Are You Experiencing Burnout??? – The Other Side of Fear

00:00
I recently spoke to Hannah Tackett, a holistic health practitioner and a software designer, about burnout, and she’s currently offering a cheat sheet on how to cut your working hours by 20% without compromising your reputation. I’ve linked that below, but what I appreciated about this conversation is the reminder of how often we choose to dishonor ourselves and our needs, ignoring or delaying the things needed to sustain a healthy mind and body. And this is not to negate our responsibilities as adults, but to address the imbalance created when we negate the commitment to ourselves. So question is, how many of the things we want and how many of our true desires are buried underneath all the shoulds we often cling to? And what I mean by that is we often default to doing the things we think we should be doing. 

01:11
Or we aspire to achieve certain life goals based on some expectations we should be meeting, and even define important milestones based on what we think should happen or how we think it should look. I think you get the point. So what should are you operating from? And what is the truth beneath that? Should I know? For me, I think I should have figured out what I’m doing with my life. 

02:06
You help women to achieve end in. 

02:11
Burnout without burning out. 

02:14
Yes, without burning out. I love the sound of that. But I know this started with your own personal journey, with experiencing burnout yourself. So I’d like to hear a little bit more about that. As to how you even recognize that you were experiencing burnout. How did that show for you in your body, in your daily lifestyle? 

02:38
Well, the last time I burnt out, which was, I don’t know, six, seven years ago, it wasn’t so much that I knew I was burnt out. It was that I couldn’t get out of bed. I hit a wall so hard, I couldn’t get out of bed for over a month. And then when I could get up again, it was slow going. I was very tired, very fatigued. I felt like my brain was in a fog. And when I was working, I was pushing through white noise. I just couldn’t engage in life, and I didn’t feel very emotionally present for my kids. But the biggest thing for me was hitting that wall. Like, I couldn’t get up. I was in bed, and I went to the doctor and had tests done and essentially came back with, like, there’s nothing wrong with my body. 

03:23
Like, I am fine. There’s no disease, nothing that can be diagnosed. It was burnout. And I, you know, like, we all have the word floating around. Like, sometimes we’re like, man, am I heading towards burnout. I feel really like, eh, about my job right now, and I’d been feeling that way for a long time, and it just got to a point where I couldn’t get up anymore. So my goal really is to help women before they get to that point, before they hit that wall and collapse and can’t get up anymore. And it takes a really long time to recover from that level of exhaustion. So, yeah, so I love to share about the red flags, the symptoms, all the things that you need to pay attention to prevent yourself from hitting that wall and struggling that hard. 

04:01
You just don’t want to struggle that hard. So, yeah, so that was my personal journey. It really frightened me. It scared me because, you know, I’m a mom. I had two young babies to take care of, breadwinner, so full time job, a career that I worked very hard to get into that I didn’t want to lose. And it just. It was a very eye opening experience, and it frightened me, and I was like, this is not acceptable. I never want to experience this again. I cannot be in bed for over a month with no sick, you know, sickness, you know, so it really frightened me, and it. I decided to make my. My health and my energy my highest priority to recover and then make sure it never, ever happened again. 

04:48
And then that process has led me to where I am today, where now I help other women. 

04:53
I can only imagine what that’s like because I know even for me, sometimes when I’m just having a regular bad day, I literally feel ill sometimes. So I can just imagine when you were just, like, you couldn’t get out of bed for that period of time. I can only imagine because, you know, for some people, these things show up physiologically, right. You literally feel sick in your body, and you’re going to the doctor, and they can’t figure out what’s wrong with you, and they chalk it down so that you’re literally just fatigue. You need rest. 

05:33
Yeah. 

05:34
Right. 

05:35
And it’s more than just, like, rest is just so vague. Like, what does that even mean? Yeah, like, how do you rest? How do you recover from this? And there’s, like, specific ways to rest, but more importantly, like, getting in alignment, you know, because a lot of it, a lot of that soul sucking drain comes from having to do things that you don’t want to do. It’s that resistance or feeling like you’ve overcommitted. Right. Or you’re being taken advantage of. You know, you’ve said yes too many times. Or maybe you don’t have a firm, no practice in place. And then you start to feel like, what I think, like a big red flag for burnout is resentment. Resentment towards your job, resentment towards your spouse, kids, resentment towards the demands that are being placed on you. Right? That’s a big red flag. 

