Certified Coach Hannah Lynn Helps Women Prevent or Overcome Burnout

00:06
Hi, welcome to the show. Be convinced where I share life changing stories of hope with you so that you can get a big dose of hope in just 30 minutes. I’m your host, Saraya Diasi Kofelt. I’m an Ivy League educated lawyer, a former judge, small business owner, children’s author, wife and mother who’s passionate about helping to improve your life and convincing you that there is indeed hope for a better future for ourselves and our children. Because of my diverse education and life experiences, I’m able to bring to you a wide variety of guests, from children to millennials to senior citizens, all of whom share their heartfelt, life changing stories of hope to inspire and motivate you. Each story is told by ordinary people just like you and me, and who went through different challenges in their lives and have been able to overcome them. 

00:58
In each story, we share thought provoking concepts, some of which you may want to incorporate into your own life, as well as resources for you to consider, all to inspire and motivate you to be more hopeful. Mother Teresa once said that one person alone cannot change the world, but one person can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples. I would like my podcast to do just that, create many ripples through many lives, including yours, as we hope for and achieve better. This is episode 174. My guest, Hannah Lynn, is a certified coach who’s passionate about helping women prevent or overcome burnout, design a career they love, and show up as their best selves. Hannah knows about burnout all too well, as she has suffered it twice in her life. 

01:51
She’s a wife, mother and career professional who turned burnout into a blessing. As she stepped back, reassessed her life, and prioritized, she brings her personal experiences, knowledge and training to provide the assistance and direction that women need. Her serene success program can be used as a roadmap for living your life to the fullest potential. For my listeners, Hannah offers a free cheat sheet that gives principles to help you cut your working hours by 20%. Simply go to her website, serenesuccess.net pod. Please stay tuned as Hannah shares her story of hope that will help you get recharged and lead you to designing a career and life that you love. Can you name the top three ways to help your child succeed in life? Studies show that children who read well become achievers in school and live successful lives. 

02:51
As a former judge and children’s author, I frequently talk with parents about their children’s reading abilities and encourage them to develop in them the love of reading. Many parents have expressed their frustrations with getting their children to read more and to actually enjoy reading. That is why I created a video series to help parents raise children who love to read, as I believe it is the key to unlocking a child’s potential and ultimately having a successful life. To learn more about my video series and to make a purchase, please visit my website, sarayadiasicofelt.com. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of be convinced, where we share life changing stories of hope. And as you know, my guest is Hannah Lynn, and you will just be so much filled with hope. 

03:49
Her business is serene success and she is a resilience coach and she talks a lot about burnout, especially in women. And helping women with burnout either avoid burnout or deal with burnout overcome it. So we’re going to learn a lot from Hannah, but before she comes on, I have a quote from her. And Hannah’s quote is, both good feelings and bad feelings are incredibly powerful navigational tools that we can tune into and leverage and become more powerful, become more true in tune, become more authentic and authentically align with our own values. So welcome, Hannah. Thank you so much for joining us. 

04:37
Awesome. Well, thank you for having me. It is a pleasure. 

04:40
Yes. And as we talked about in our pre podcast chat, Burnout is something that is often talked about in social media. But what you’ve done is you’ve connected it and you work mostly with women. And I know you have a story about being burnout. So before we get into all that you’re offering for women in regard to this very important subject, tell us about the burnout stages. I think you suffered twice from burnout and what you learned from that. 

05:13
Absolutely. And burnout can look different for everyone. So my experience of burnout was the last one, which I think is the more significant one, because that was when I decided it was never going to happen again. So my experience was, you know, I was working full time, my two very young children, babies, breadwinner, working in tech, in, you know, a male dominated field. And I got to a point where I could not get out of bed. I couldn’t get out of bed for a month. And I saw the doctor, they did tests, and, you know, nothing’s wrong with my body. And so it was just that I was fried. I was completely fried. And it scared me because I had to show up for my babies. I have to show up for my job. I can’t just drop all these balls. 

