What Are The Lessons Behind Your Burnout?
The Hidden Blessings of Burnout
Although burnout can be a very physically, mentally and spiritually tough, challenging and wrecking experience, it can also be a blessing — even though it’s hard to see it if you’re currently stuck in the midst of it.
In this article I’m going to talk about how we can use burnout to our advantage to learn hidden lessons behind burnout and how to use it to our advantage to build a new, better us.
This last weekend I fell into the trap of burnout — once again…
I felt like a failure… I’m still a bit angry, disappointed and ashamed of myself because I feel like I should have known better…
I had been pushing my mind and body too much and I crashed.
Pair the symptoms of burnout with symptoms of accumulated stress being released and symptoms of indigestion and food intolerances, and you have the recipe for ultimate suffering.
First, I should explain what symptoms I was experiencing. Like I wrote in my article Is Burnout real or not, symptoms of burnout can range from mild — being tired all the time — to very severe — being unable to get out of bed and unable to do anything.
Mine were not that extreme, but still severe. I had a b*tch of a time waking up in the morning: my hormones were out of whack, my cortisol was probably very low which meant that my body couldn’t wake up and get going, so I had low energy, I felt very weak and dizzy. I had a mild brain fog throughout the day and a physical and mental crash later in the late afternoon. I felt very anxious, worried, unmotivated and a bit depressed as well.
What makes burnout so tricky and challenging is the fact that burnout affects both our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
But as I was slowly getting better — now I feel much better and some of the symptoms are completely gone — I tried to shift my mind from being stuck in that “being helpless without a solution” mode to figure out what might be some lessons behind this burnout.
The blessing of burnout
Tuesday, during a walk I tried to imagine what I would say to a coaching client based on my teaching about burnout. I remembered that I always try to emphasize that even though burnout seems like a course, it’s a blessing.
What do I mean by that?
Burnout can be a great teacher. It can be an opportunity for us to make an inventory and to reinvent our life: to analyze what caused us to burn out, to fix the reasons and causes that brought to it, leave behind things that don’t serve us and start living differently.
Now… I know from my own experience that this is one of the most challenging things to do while you’re in the midst of the storm of burnout — but once you’re able to make that mental shift that burnout didn’t happen to you, but for you, it’s a profound and life changing shift.
When I remembered the lesson that burnout is a blessing and it’s happened to teach me something, my next questions for myself were:
“What are the reasons behind this burnout? What brought me to burnout? What were some of the mechanisms and patterns behind me burning out once again? What can I learn from this and how can I change my life?”
Mechanism and lessons behind burnout
Tuesday night as I got relaxed and my mind quiet down, I begin journaling and I ask myself the following question:
“If I try to think logically and leave out the emotional load, what are some of the mechanisms and patterns that contributed to me burning out once again?”
I started to list reasons one by one:
- Not enough breaks from caffeine
- My own mental pressures (“I have to, I have to, I have to…”) that were forcing me into that negative, Fight of Flight energy,
- Suppressing and ignoring my emotions and feelings (with caffeine, work and distractions from social media, series, YouTube, etc) for too long,
- Working out when I wasn’t in the best shape and too demanding workouts after a week off (my body couldn’t recovery properly from that stimuli),
- Lack of self-love, self-appreciation, gratitude and mindfulness,
- Lack of joy, passion and purpose,
- Lack of genuine connections, contacts and community.
So basically, the main reason behind my recent mental and physical burnout was The Grind and The Hustle: I got trapped into that “Grind and Hustle” mode of working and living.
In that mode, you grind and hustle, you keep going and you don’t allow yourself to feel anything. I was working because I felt I had to. I wasn’t working with an intent and I forget my true reason why. Consequently stress, feelings and emotions accumulate in your body, boil in there until something breaks and accumulated stuff starts coming up.
Grind and hustle are hot burning fuel: if you’re not careful, you’re going to burn yourself.
I wasn’t careful and I burned myself big time. And this is the lesson behind my recent burnout.
Integrating the lesson and blessing of burnout
In the last few weeks I learned two lessons: the first one that I had pushed my mind too much for too long and that I burned myself out mentally (I wrote about in more detail in my last blog, if you want to check it out, link below).
The second lesson is that I was grinding and hustling the “wrong way” and I burned myself by doing it.
Now I know that going forwards I have to cultivate more joy, passion and sense of purpose in my life. That I have to take regular breaks from caffeine (at least once a week). I know that I have to work more mindfully, be more grateful and appreciative and cultivate a more blissful and cleaner energy that doesn’t burn so hot, doesn’t run out so quickly and lasts for longer.
I’m planning on writing a longer post about what’s wrong with today’s “grind and hustle” culture and how to grind and hustle the right way. If you don’t want to miss the article, subscribe below to be notified when it comes out.
What are the lessons behind your burnout?
When you find yourself in that burned out state or if you’re currently in that state right now, remind yourself:
Burnout is a blessing: it happened for you, not to you — even if it’s really hard to believe it.
Try to look at burnout through a different lens: try to see it as an inventory: an opportunity to reinvent our life, to analyze what caused you to burn out, to fix the reasons and causes that brought to it, leave behind things that don’t serve you and start living differently.
Ask yourself the following questions:
“What are the reasons behind this burnout? What brought me to burnout? What were some of the mechanisms and patterns behind me burning out once again? What can I learn from this and how can I change my life?”
Burnout is curable and reversible — it just cannot be done in a day or a week. Have patience and faith: trust the process and believe in yourself and your body!
If you’re stuck in the cycle of burnout and you want to get out, finally take control of your condition and become the “boss” of your health, I now offer coaching with the help of which you will:
- gain knowledge about burnout.
- gain knowledge on how to find and identify the root causes of your burnout and how to fix them.
- gain knowledge on how the four major pillars of life — the body, the lifestyle, the mind and the soul — can affect and cause burnout and how to improve them.
- be able to conquer and overcome burnout and build a new, better version of you.
If you’re interested, learn more about burnout coaching and plans check out the link below or or reach out to me on my personal email.
Burnout Coaching
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Love and take care of yourself, forget about worries and enjoy life!
~ Jani
