I’m not infallible.
I’ve been “stuck” before.
I’ve been burned out before.
I’ve been lost before.
I’ve been stuck in survival mode before.
Quite a few times, actually.
But there is one burnout and “stuckness” episode (one year long) that really sticks out to me.
See, after nearly a decade of not listening to my inner narrative, I cracked.
My life felt the least authentic it ever did. I was waking up each day to a grind that I hated and didn’t fulfill me. It overwhelmed me. Daily.
I felt like I was spiraling uncontrollably.
I felt utterly disassociated from myself, my environment, and the people surrounding me. I was lonely even in a room full of people that cared about me. My mental health took a nosedive. I was drinking excessively to drown my emotions. I had no time for physical activity and other forms of energetic self-care. I gained 100 pounds. I nourished myself poorly. And every moment of free time was spent playing video games to retreat from the world..
All of this was to avoid a grim reality I did not want to admit. And honestly, I also didn’t want to admit that my inner narrative, something I had so skillfully learned to ignore, was correct: I had to make a change.
I made a big drastic life change.
I quit the job I had dedicated myself to for over a decade. I felt better initially, partially because my life's significant stressors were gone. Poof. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. One month later, jobless, I was still burned out and stuck. I still had no motivation. I still felt a looming sense of overwhelm. My anxiety was through the roof. I was broken and depressed. I felt worse than when I was at my burnout-inducing job. I couldn’t understand it--what went wrong?
Most coaches have mentor coaches, people we ask for advice, share coaching calls with for feedback, and generally make us better humans. I went to her, and she asked a pivotal question that reshaped my life.
What would you say if your coachee asked you for feedback on this situation?
At that moment, I assessed my life for where and what it was. I wasn’t living; I was merely surviving. I was out of touch with what energized me. All of my self-care activities were coping, not energetic in nature. I had unhealthy daily routines that reinforced my anxiety, overwhelm, and fatalistic mindsets. I had no purpose and had shed my value-based living in favor of nothing.
What really shook me was that I was doing precisely what my coachees did when they burned out. And yet when I was faced with the same circumstances, I burned myself out! And while this was a critical moment of realization for me, I also went into a shame spiral. I honestly felt like a fraud.
I honestly felt like a fraud.
How could I claim to coach people through burnout when I, myself, succumbed to burnout?
Cue another powerful coaching episode. I was asked: what about coaching made me an exception to burning out? And to that, I had no proper answer. Yes, I “knew” better, and yes, I had access to my own set of tools that worked. But just like therapists and psychologists that can, themselves, succumb to anxiety and depression, I could also succumb to burnout. Burnout is a human experience brought forward by personal neglect of our energy and ignoring our inner narrative. Burnout is the great equalizer because no matter how well off anyone is, burnout is a group of physiological and psychological processes that can affect everyone. And because burnout is pernicious and sneaky, you don’t know until it is too late.
I committed myself to go through my own process.
AND I took that opportunity to feel everything, explore everything I could, experiment with new tools, and challenge my anti-burnout process. Not only did my approach work even for myself, I learned important lessons that led to more research and the discovery of better tools and techniques. Plus, my empathy for clients recovering from burnout and stuckness increased tremendously.
Once I had committed myself to my proven process, I worked through burnout in about three months. But the year that I suffered felt like a lifetime.