05:54
So I did recover, and it was a long, slow, gradual process. And in that process. I, you know, became an ICF certified coach. I became kind of an expert on what people call burnout, which is a collection of things, but it all leads to a similar outcome, which is being non performative at work, losing your confidence and usually like some extreme fatigue. So, yeah, so I turned it around and then since then I’ve started helping other women to avoid it, prevent it. And if you are in the middle of it or trying to recover from it, to turn it around, recover and make sure it never happens again. 

06:32
Yeah, certainly. Tell us what an ICF coach. 

06:35
Oh, certified like as an. I actually trained to be a coach. I feel like there’s a lot of coaches in the world that. 

06:39
Yes. 

06:40
Maybe never learned how to coach. I went through the process to learn how to help people instead of assuming that I could do it just because I did it for myself. Yeah, I feel like there’s more to it than that. 

06:48
Yes. And you mentioned that you were in tech or are still in tech. 

06:53
Still in tech. 

06:53
That’s what you do. Yes. 

06:55
Right. So I am a, what we call a product designer and I’ve had a bunch of different titles over the years as tech has evolved. I think when I first started, what I was doing wasn’t really a real industry. I started as like a WordPress designer, like, you know, 1617 years ago, and then I evolved into what we now call like a user experience designer or a product designer, which is all empathy based. So we look at how other human beings are struggling with a product and struggling with their experience and then we go and we make it better for them. And so that’s essentially what I’ve been doing for a living and it’s, you know, for Silicon Valley companies and it’s been, you know, it’s a busy job. 

07:27
Yes, yes. And you still are able to coach, but your background is a lot with holistic. 

07:34
Yes, right. So before I went into tech, I was a health practitioner and I did that for twelve years. So. And you’re like probably wondering how did you go from holistic healthcare practice to coding for WordPress sites? That sounds so strange. Essentially, you know, I was helping people, being, you know, a massage therapist and helping with stress and breath work and all of those things. But I was very young, I was in my early twenties and I didn’t know how to run a business and I was afraid of asking for money. I had a lot of money mentality issues, which I resolved. But at the time I was like, I need to find a different path that isn’t so physically challenging. And I went back to school, stumbled into code. I had no idea I could write code. So I was pleasantly surprised. 

08:16
And then my journey from there has taken me here. 

08:19
Yes. Yeah. So, wonderful. So now you combine the two. The coaching to help women with burnout issues, and you also have the tech side of it as well, and the. 

08:31
Experience in corporate America, which I think. 

08:32
Yes, in corporate America, which is stressful in and of itself. So tell us, what are some of the symptoms of burnout if we don’t know whether we’re suffering from burnout or not? 

08:43
Right. A lot of times the symptoms start out just kind of like stress. Right. So maybe you’re feeling irritable, anxious. Maybe you have insomnia, poor concentration. Maybe you’re having, like, tummy troubles, like stressed tummy headaches, migraines. Those could be anything, right? A million things. Where I start to think that the stress symptoms start turning into burnout is when you start feeling cynicism and detachment or resentment towards your job. And so that’s when we’re talking career burnout. I think most people’s burnouts are actually multifaceted. So it’s career burnout. Maybe it’s parenting burnout. Maybe it’s your relationship. Like, it’s. There’s more going on. Right. We’re not one dimensional people. So when you start to lose faith in your own ability to show up your enthusiasm for work, maybe you still love what you do and you don’t anymore. It’s just dying. It’s going away. 

09:30
That passion is going away, and you’re struggling to even show up to the same job that you used to be excited about. So signs that you’re beginning to burn out or that mentally check out is loss of enjoyment, pessimism, isolation, detachment, chronic lateness, or procrastination. And then resentment. Resentment’s the big red flag that is like, your heart and your soul saying, change something. 

09:54
Sorry. When you talk about resentment, who does someone who’s suffering from burnout resent? 

09:59
When I talk to women, oftentimes, it’s. Sometimes it’s the job itself. Right. So they blame the demands of the job. Sometimes it’s a boss specifically. Sometimes it’s the industry that they feel is just, you know, they just can’t have their needs met. Sometimes it’s a project. Well, who we attach the resentment to can be all over the place. And then also, it could be your spouse, it could be your partner for not doing more at home to support you. Like, the resentment could be a lot of different targets. 