06:21
So when you have that resentment, when you have the dread, like, people call it, like, the Sunday scaries. My scaries happened on Friday, like, 03:00 p.m. On Friday, I would start to feel anxious and like, my soul was just dropping out of my body. Cause I had to come back on Monday. I couldn’t even enjoy my weekend cause I dreaded Monday so hard. But most people, I think, experienced on Sunday. Mine was just extreme, but, yeah. So that dreadful, that. That resistance, that resentment, those are big red flags. Like, if you feel that way, do something. Do something now to shift your reality, to make the changes that you need to make before you get to a point where your body does it for you. 

07:03
Oh, my gosh. Let’s get into some of the symptoms. I know everyone is unique, and we all experience it shows up for us differently in our bodies and our lives, but let’s talk about. Because we just touched on some of the things with your experience, and then you just. Even thinking, like, that dread, because I know what you mean. But you experiencing that from Friday evening, that is wild. 

07:27
It was before I even left the office. It was like, Friday at 03:00 p.m. I still had a few hours to go, and I’d be like, I have to come back. I don’t want to. 

07:37
Oh, my goodness. 

07:39
I think most people get it on Sunday, but, yeah, it’s that dreadful that I just don’t want to do this feeling that fatigue, too. 

07:48
That, like, never goes away. Right? 

07:50
Fatigue that never goes away. Yeah. So let’s go through the symptoms and the signs. So, like, the initial signs are kind of, you know, the same as stress. Right. So irritability, anxiety, insomnia, poor concentration, like gastrointestinal problems. Like, you know, that anxious tummy or difficulty digesting or bloating. Headaches are really common, and that is just a sign that the stress is getting to you, right? 

08:15
Yeah. 

08:16
Where I feel like it kind of shifts into that, like, big red flag. When you have those kinds of feelings along with cynicism and attachment, like, when you find yourself feeling like you’re up against a wall and your enthusiasm or your engagement is starting to diminish, that’s also a big red flag. You don’t want to stay in that space because eventually it’ll affect your performance and that’ll affect your confidence. And confidence is so important. So important. But the signs that you’re getting to that point where you’re getting that cynical beginning to kind of check out state, it’s like, okay, so you lose enjoyment of things that you used to enjoy. Like, maybe this is a career that you fought for, that you used to love, and it’s just not there anymore. 

09:02
You know, that loss of enjoyment, feelings of pessimism or isolation, that detached feeling like you just don’t care. Becoming late, like, either showing up late or, like, delivering late or procrastinating beyond reason. Not just normal procrastination, but, like, where it’s actually impacting your performance. And then that big one, the resentment. And then unfortunately, what happens is if it’s not addressed, if you don’t make the changes that your mind and your heart and your body are, like, you know, screaming at you to make, it can turn into, like, a burnout that other people are noticing, right? So you feel hopeless. It affects your performance because you know you’re not showing up as your best self because you know you’re not performing. Then you start having feelings of inadequacy. You feel overwhelmed. You lose confidence in that one. That one’s brutal. 

09:54
You don’t want to lose confidence. So those are kind of like the signs and symptoms, the big red flags. Like, if you start feeling these things or any combination of them, don’t wait. Don’t wait until. It’s like, I don’t want to say too late because there’s never too late, but don’t wait until you’re suffering so badly. I’ve talked to you, unfortunately, I’ve talked to people who have burnt themselves out completely. Like, beyond even what I did. They quit their job. They left several hundreds of thousands of dollars in rsus on the table, went and got some lower paying jobs somewhere that just let them recover. And then three years later, they’re still recovering emotionally, physically and financially. And there’s no reason to let it get that far. So that’s why I’m out here. Like, you can change this now. 

10:34
You don’t have to go that far. You don’t have to lose everything you’ve created. You can turn it around. This can be turned around. It’s fixable. 

10:41
So detach on so many good things right there. And a lot of us, we tend to just chalk it up to, oh, I’m just tired. You know, even for some of us that we sense that there’s something going on in our bodies. We’re usually so hesitant to go get checked or to really assess our life and the things that we’re doing and the roles that we’re playing. We hardly ever do that, especially when it comes to women. Right. We give, give, and kind of just ignore ourselves a lot and ignore the signs that our bodies are trying to, like, hello, you know, something’s going on here. We kind of ignore that and just keep it moving. 

11:30
So I love that you’re out here encouraging women and trying to help women to recognize these things, recognize those signs and to honor their bodies and honor what you’re feeling. 

11:44
Absolutely. And it’s so true. Like, everything that you’re saying about in general, women are largely raised to be, you know, caretakers, take care of other people, to put others first, to be nice and smooth things over, to not say no. And all of these things kind of turn into, or can turn into behaviors that can lead to burnout. And I think, I like to call it, like, the five success traps. And they’re those behaviors that you’re describing. Like, there’s the perfectionism, the overachieving, the helping, the being the nice girl. What’s up for? I think there’s another one. And it’s these behaviors that, when taken to an extreme, can lead to burnout. Right. Because you are overextending. Oftentimes those behaviors are rooted in fear. And I know you work a lot with fear. 

