Ep.16 Escaping the Burnout Cycle

Ep.16 Escaping the Burnout Cycle

[00:00:16] Intro

Hey guys! Welcome to the Growth on the Daily Podcast, the personal development podcast for athletes. My name is Rey, and I'm your host. I'm a former competitive hockey player, passionate about self-growth, and I'm here to support you on your journey to becoming the best version of you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this week's episode.

Just a reminder, before we dive in, follow us on Instagram @growthonthedaily, to stay up to date with the show. This week's episode is our third episode in our burnout series. We started off a few weeks back with Bouncing Back from Burnout. Then we went into Work Life Balance, and now we're talking about escaping the burnout cycle for good.

So, we're still focused on the emotional category in terms of Specialties for Success. So, if you are at a point in life where you are tired of this never-ending burnout cycle, then this episode is for you.

[00:01:05] No Cap All Facts

So, what is the burnout cycle? It looks different for many people, but I would say if we were to capture it in some high-level themes, it would be the following.

First is that motivation to succeed. You are excited about what's to come, and so you are just ready to commit. And the danger of that is there can be so much excitement that you overcommit because you're just ready. You're just ready to achieve, and you're ready to succeed and to please others as well.

So that can lead to over-commitment, that over-commitment, sustaining that, that's what leads to feelings of overwhelm and then that leads to being stressed out. With that stress, that's when you can then end up withdrawing and just shutting down because you just can't take it anymore. It's just too demanding of a schedule.

So, then you start feeling depressed and like things just need to stop. So that's when you have a light at the end of the tunnel because you recognize you need that period of rest and you take that. And you start to feel better, which is great, except the danger is you might fall back into that cycle because that motivation and excitement might just come back and lead you to overcommitting again.

That covers what the burnout cycle is. And the reason why I mention it is because I think it's important for us to understand the link between that burnout cycle and the mindset of athletes.

The great thing about athletes, is athletes are so driven. No one's telling you to be an athlete. You have to put in that work to become that superhuman if you will. So with that, part of being an athlete is also having that high achiever mentality, which is great, right? Because it's showing that you want to go after your goals, you want to succeed, you want to push yourself.

The danger is you might also develop perfectionism. And perfectionism, that is what leads to overtraining. And overtraining. That's what I would equate to over-commitment in the burnout cycle. So overtraining and over-commitment, that's the same thing in that burnout cycle because then they both lead to overwhelm, stress and then later exhaustion.

So that's why it's so important to understand these feelings because following your feelings tells you how you're ending up back in the cycle day after day.

If you feel that some of this content is resonating with you, I hope that in this episode I can share some of my experiences of escaping this cycle. And you can then translate that into your life. And hopefully, that helps you escape the cycle.

[00:03:52] Rey's Remedy

So, the first thing I make sure to do is recognizing that I'm actually in a cycle. And it's not a one-off incident because you can have trigger events. Like for example family member passes away and your grief process is interrupted with your everyday life, and so that can lead to burnout and then, going through the grief process properly for you, whatever that looks like, can then lead to you, alleviating the burnout cycle and then you won't really be back into it because that was a one-off event.

So that's different than what we're talking about. What we're talking about is that constant return to burnout. So, if you feel that you're in this burnout cycle, analyze your lifestyle. Understand what is leading you to burnout. The way you can do that is think about when you last felt this way and what was common, what was the same, what was the trigger event?

 In my circumstance, that could be making a schedule that's too demanding for my podcast content, and that can lead to burnout. Whatever that looks like for you think about that. That will identify the point in the cycle where it starts. Now once you understand that it's then critical to make the appropriate life changes.

So that's telling you like, hey, understand my limit for this trigger event. So, for me, it's understanding how much content I can realistically put out at the quality that I want every single week. For you, it might be understanding the amount of readings I can do for school in a weekend, or how many projects I can say yes to at work at a time, that sort of thing. Understand those limits.

Now, once you recognize that you still have to, escape the cycle. So that comes from a reset. What I like to do is I like to follow my needs. So, if you need to reset now, then reset now. Resetting is about taking control of your life again, so it's about prioritizing the things that actually matter to your life and to your happiness and delegating or ridding yourself of anything else.