10:28
Yes. Yes. 

10:28
But that resentment is actually an opportunity. It’s your body saying, hey, this isn’t working anymore. Like, let’s make a shift. 

10:35
Yeah, certainly. When was the latest burnout episode that you suffered from? 

10:41
It was the one I just mentioned that was, I should go look at the actual, like, year, but it was like six, seven years ago. Yeah, six, seven years ago, I had a toddler and a baby. Baby. Newborn. 

10:51
Oh, my goodness. 

10:52
And, yeah, it frightened me. It was really eye opening. Like, wow, this. This can’t happen ever again. And I had burned out previously before having. And I would just lay about and recover slowly. And sometimes I’d quit my job, or sometimes I’d switch my job or I try to solve it in other ways, but it didn’t come down to the job or the industry. It came down to how I do things. So that was what I needed to shift. 

11:14
Yeah, that’s right. And you’ve been working with women about how long would you say, have you had your business serene success? 

11:21
So I’ve been working with women specifically on burnout for about a year. And before that, I was more of a, like a general health coach, focusing on wellness and reducing stress. 

11:33
Yes. 

11:33
And I like, okay, let’s get more specific and let’s really talk about this burnout, because so many people were coming to me with burnout. 

11:40
So when they come to you, do they know that they’re suffering from burnout? Or you listen to what they have to say, and then you say, I think you’re suffering from burnout. 

11:48
You know, it’s not a diagnosis, exactly. It’s not an official thing. It’s like a colloquial term that we throw around. So what I listen for is, are you struggling in a way that is negatively impacting your ability to show up as your best self at work, at home? Is it a problem that you need to solve? Like, the pain of the problem is like a level nine or ten, you know, it is impeding your life from going the direction you want it to go. It’s having negative consequences. Maybe you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job because you’re just not showing up. Maybe you’re thinking, I’m just going to have to quit and take something lower paying because I can’t keep doing this. And I don’t care if I have several hundred thousand dollars in rsus sitting there, that I’m going to walk away. 

12:29
Oh, restricted stock unit. So, you know, there’s different ways that people are incentivized, incorporate, and some people end up with a lot of what we call the golden handcuffs, to keep them engaged, to keep them showing up. And it’s a lot to walk away from. So it’s always part of the calculus. 

12:45
Yes. Yes. So again, your website is serenesuccess.net dot. I’d love to talk about this because it’s a subject that afflicts a lot of women, especially very successful women, high achieving women. And that’s your goal, is to help high achieving women. And burnout or not be a part, not have burnout come into their lives anyway. So in dealing with these women, do you often see women who have, in trying to resolve it themselves, they just quit their job and move on? 

13:20
Yes, I’ve talked to women who quit their job trying to solve burnout, ended up taking some other random job, maybe a different industry or something, thinking that they would recover. And they are recovering, but very slowly. Yes. And they just kind of wish that they’d never gone through it to begin with because it. It affects more than your career, it affects your health, it affects your relationships, it affects how you can engage with the world. Like, if you really let it go too long. You know, I’ve spoken to women who are in that space. I’ve spoken to women who have tried to solve it on their own, but haven’t, like, burnt it all down yet. Maybe they switched into a new company and they thought, okay, now it’s going to better. Yeah. Talking to a client that did all of this. 

13:56
Switch to a new company, stay at that company for a while. 

13:59
Okay. 

13:59
It’s been like a year and a half. I’m still not engaged. I’m still feeling like I’m burning out again. Switch jobs within the company, you know, switch. 

14:08
Yes. 

14:08
Surgery, seeing therapists, like, doing all of these things to fix it, but they’re still burning out and they’re like, there’s no hope. There is hope. There is hope. And you know the one I was thinking of, like, she went through all of this, and then she went through the program, and now she feels like, you know, she’s no longer burnt out. She’s waking up with passion and excitement in the morning. She’s got a purpose, a direction. She’s not listless. And so you can turn it around. But I think a lot of what we have to address is it’s not necessarily the job. There are external factors. That’s true. Absolutely. It’s not just those things. There are internal factors that can drive us to burnout as well. 

