and directly started scrolling on my phone first thing in the morning.
Recently, I’ve gotten into the habit of turning my phone on airplane mode before I go to bed, and starting my morning off smart phone free. It feels so good to spend the first hour or two of my morning without checking any of my notifications. But for some reason, a few days ago, I forgot to turn my phone on airplane mode and thus ended up spending my first few waking moments diving into all my social media apps.
Then I started to beat myself up for it. I heard that negative voice inside my head saying things like:
“You’re never going to be successful if you start your day off like this”
“What happened to your morning routine? Guess that’s just something else you can’t stick to or can’t follow through with.”
“You might as well just crawl back under the covers because you’ve ruined your whole day now.”
Anyone else have some similar inner demons?
That voice in our head that is so nasty and negative? The voice that is able to pick us apart and make us feel like crap on a moment’s notice? I know I’m not alone in this.
And something else I’ve noticed is… how draining that voice is. When I beat myself up like that, it zaps all of my energy and I leave the situation feeling so exhausted.
Part of learning how to stop feeling burnt out is learning self compassion. By being more compassionate with ourselves, we can start to regain our energy and vitality. We can stop leaking so much energy through our negative self talk.
🔥BONUS FREE PDF: Why are you feeling so burnt out? Identify your top energy drains and start making a plan for burnout recovery with the #ByeBurnout Starter Kit
How to start cultivating more self compassion
One way to start exercising more self compassion is by learning to love that negative voice in your head, which I call your “inner monster”.
My business and mindset coach, Isabella Sanchez, actually taught me an amazing technique for loving my inner monster.
Now, every morning I spend 3-5 minutes journaling from my inner monster. I set a timer and free fall write down all the nasty things that my inner critic wants to say to me. Things like “you’re never going to be successful”, “who do you think you are to start a business”, etc.
Then once I get that all out of my system, I spend another 3-5 minutes LOVING the monster.
I ask myself, “what would the kindest most compassionate part of me say in direct response to this negativity?”. And then I “free fall” write from that place.
I say things like “I see how scared you are. I understand how challenging it must be for you to sit with all these unknowns. I know that you are just trying to protect me. I love you.”
By doing this exercise, I am training myself to observe my inner monster, distance myself from her and turn towards her with gentle, loving self compassion.
It also helps to personify this negative voice. I’ve named mine “Deedee”. Now whenever I start to hear that inner critic, I can just shrug it off and say “Oh Deedee”.
Another wonderful resource for self compassion is Kristen Neff. You can start out by watching her Ted Talk “The Space Between Self Esteem and Self Compassion.”
📲LET’S TALK: When you’re ready to STOP settling for unhappiness and create a career that’s the perfect fit for your unique soul, I invite you to book a free 20 min Career Clarity Call.
By seeking connection, learning to rest, and cultivating self compassion we can begin to heal burnout. In order to make the healing effective and lasting, we must incorporate these into our daily routines and shape our lives around these new habits.
How are you currently doing when it comes to incorporating these three pillars into your life? Which one do you struggle with implementing the most? Comment below and share! I would love to hear from you.