12:37
Yeah. 

12:38
And so maybe the perfectionism is rooted in a fear of not being worthy. So you are going to show up to the nth degree and have the highest standard possible for everything, which can, you know, there’s flip side to everything, right. Perfection is not necessarily a bad thing because you end up being known for having extremely high standards for, you know, excellent quality, for being very thorough, attention to detail. There’s beautiful things around it. But when driven by fear, it can go to that flip side of the coin where you’re overextending and you’re pulling from resources that maybe aren’t there to meet this perfectionist standard. Or worse, you’re doing it from a place of fear, a fear of scarcity or a fear of judgment or a fear of being unworthy or inadequate. 

13:20
And so those fears, I think if we can address those fears and turn them around, then we can rein in those behaviors. The perfectionism, the overachieving, the helping. When you volunteer to do things for others because you’re such a good helper, so you end up doing your job and five other people’s and turn those behaviors around because you eliminate the fear, you regain your confidence. You know that you’re worthy, because you are. You know that you’ll be taken care of and regain that. That hope and that faith and, like, eliminate that scarcity mindset that sometimes drives us to overdo things, to over, give over, perform overcompensate. 

14:05
Yeah. You know, I love that you mentioned that because there are so many hidden, deep fears that it helped to create the perfect condition for burnout. 

14:16
Mm. 

14:17
You know, when you speak about the perfectionism or just wanting to be that good person, that it could be linked back to perfectionism and performance, as you said, taking on extra work that in reality, you really can’t manage. But you’re doing it because you feel the need to prove a point, right? You feel the need to be seen a certain way to prove that you are something, right. So, yeah, a lot of us, we have the tendency to do that when we know our plate, it’s already full. So it’s a really slippery slope when, of course, perfectionism can. Can be great, and wanting to perform at a very high level, that’s amazing. But when it’s based in fair, then it becomes really slimy, because then that’s not good for your health. 

15:19
It’s also what I’ve seen, like, with a client I’m thinking of that is such a perfectionist. They want everything to be perfect. Everything. What we’ve had to do is go back and identify their values, like, what really matters, because everything can’t be perfect all the time. They can’t be hitting all of these perfect goals at all times and then beat themselves up and self criticism and that negative. Talking to yourself is a huge form of self sabotage for women. And so, yeah, just going through and, like, rediscovering her values, you know, peeling back the layers of the onion and, like, what really matters to you? Are you. Are you living up to your expectations or someone else’s? Are these bars that you’ve set for yourself or that you, maybe someone else has set for you? Do they really matter? 

16:11
Like, to what actually matters to you? So it’s like going back and identifying your real values, letting go of all the shoulds, you know, that we’ve accumulated from everyone else, the expectations, the assumptions that we should be, you know, working full time, making homemade dinners from scratch every night, keeping a perfectly clean house, making our husbands happy, being at the, you know, volunteering at the school, getting our next promotion, like all the shoulds. Right. 

16:37
Yeah. 

16:37
Just, like, let it all go and figure out what actually matters to you in that big pile, if any of it, and then index on that and you don’t have to actually meet the rest of it. You can outsource, delegate, minimize. There’s ways to say no. You know, I love that you mentioned. 

16:55
The shits because a lot of us operate from the shits. 

16:59
Mm. 

17:00
You know, especially men do it, too. But we’re talking about women today. 

17:05
Yeah. Men do all of this, too. Like, it’s not, this is not exclusive to women. I just think there’s more women burning out than men, and that’s what the numbers show. 

17:14
Yeah, men do it, too, and they have their own sheds, and they do also experience burnout, but, yeah, the home cooked meals fresh every night from scratch. Sorry, I was once that person. It is ridiculous. 

17:36
Yes. 

17:37
You know, the expectations that we put on ourselves, and then when you think about even the messaging that we get from our environments. Right. 

17:46
Yeah. 

17:46
Because a lot of us, not all, but more than often, a lot of us are raised to fit a certain mold. Fit into a certain mold and to embody a certain role in a certain way. So I love that you mentioned all the shoulds because a lot of us are operating from the sheds. And we often don’t recognize that. We often don’t recognize how to decipher what we truly want versus what were taught we should want or what were taught we should do and what were thought that we should have. Right. And a lot of us operate from that perception unknowingly, unfortunately. 

18:39
And so when you have people kind of aspiring to these things, these ideas, like these ideals up in the air, when you can’t meet that, when reality kind of slaps you in the face and it’s just like you’re left all confused and bewildered. Right. And frustrated. 