14:43
Yeah, certainly. And when we spoke at our pre podcast chat preparation for this recording, you said that a woman finding her voice is very important. And why is that so? 

14:56
Part of finding your voice is identifying what is meaningful to you. I feel like so many of us have grown up with so many expectations put on us and been taught to make other people happy. We’ve been taught to be the peacemakers. We’ve been taught to be pleasant and kind and sweet. And somewhere in the midst of all of this, even getting our degrees and pursuing our careers, oftentimes, what I find is that we’ve lost track of what we love and who we are because we’re so buried underneath all of these expectations and other people’s shoulds. 

15:25
Yes. 

15:26
The first part of finding your voice is like, what is it that you value? What are you passionate about right now in this phase of life? Because, you know, what you were passionate about five years ago and what mattered to you then may not be the same as today because we’re growing, evolving beings, and our purpose changes accordingly. So in this phase of life, in today’s, what matters to you now? And how does that align with your values and who you are as a person and, like, bringing those things together, then you have, like, the first step, okay, now we know what we need to make noise about. That’s true. 

15:55
That’s very true. 

15:56
And then once you’ve got what you’re saying yes to kind of defined and understood and like, this is what matters to me, then it’s so much easier to go out there and. And say no to things that aren’t going to get you there and say yes to the things that will. And it’s that process of saying no and saying yes and showing up and being visible, which I know is. Can be scary. That’s such a process. And it’s a skill that has to be learned. Like, we don’t always know how to say no. That’s right. You know, and I talk to women, they’re like, I can’t say no. I have to do it all. If it’s on my calendar, I’ve got to be there. There’s strategies involved. Like, you don’t have to just show up and be like, I’m not doing my job. 

16:32
Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Yes, there are strategic ways to say no and move your career forward. 

16:37
Yes. And I know as a successful woman, professional woman, it took me a long time to be able to say no. And it was always trying to please somebody else. And I finally, in my older age, my older years, I’ve become more comfortable in saying no. And it’s important because if you don’t say no, your time is just pulled in so many directions and just leads to the stress and the burdens that are placed on us. And we do it to ourselves, trying to please others and do things for others. So I think that’s an excellent point. And then you have six success traps that lead to burnout. And you work with women during the coaching sessions as to how to overcome them. So can you talk to us quickly about what these six success traps are? 

17:28
Yes. So they are essentially the behaviors that drove you to success that when unbalanced or when rooted in fear, can also drive you to burnout. And you can have more than one of them. They were all unique. So the first one that we hear about the most is perfectionism. Right? So we hear about perfectionism, we hear about burnout. We know they go together. 

17:47
Yes. 

17:48
But perfectionism, like, everything’s the flip side of a coin, right? So being a perfectionist is not all bad. Like, you end up with a fantastic reputation for high quality. You’ve got beautiful attention to detail. You are bringing so much to the table. Where it becomes out of balance is when you’re sacrificing your own needs and your own desires, or even forgetting what they are in order to be perfect for others. Or like to have perfect standards in your work or on a project, or maybe in your work, in your project and at home. Like, you’re trying to be perfect everywhere, but you’re not taking care of you, or you just lose track of who you are altogether. That’s when it turns into that burnout. Right. Because you’re overextending. 

18:29
The second one is people pleasing, which I feel like a lot of us has just been raised to be people pleasers. We’re just. Right. 

18:35
So true. 

18:35
We want to make people happy and flip the side of the coin. Right. There’s beautiful things to wanting to make other people happy. That’s not innately bad, right? It’s just when you want to make other people happy without checking in with your own priorities first. Yes. Like I just said, like, the values and your purpose and your own direction, and you’re just going out and being like, well, my direction, my purpose is to make everyone in the world happy. You’re going to burn out. 

18:57
Yeah. Quickly. 

18:59
Very quickly. Especially, you know, when you add in the family and the children and the spouse, or like maybe your parents need to be taken care of and you’re trying to make everyone happy. 

19:07
Yes. 

19:07
That cup is going to, you know, run low, and you’re going to start feeling tired, fatigued, resentful, like you can’t actually do it anymore. 

19:15
Yes. 