So how do you prioritize?

You have to make the decisions based on your needs in the moment. So, for example, if you want to start a business, great, but if you can barely get your life together in a week, It might not be time to start that business. You might just be feeling more overwhelmed. So maybe it's about getting your life back on track for you so that you then have the capacity to start that business.

So let's put that one on hold and maybe you want to give yourself a timeline on that. I'll give myself like six months, a month, a year, whatever that looks like, to just hold yourself accountable to getting better. But that is something you would put on hold.

And then you would prioritize things like your physical and mental health, socializing, quality over quantity in terms of the impact that you have in work or school or the personal projects you take on. That's what I would say needs to be prioritized. You might have different priorities, but that's what it looks like for me. And then delegate anything that can be delegated.

If you were in a relationship and, there's something that needs to be done for the both of you that like your partner can take on, let them take that on and actually voice that. Say like, hey, I need you to help me and support me through this because I'm dealing with, burnout or however you're feeling. They can't help you if they don't know.

So resetting is really about focusing on what you need in the moment. Instead of returning to that over-commitment, I'm gonna take the active steps to meet my capacity needs. And then analyze, like just analyze and monitor. Monitor how you are doing, if you make those changes and you find yourself, in a good, steady state. Good. You have figured out your limit, and that means you're on the path towards escaping that burnout cycle.

Now, if it comes back, what that could mean is that you're still overcommitting, even though it might be less than last time, it's still too much, so lower that again. But it's a constant sort of learning process, I would say, to that resetting lifestyle. But if you have more questions on this, feel free to DM us @growthonthedaily on Instagram. Happy to answer your questions and even go further on how you can go about this resetting process.

[00:08:10] Hold the Mic

Another thing I want to bring to your attention is the concept of burnout versus the concept of depression. There is something that I really want to voice here because there's a difference.

There's a difference that's critical to understand because depression might require you to get professional help. Burnout may as well, but depression is something that might be a little bit more serious, that you might need that professional medical help for. So that's why I'm bringing this up.

The way to differentiate them is understand the following symptoms. Burnout gets better when you step away from work. So, if you stop and you rest and you feel a bit better, that's a sign of burnout. There are also common symptoms though, between depression and burnout like you might just want to rest and you feel like you're sleeping too much or you're restless, you're not sleeping enough. Your focus is all over the place. But with depression, you see more symptoms of like isolation, you know, low energy. It takes a lot even to just do the basic things like to shower, to eat, and it's very overwhelming.

So that's when you know the safest bet is just talk to someone. You don't have to figure this out on your own. And that's something I really want to make sure is clear. People are here to help you. And sometimes it just takes those simple words of, I need help.

[00:09:32] Meaningful Mentions

Alright guys, so that's all we have for this week's episode. I want to just leave you guys with a few key takeaways. The first is recognizing that burnout can be a cycle, and that can be linked to a high-achieving mindset, which leads you to over-commitment.

So, if you are overcommitting, and then you find that leading to burnout, you may be trapped in that cycle and you might need to lower your capacity in order to get out of it. So understand what triggers your cycle, and that's where over-commitment takes place so that you can take the appropriate steps to reset that lifestyle.

And finally, get professional help if you are feeling symptoms of sustained depression, or some of these steps aren't really doing much for you, you're feeling the same or even worse, definitely seek out professional help.

[00:10:29] Quality Quote

To help you guys this week. I have a great quote for you, from John Wooden who says, " do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do".

And I think that's a great way of looking at this recovery journey, oftentimes we focus on the negative and focus on everything that is impeding us instead of the little things that we can do to alleviate it. So, let's look at this with a glass-half-full approach, and on your road to recovery.

[00:10:57] Outro

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this week's episode and committing to Learn, Grow, and Thrive. Just a reminder to take care of yourselves, you will be okay, and we are here to support you in the Growth on the Daily community. Follow us on Instagram @growthontheadaily to stay up to date with the show. And of course, check out our website growthonthedaily.com for more info.

Thank you guys, and see you next week!