19:00
Yes. And it’s not just not being able to meet it. I think some of us generally don’t want to meet us. 

19:05
Exactly. 

19:06
That’s where that resentment comes in. Yeah. 

19:08
Because some of us can. Right. Some of us can, some of us can’t for different reasons. And some of us are somewhere in between. But as you said, sometimes we truly don’t want it. Right. Sometimes these are things that we kind of absorb from elsewhere. And that. That just leads me to my next question, because we spoke about one of those internal driving factors that can create the perfect condition for burnout, but what about the external? Because that’s one of them or environment. Right. The way that were socialized to kind of aspire to certain things or to fit certain roles and things like that, you know, gender roles, all sorts of roles. 

19:53
So the, you know, the internal, like, the fears that I mentioned that come from programming, like the external programming or whatever, you know, so those are like, the fear of scarcity, the fear of, like. And, for example, for this fear of scarcity, it could have come from, maybe you grew up poor, and you just have this underlying belief that there just isn’t enough. And so when you go to work, you push hard because you don’t feel like there’s enough, and you better show up and make sure that you get noticed. Right? Or maybe that fear of scarcity came because in your first couple of jobs, you saw thousands of people be laid off around you, and it just put that fear in you. There’s so many ways that the programming could happen, so many ways that these fears could be planted. 

20:39
And then another internal one is that fear of setting boundaries or fear saying no. And that one, like I said, so many ways that could develop. Right? It could be like, you’re growing up and you’re a kid and your parents are super authoritarian, and you’re not. Not allowed to say no. You know, you get in trouble if you say no. So it could be something foundational like that. It could be maybe a relationship where, you know, you kind of felt like you lost some autonomy and it bled into other areas of your life. It could be in the. In the job where you’re afraid that if you say no, you’ll get fired. So there’s millions. There’s more ways than I can even discuss or think of, like, more than I can, than I even know that these fears can be set in us. 

21:21
There’s also the fear of rejection or job loss, specifically. And that would being laid off or let go or maybe not being hired, because maybe you’re afraid of the economy or something in your industry, or maybe you grew up and you saw your parents lose their jobs. And then a big one, a really big one that I see a lot is the fear of not being worthy, which most people talk about in terms of being the imposter syndrome. Yeah, I see that a lot. That one is a big driver of overdoing everything, you know, of pushing yourself so hard that you crumble, you know, because you’re proving that you’re worthy. And that one could come from so many places, too. Like, maybe you had a super critical parent. 

22:03
Maybe you had a job where you had a crap boss who gave you some really harsh feedback that maybe wasn’t handled very well, so many ways it could happen. And then same for the perfectionism. Sometimes it’s tied to them not being worthy. But the perfectionism could be from, you know, the other fears as well. But as far as, like, external factors that we know are contributors to burnout. The first is excessive workload. So just literally too much to do. When you’re given more tasks than you can handle, or when your job requires you to be constantly available and working and reactive, it can quickly lead to feelings of overwhelm and burnout. And so there’s a lot of industries that tendency happens to be there. And then the second one is lack of control. 

22:51
So that’s where you don’t have control over your own schedule, your own tasks, your own environment. And when there’s that lack of control or that lack of autonomy, that can lead to feelings of helplessness and that increases stress and burnout. The third one, which I think is significant, especially for women, is insufficient rewards because women do make less than men. Still, whether it’s financial, institutional, social rewards, when you’re not rewarded for your work, or when you feel undervalued and underappreciated. And this counts for working at home too. Like, if we’re not valued for the effort we’re putting out, whether it’s at home, at work, in our relationships, that insufficient reward can lead to dissatisfaction and burnout. 

23:37
Yeah. 

23:38
And I think that my personal opinion is that’s why we see more women burning up than men. That’s one of the factors. Right. The fourth external factor that we know leads to burnout is lack of community. And that’s why I think we’ve seen the numbers drive up so hard since the shutdowns is the lack of a sense of community in the workplace and at home and in your personal life is a huge factor because we’re social creatures, and when we feel isolated or unsupported, it increases our stress levels. And it’s just another factor, you know, that can lead to burnout. And then there’s two more. The fifth one is mismatched values. So when your personal values and your job tasks are mismatched, that can lead to a sense of discomfort and stress and burnout. 

24:28
And then the last is the lack of work life balance, where work consistently spills over into your personal time. And it leads to, like, an imbalance that causes stress and burnout and resentment. So those are like the external factors. And we’ve talked about the internal factors, and it’s. There’s no. One size, I think, fits all. Yeah. 

24:49
They all kind of play into each other to create the perfect conditions for burnout. 