19:16
Third one is kind of like being that helper, that person that says, yes, I can. I can help you. Oh, you’re struggling with this. I can help you, too. You know, you’re the one that jumps in on everyone else’s projects to help. You know, you’re. You’re helping your kids with everything. You’re helping your spouse by doing it all for them. You know, you’re the one, like, stepping into help in all these ways that you see so many people needing help, but you forget to help yourself. You know, part. Maybe it’s motivated by making other people happy. Maybe it’s motivated by something else. We can talk about the fears, too, that can kind of drive these behaviors to an extreme. 

19:46
Yes. 

19:46
Being that helper for everyone else without taking good care of yourself and knowing why you’re helping. And is it aligned with your values? Is it aligned with your purpose? Are you moving yourself to your next goal? Do you even have a goal? That’s when, you know, we can just shift it and turn it around. Another one is overachieving. And I feel like I’m, like, in that bucket, you know, if you’re one of those people like myself who, I have my check. I have a lot of them, and I love checking things off my checklist. And when I hit one goal, I, you know, I used to just keep going, like, not even a cop. It’s in the past. It is in the rear view mirror, and I’m not looking. I’m looking at the next goal. 

20:18
And so if you’re one of those people, that’s just, like, constantly after the next metric, the next goal, the next thing to achieve, and you’re not celebrating yourself and you’re not honoring the process. 

20:28
Yes. 

20:29
It can be very easy for your resources to be diminished. And I think that’s essentially what burnout is, when your resources are not up to the task. Meeting your daily demands. 

20:38
That’s right. That’s right. 

20:39
Where you feel like they’re not up to the task and you start to present those demands. So. And I think another one is like being that nice girl like we talked about, like that person who smooths everything over, the one that never says no, the one that always says yes. And of course I’ll do that. You know, you’re afraid to say no. Like all these kind of, like, overlap a little bit. 

20:56
Exactly. 

20:56
But I feel like, you know, some people have, like, more of this or more of that, and maybe you can see yourself in some of this. And so, yeah, for the nice girl, I think the biggest one is just not saying no. Like the fear of saying no. The fear of putting those boundaries. 

21:09
Yes, that’s right. That’s so right. And then on your website, Hannah, you have a lot of information available to women and tell us about what you have available. And someone who wants to contact you can reach out to you in regard to questions about coaching. 

21:26
Absolutely. So, yeah, so I put together a quick cheat sheet for our podcast listeners on basically how to work less, like how to cut your hours by up to 20%, possibly more, without damaging your reputation. So it’s like the seven principles, things that you need to consider to be able to start being more strategic with your time and effort. Right? So it’s not just, this is not necessarily quiet quitting. This is doubling down on strategy to be effective and efficient and guarding your own resources so that you can find@serenesuccess.net slash pod. Pod for like, podcast. Yes. And so that’s just a fun freebie for everyone. And then you can find me at the same location, serenesuccess.net, and you can reach me through email or book a call if you are like, this sounds like me, this sounds like what I’m experiencing. 

22:12
You can grab a spot on my calendar and we can, you know, go through what you’re dealing with right now and establish a vision for your future and kind of like some next steps on, like how to get you there. 

22:21
Is there an approximate length of time for the coaching? 

22:23
It’s a three month program for the initial push, which is a little bit more touch. You know, where we’re meeting every week and, you know, it’s like a step by step guided experience. And then there’s also continuation if you’re like, cool. I made all these changes. I still want someone to hold the space because what I discovered is everyone wants a piece. You know, like, I’ve got demands from my boss, I’ve got demands for my husband, I’ve got demands for my kids, I’ve got demands for everyone. It’s very easy to go and meet all those comes when there’s not someone holding you accountable to meet your own needs and hold that space for you. So if you need someone to hold that space for you, like, we have a continuation so we can keep on keeping on and taking care of you. 

23:03
Is the coaching one one or group coaching or both? 

23:07
Right now it is both. So it’s really great because you get to hear other people’s stories and experiences, which I’ve heard is very validating. And, you know, I’m not alone. You know, no one who is feeling this way is alone. 

23:18
Yes. And that’s a lie that often women tell ourselves. We say, oh, we’re the only one suffering from this. Oh, look at her. She’s much more successful. She has it all together. And that’s so false. 

23:31
That is very true, because, like, we’re exposed online to, you know, the highlight reel of everyone else’s life. 

23:36
Yes. 

23:36
And, you know, everyone writes their opinion piece on, like, what should be important in your life? What’s important to me? Well, I make, you know, I don’t actually, but, you know, I’m just using an example that used to impact me was like, I’d see these women making homemade meals from scratch every day, and I was like, oh, I need to do that. That’s important for my children. And then I’m working full time, paying all the bills, and I career, and I have this insane commute. And I was, like, failing at dinner, and I was like, that’s awful. I can’t meet these expectations. 

24:03
What do I do? 

24:04
And so you see everyone else’s higher light reel, and what you’re seeing is what other people care about. And what we need to get clear on is what do you care about? Like, should that even matter to you? There’s other ways to get healthy food on the table. You don’t have to make anything from. 

24:15
Scratch or every day? 

24:17
For every day. 

24:18
Yes. 

24:18
Right? 

24:19
Yes. So that’s all so important for us as women to understand. And I wanted to ask you, there’s the, as you mentioned, the free coaching call, then the three months for the coaching and then also continuing on. Is there an average time that a woman spends in the coaching with you even afterward, after the three months, or is it really based on each woman? 

24:45
It’s based on each woman. It really is. It’s going to be unique to you and your needs and the level of support that you need or have already in your life. Some of us do have more support than others. 

24:57
Yes. 

24:57
So it’s just going to be what’s going to meet your needs. What’s the best for building a team to support you? 

25:03
Yeah. So one of the things we had talked about during our pre podcast chat is the availability of personal assistants not necessarily working with us in person, but even though they’re personal assistants, but online. And a friend of mine I remember last year she told me that her personal assistant was helping her do this and that and this and all these tasks. And I was like, well, who’s your personal assistant? Is it someone employed by you and your office? And she had someone through a personal assistant company, and I’ve hired one and it’s really a lot of help. What do you suggest about that? Is that a good thing for women to consider? 

25:41
It depends. I think that for women who are running a business or self employed, like, yes. So many ways to outsource, to automate, to delegate. And so that’s where it comes into, like, what do you actually need to do yourself, right? Versus what do you need to build a team to do for you? And that could be anything from like having the meal plan, you know, shipped to the house or, you know, getting a virtual assistant or teaching your kids how to do their own laundry, like strategy to, I call it, you know, say no. Involve is going to involve automation. It’s going to involve delegation. It’s going to involve outsourcing. It’s going to involve saying no, you know, to the things that just don’t need to be done at all. 

26:21
Yeah. 

26:21
And it could also involve minimizing. So there’s a bunch of ways to get the stuff off your plate while still having it get done. If it matters, it doesn’t matter. We could just get it off the plate. And so a va is like one of those tactics. 

26:34
Yes. 

26:34
Whether it’s the right fit for everyone, probably not right fit for some of us. 

26:38
Yes. And you may go through one that you don’t like, but that doesn’t mean the idea of having a personal assistant or virtual assistant isn’t workable. It’s just you need somebody else and keep trying. So that’s great. Well, thank you, Hannah. We’ve come to the end of the podcast and you’ve provided us with so much very important information. And again, my guest is Hannah Lynn. Her website is serenesuccess.net dot, so please visit it. She has a lot to offer there on her website. And again, she’s a certified coach, helping women prevent burnout or if you’re already in burnout, to help you overcome. So thank you so much, Hannah, for joining us. 

27:17
Thank you so much for having me. It was an honor. 

27:20
Thank you for joining me on my show. Be convinced as we share with you life changing stories of hope. Please visit my facebook page. Be convinced Vi and like and follow me. I post weekly about upcoming radio shows and podcasts. Please also visit my website at sarayadlccofelt, where you will be able to read more about me and access my podcasts, which are all designed to give you a big dose of hope. In just 30 minutes, let’s contemplate on what the great doctor Martin Luther King Junior once said. Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do and use it for a greater purpose than myself. Sa.