24:56
Really? 

24:56
Because when you think about it, for example, you mentioned your workload. Your workload is too much. But if you also have that internal factor where you feel like maybe you’re not enough, you’re afraid that you’re not enough, you’re afraid that you’re not worthy. So instead of speaking up and say, hey, this is too much, I can’t. I can’t do my job and the job of five other people. Right. Maybe I could assist them. Maybe I could offer support, but I can’t do their job and my job. 

25:38
Right. 

25:38
So instead of doing that, what you do, you’re just like a yes or yes ma’am person, because you have something to prove. You got to prove that you’re worthy. You got to prove that you’re enough. You got to prove that you deserve that raise. 

25:52
Yes. 

25:53
Right, exactly. 

25:55
Or just prove that you deserve the job. 

25:57
Yeah, exactly. 

26:00
And that’s why you see people in the same situation where maybe it is a situation that has a high risk of burnout and some people burn out and some people don’t, because everyone has the same life experiences. Not everyone has the same programming. Not everyone has the same belief systems and fears and behaviors. So it’s not a cookie cutter experience, even if some of the factors are the same for some people. 

26:22
Exactly, exactly. And just the fact that you mentioned earlier, boundaries, that example that I use is a really good example for what you mentioned about setting boundaries and honoring your nose. 

26:42
Absolutely. 

26:43
Let’s talk about that for a bit, because how can we begin to set those boundaries? How can we think about boundaries in those terms? Because, you know, when you think about burnout, a huge part of it is being able to say no and honor that. But there are just so many boundaries, so many other boundaries that we can also think about. Right. And I think that it feels a little bit up in the air when you tell someone, hey, you need stronger boundaries around your work life balance. The people are just like, what are you talking about? 

27:22
How do I even do that? 

27:23
Yeah, how do I even do that? They can’t. It’s hard to think about what that looks like. So let’s talk about that for a little bit. 

27:31
Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ll go through. And this is a big part of it is those boundaries and kind of go through the steps of ending burnout. Right. Preventing an ending burnout, making sure it doesn’t happen again. So the first step that we’d go through is authentic alignment, because you have to know what you’re saying yes to before you start saying no and have it be effective. Right? So you have to know what you care about, what you’re fighting for, what you’re making space for in your life. So the first step is really just, like, getting aligned with your values, like, understanding, what are my values? What do I care about what really matters to me? An example from my own life was coming back from burnout. I recovered, and I got a really amazing job, and I was nervous. 

28:12
I was like, oh, it’s a new job. I don’t want to burn out ever again. And so I had a conversation with my boss, like, between the hours between 04:00 p.m. And 07:00 p.m. Are sacred to me. I pick up my kids, we do dinner, the nighttime routine, the one one time, the baths. And I want to be there from 04:00 p.m. To 07:00 p.m. The rest of the day is flexible. But those hours, I want to block those off. Can we make this happen? Because at the time, I was looking at 30 plus hours of meetings a week, and I’m like, let’s talk. There’s things in my life that matter to me more than, you know, the job. So I had that conversation, and I said, this is sacred to me. These are my hours that I want to protect. 

28:55
I’m more than happy to get up early and be on a 07:00 a.m. Call with India. I’m more than happy to meet late at night. I mean, I kind of stink at night. I’m half asleep, but whatever. If you want me to be there, I can be there. But those hours with my kids. I want to be with my kids. They were fine with it. It was a great conversation. Didn’t even bat an eye. I was like, of course, that’s great. And then we did a spreadsheet for the whole team, like, hours. That ideal hours, right? And then we kind of mapped out each other’s responsibilities based on when we would like to work. But first, I had to get really clear on what actually mattered to me. What am I fighting for? What am I willing to say yes to? 

29:29
And then once I had a strong yes, I knew what my values were. And this is just like a sliver, you know, one single example. But think about your whole life, right? What matters to you? What are you saying yes to? What do you want to make space for? And then you’ve got your yes. Right. Knowing what you want is critical. And once you’ve got your yes, then we can go through and do some things to identify what you’re going to say no to. And that’s where it’s really important to start tuning in to your body and your heart and your mind and listen and pay attention to the activities and the people and the tasks that drain you. 

30:03
Yeah. 

30:04
What is draining you? And what I do with my clients is like, we actually map it out. We look at a week of their life and we map out the activities that drain them. We map out the activities that are neutral and the ones that fill their cup. And then it’s about creating strategies to say no to the activities that drain you. And there’s more than one way to say no. You don’t have to just show up to work and be like, I’m not gonna do my job anymore. Don’t do that. There’s other ways to do this. So. So you know, you’ve got the activities that drain you. So now you know that we’re going to start finding a strategy, you know, defining a strategy to get rid of those things or at least minimize them. And so, and the strategies are around. 

30:41
Can it be automated? Can it be outsourced? Can it be delegated? Does someone else on your team really like to do that? Maybe we should give them an opportunity to pick it up. There’s also very strategic ways to ignore requests. Don’t just ignore things without knowing what you’re doing. But you can just ignore if you do, and then there’s a straight up saying no. And there’s ways to say no. You can have the this or that conversation if your plate is already full. Do you want me to focus on this or that? And if you have a preference, feel free to put your preference in there for your boss. Be like, this is going to have a bigger impact. And so, and so over there really likes doing this over here. So why don’t we give it to them? 

31:19
You can have, though, what are the priorities? Conversation, you know, and have them prioritize for you. You can have the. Here are the consequences of taking that action. If the reason you don’t want to do something is because it’s not going to have an impact or the impact won’t be positive and maybe your best, they’re busy, you know, they’re thinking about other things, you know, then you can bring that up, be like, here’s why maybe we shouldn’t take this path. And here’s a better one. So there’s all kinds of ways to say no and then there’s just no, but be careful with that one. So, yeah, so, you know, say, you know, and then within the home, you know, you have to look at the whole picture. Right. This isn’t just about your job. 

32:00
If you, most of us end up being caretakers at some point, whether it’s our kids or our parents or a sibling, it tends to land on the women. So, you know, within the home, same thing. Same thing. What can you outsource? What can you minimize? What can you just get rid of? It doesn’t matter. What can you delegate? And delegating to your housemates, family, roommates, spouse is a big deal because if you’ve not been in a measurement position, training people to do something is not like you just give it to them and walk away. There’s some teaching involved. It is some work upfront. So you have to be willing to do that work if you’re going to delegate and following through and making sure it’s done the way that they either some level of shared acceptable standards. 

32:51
So, yeah, so that’s kind of like a large summary of honoring your yes and honoring your no as a part of the journey. Like one of the first few steps that we take when we want to end burnout is those things you touched on. 

33:07
So many great points, Hannah. And it goes perfectly in hand with what you’ve mentioned before about finding your voice. Right. Because all of that involves you being able to speak for yourself, to be the representative for you. Right. And to say what you can and can’t do and what works for you and what doesn’t. So I love that it goes perfectly with what you mentioned. So that is amazing. And I was going to ask you about serene success. And from what you’ve told me, you’ve already told me so much of what you do with your clients and how you’re helping them high achieving women get through burnout, recognize burnout. I want to talk about that a little bit more as well about what you’re doing and how you’re helping women to work through that. 

34:14
Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ll just go over the steps, like, of the program. And we just did a couple of them. So the first one is authentic alignment, and that is identifying what matters to you. What is your purpose today? Because our purpose evolves and changes as we enter different seasons of life. And then we honor our yes and our no. And then we have finding our voice, which you just mentioned, which is very tactical, specific strategies on how to like, even scripts like down to the script that you can use to have a conversation with your boss or your spouse to say, no, delegate, outsource, automate, get it rid of it. 

34:52
So, you know, there’s the finding your voice and practicing negotiation and actually expressing what you want, which some of us have forgotten how to do because we’ve just been so busy meeting everyone else’s needs. So there’s the finding your voice, and then there’s stepping into personal power. And this one is so powerful, where we dig into those old wounds, not like too deep, not too deep, but we feel in our body where we’re holding resistance to moving forward. And we address sabotage. Because a lot of what I see missing in a lot of other people’s work is there’s no addressing of sabotage. And we all sabotage ourselves. It’s just a normal part of change. Anytime you want to change something in your life, you’re very likely to run up to sabotage. Because sabotage is rooted in fear, and change causes fear. 

35:36
It’s what our critter brain does when we want to change something in our life. It wants to keep it the same. It’s his job to keep things the same. So whenever you want to make a change, expect to encounter some weird irrational behavior or something randomly coming up and making you busy or. So we know, we address the sabotage. We embrace our inner rebel, the one that just doesn’t want to follow all the rules and do what we’re told. And so, yeah, so, essentially, the phases or the big steps are authentic alignment, finding your voice, stepping into your personal power, and all of that leads into what I like to call overflow, is opportunity. Because once you get through all of that, people are feeling good. They have so much more energy, they have more space in their life. 

36:17
They’re thinking big things like, what’s the next step in my career? And so we take that overflow of energy, and we make sure that it’s channeled towards something that you care about. Yeah, that really lights you up. Your big dreams, your big magnificent obsessions. 

36:30
So, you know, we speak about this a lot on the podcast about living authentically, you know, showing up authentically as yourself, for yourself. And when you are experiencing burnout, you are so far away from your true authenticity because you are completely going against yourself. You know, you’re going against what your body needs, what your mind needs, what fulfills you completely going against everything that is for you, because that. That is pretty much how you get burnt out, right? 

37:16
You. 

37:16
You can get burnt out doing the things you love. You can. Yeah, you can. It’s not just about you’re in this job and you hate it. This is not the field you want to be in. Yeah, sometimes it’s that. But you can also get burnt out doing the things that you absolutely love and enjoy, and it’s for the same reason. There is some aspect of you that you’re not attentive to. There is some aspect of you that is not being addressed. It’s not being catered to. It’s not being nurtured while you’re even working on the thing that you’re actually passionate about. Because I think it can be easy to misconceive that you’re burnt out because you’re just doing something you don’t love. So I also want to speak to being burnt out while doing something that you do love. 

38:16
Almost all the women I’ve worked with to date started out loving their careers. I mean, they fought to get in there. They got the education, they pursued it, they negotiated for it. They got in the door. They loved it. At one point, it was something that they enjoyed, and then they started to lose that love. And so it’s like, what you’re saying is 100% completely true. You can love something and start with a passion and lose it. And that’s tragic. I mean, I think that’s truly tragic when you have people who are passionate about something and love it, and then that passion and love and enjoyment goes away. And so that’s when you have to look at the specifics, like, what specifically is draining your energy, what actions, what tasks, what people, and figure that out. Right. 

39:02
Because just because you’re in an industry or some of what you’re doing, you love or you used to love something is crossing a line, you know? And there’s also a lot of what we do is stepping into, I call it your personal power, but recognizing you’re a whole person. You’re not just a brain sitting on top of body. And I feel like a lot of our modern lifestyle is sort of approached with, like, a brain on top of the body sort of a way. Like, we’re not listening to our bodies. We’re not living in our bodies. People call it being mindful, but I mean, like, really just, like, slow down and be in your body. 

39:33
And that can also lead to some health challenges and, you know, the health side of burnout, where you’re having the migraines, where you’re maybe masking with a lot of emotional eating or maybe drinking, you know, that extra glass of wine at night, because you’re just like, I just want to feel happy for a second, but then your sleep is crap. So there’s, like, very practical, like, you’re. We’re human beings and we’re. Well, you know, we need all of these facets to be managed. Not just your career, not just your to do list, but all of you. Like, what. What needs. What needs to be cared for, what needs to be focused on what needs to be loved. 

40:14
Yeah. 

40:15
And bringing that love where it belongs and balancing out those efforts. 

40:20
I love that. I want to ask you, though, because I know that you’ve been through this and this is different for everyone. Right. What is the first step that you can encourage someone to take right now who is possibly experiencing burnout, whether they’re aware of it or not? You know, tools and strategies and things. It looks different for everyone. You know, different things work for different people. But what is something that you can just throw out there that can encourage someone or help someone to take that first step? Is there something that they can do? Is there something that they can consider or something that they can think about that can help them to either realize they’re in burnout, or for those who know that they’re burnt out, how do they address it? What’s the step that they could take to address it? 

41:22
Either or. 

41:25
The first thing that I do with people, and I do this before they even work with me. Right. So, you know, get on a call, we have a conversation. The first thing, and you can do this on your own, too, is figure out what you want. What is your vision? What does your life look like free of burnout? What does it look like if you felt aligned with all of your actions? What would it look like if you had the energy? What would it look like if you had the motivation? What would it look like if you had the focus? What would it look like if you had the emotional presence at home, with your family and get that vision clear, because you’re going to need something to fight for. 

42:02
So, I mean, really, the first step is like, what do we know what you don’t want? Mostly, you know, what do you want? What are we saying yes to? What are we making space for in your life? So I think that’s. That’s really the first step is identifying what you really do want. And that can take a little bit of back and forth and digging because we’ve been buried under all those shoulds, like we said, you know, like, sometimes we come up and we’re like, midlife and we’re taking care of everybody else. And we’re like, I don’t even know what my needs are anymore. I don’t know what I like. And, you know, you gotta get past that and discover what you do want so you can go and make it happen. So, I mean, really, the first step is a vision. 

42:39
What do you want? What is success to you? What does serene success look like in your life? And get really specific. And then once you’ve got that vision, okay, then we know what you’re gonna be motivated to do. So that’s really the first step. And then I have seven principles that I give away as a gift, and I have it, I call it how to work less. And it’s like the seven principles. It’s really about being efficient and focused on value and how to do that in your life without damaging your reputation or burning it all down. I have that gift for any podcast listeners, and it’s a cheat sheet. That one’s a fun one to go through. 

43:22
What does your serene success look like? I love that. Well, you said escape, because a lot of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but as you said, it’s buried under so many shits. You know, when you kind of ask people sometimes what is it that they want? Or when you ask anyone anything in line with that, they usually come up with the things that they should be doing. 

43:53
Yeah. Have you ever noticed I asked more than once? I have like twelve, maybe more than that. I think I had 20 questions, like ways to ask it. That kind of get under the shoulds, right? 

44:05
Yeah. 

44:06
So you’re like. It’s like an excavation. We’re excavating your vision from the shoulds, and it’ll come out. Because when you’re interacting with someone like that and you’re being honest, like it’s going to come out that vision will be exposed, it will be surfaced. 

44:23
And I love that. And I can only imagine how you’ve got to frame those questions to get those answers. Because just having general conversations on a regular day, it’s so hard to get people to really admit what it is that they truly want. Sometimes they. Sometimes, even if they really do know deeply, they’re afraid to admit it. People are afraid to simply admit, you know what, I want to make enough money to make me comfortable, but I don’t want to work as hard as I’m working right now in order to do it. Because the messaging, a lot of the times that we get is you got to be on the hustle, you got to be working hard and you got to be doing this and you got to be grinding. Right. And that has become a thing. 

45:13
I know. 

45:14
Thankfully, I noticed that people are kind of starting to relax on that a little bit, but in the last few years, it’s just been crazy. People have been talking about the grind, and what if I don’t want to grind? What if I want the soft life? 

45:30
You don’t have to grind. Go get that, you know, seven principles to work less. You don’t have to grind. And you should honestly be showing. Shouldn’t be grinding. I think that, yes, you can lean in for a period of time and, like, have an intense, focused spurt of work. Like, say you go all in for a month on a goal, then you acknowledge your work. You acknowledge the success and the effort that you put out and, like, breathe, you know, like, it’s an ebb and flow. We’re not. We’re not machines. We’re humans. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I work really well in spurts, specifically 90 minutes spurts. I do great 90 minutes spurts, but I’m not going that hard all day. 

46:08
I used to, and that’s how I got to that burnout, because I thought I had to work like that all day, and I got a lot done. You know, I had a great. You know, I still have a great reputation, but I was a. I was a workhorse and maybe a little bit of a workaholic. So, yeah, we don’t have to. We don’t have to go throw ourselves at it like that all the time. I think being really clear about what matters and prioritization and strategy, managing your visibility, and, like, there’s. There are principles in there that if you think about and you think about strategically within your life, you can. You can step back quite a bit and still get the work done and still have the. It’s not about getting the work done. It’s about impact. You’re being paid for value. 

46:53
Not hours, not sweat, not tears, not depression. You’re being paid to deliver a value. Can you deliver the value with less of the sweat, tears, and depression and, you know, misery? You can. We all can. There’s always a way. 

47:08
Yes, exactly. That’s exactly it. You can, because I love that you mentioned that you can work in spurts, right? You don’t have to go hard all day, every day. It’s not even possible you’re human. You will burn out if you do that. 

47:27
It’s all about seasons and cycles. 

47:29
Yeah, seasons and cycles. Seasons and cycles. That is so true. That is so true. And you know, with that being said, I just want to like kind of round up everything that we’ve been talking about. Just a reminder to be, not be afraid to show up authentically, to not be afraid to own what you want, what you truly want, to own your desires. Because it really boils down to that. Showing up authentically, shedding the sheds and really reconnecting with yourself and who you are and what is unique about you and why that uniqueness is so important and how you can bring that and use it to your advantage and not have it be used against you. 

48:26
Absolutely. I mean, everything that you said is just spot on because we all have unique gifts and unique perspective that we bring to the world. And unless we can show up as our full authentic selves, as our best selves, those gifts aren’t going to be out there making an impact and making a difference in other people’s lives. And everything you said is just spot on and so valuable and true. 

48:53
Thank you so much. How can we get into your serene success program? Where can we find you and your work? 

49:02
Absolutely. So there’s the gift that I mentioned for your listeners and then you can find that@serenesuccess.net pod or podcast. And then that will be where you can find the principles to working, like cutting your hours by 20% without damaging your reputation. So that’s a great place to start and just kind of review the principles it talks about. Some of that covers some of the stuff that we talked about today. And then you can find me at the, obviously the website and then I’m very active on LinkedIn. So if you do the stream success, you’ll find me. 

49:37
Thank you so much, Hannah. 

49:39
Thank you. It was a wonderful conversation. 

49:43
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