Living with Burnout: What I Learned after 3 Crippling Years

I promise, this will not be a doom-and-gloom post about living with burnout. I will explore the lessons I learned during my 3-year experience with burnout. But I will also focus on recovery.

I am hoping this will give you a better understanding of that it means to be living with burnout, and find motivation to get out of it.

Over many years for living with burnout, as well as self care journey, I gained a lot of perspective. I was surprised to learn that this experience was not only traumatizing. I also helped me to know myself better and discover my priorities.

I will share these insights with you. Keep reading if you want to understand your own journey better, or if you have a loved one who is living with burnout.

H2 Lessons Learned while Living with Burnout

Many of the insights I had from living with burnout will sound like harsh truths, and not easy to read. But that’s just a first impression. In reality, every insight is empowering.

Having a clear understanding of where you stand can show you what to do to overcome your obstacles. You have more power over your own destiny. You know what you are missing, and you can make more informed choices moving forward.

You Lost Control of Your Own Life

If you suspect you might be living with burnout, you are. This is because we are all deep into it when we start noticing symptoms. You have been going through the motions. Without questioning, you have been doing what you had to do, but forgot to check in with yourself.

Burnout can be

  • living a life that is no longer in line with your values
  • losing your way
  • losing your touch with your initial purpose
  • your purpose has changed along the way, while you are still following the old blueprint

Either way, burnout is about a disconnect within yourself. If you don’t know what that is yet, you need to self reflect.

Living with Burnout Makes You Bitter

You are not a pleasant friend of colleague. Burnout means feeling overwhelmed, struggling every day just to keep yourself afloat. Everything else is extra effort which requires energy that you don’t have.

So you are down. In your overwhelm, you don’t see things clearly. You only see the the dark clouds. This makes you not fun to be around.

This doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have friends. Everyone goes through dark times, and your friends will understand. Letting them know that you are aware and thanking them for their patience will give you both peace of mind.

You Will Lose Friends

Still, some people might not understand. Or your fragility might be too much for them to deal with in that stage of their life. That’s understandable, and you shouldn’t victimize yourself or get mad at them. We are all at different stages in our lives and we are all dealing the best we can.

You might also lose friends because you are not maintaining your relationships.

When you are living with burnout, it feels like a full time job. All the energy you have, you burn to get through the day. You feel exhausted, and navigating social situations can be challenging. This is why you are are avoiding them.

I often found myself not answering the phone, or declining invitations. This is because one more social engagement felt daunting and I was already drained. In such cases, it’s not surprising that some people might stop checking in.

It’s not their fault, but neither is it yours. Have self compassion, you are doing your best.

The World Moves on, It Will not Wait for You

While you are in a slump, the world keeps going.

  • You feel overwhelmed with your everyday tasks and responsibilities.
  • Staying up-to-date with the ever-changing climate is too much for you.
  • You will see your friends make life-changing decisions, get married, have children, grow in their careers, be successful.

During all this, you feel stuck. You want to move forward, but you can’t, or don’t know where. And you feel left behind.

Don’t worry. While it’s true that your progress gets frozen, you will catch up when you out of this.

You Are not Seeing the Bigger Picture

You are so zoomed in on your own problems, that you lost perspective. The issues you are grappling with are not as big or scary as you perceive them.

The office politics that are keeping you up at night will mean nothing in a year’s time. They have no real consequence on your life and what matters to you. But your burnout makes you see every little squabble as an insurmountable problem.

This is normal. Your energy is limited, and conflict while living with burnout can be draining.

What I Learned from My Recovery Journey

Self Care Is Your Way Out

Since you lost touch with yourself, you need to start caring for yourself again. You have to look after yourself like you wold a loved one. Put in the time every day.

  • Look after your physical health
  • Build a support system or consolidate it if you have it
  • Work on your mindset
  • Practice mindfulness

You are right, this is a lot of effort. But you don’t have to do it all at the same time. Start small, with manageable habits which can be easily implemented.

Check out this article on 5 easy habits I implemented in my own life.

On your self care journey, you will begin to gain perspective. As you work on yourself every day, you will find your way to the real you.

As I was making my way out of burnout, I discovered my authentic self. I found myself cutting through the noise and focusing on what matters to me. Doing this work helped me understand myself better than I ever had, it gave me clarity.

Conclusion

Living with burnout is exhausting all your energy to survive. It’s taking everything from you, until your are lifeless and joyless. Breaking out of burnout is hard work. The whole experience feels overwhelming, exhausting and unfair.

But every negative experience comes with life lessons and increased clarity.

This is how I choose to look at it:

Do I wish I hadn’t lost 3 years to this experience? Yes

But it happened and it’s out of my control. So do I choose to moan the lost time? Or do I choose to learn form it and be stronger moving forward?

5 Daily Habits to Help You Break Out of Burnout

This article will tackle a few habits that can help you in your effort to break out of burnout. Burnout is a growing issue in modern society. We have fast-paced lives, demanding jobs and endless responsibilities.

At the same time, we are overwhelmed by the expectations we place on ourselves. We have to look our best, have the perfect vacation and be perfect in our relationships.

This is a lot to ask from a mere human being. And sometimes we can lose ourselves in the maze of expectations, real or imagined.

To break out of burnout, you need to re-think the way you approach your everyday life. Changing your mindset starts with changing your habits. What you do every day makes up who you are and how you see the world.

I will teach you how to install small habits, which are easy to incorporate in your day. These habits will help you re-frame your thinking and your priorities.

Your purpose is to create breathing space and focus on your well-being. You do that through

  • daily (and fun!) activities that help you re-center
  • changing your mindset from stuck to empowered
  • connection and a feeling of belonging

I’ll break these down for you into small habits that you can in your daily routine. They are practices that worked for me and that I still use to this day.

These habits help me stay focused on what matters and cut through the everyday noise. They helped me break out of burnout. And I hope you will try them out, because I am sure they will work for you as well.

1. Start with Gratitude

I’m sure you heard a lot of talk about the benefits of gratitude, but how does this work?

Studies have shown that practicing gratitude improves mental health, and reduces the incidence of negative emotions.

Here’s how it works:

  • reserve 5 minutes every morning for this practice, before you start your day. Make it non-negotiable
  • list 5 things you are grateful for in that moment.
  • try to appreciate aspects of your life that your are taking for granted.
  • make it specific. Instead of saying “I am grateful for my pet”, – what specifically is rewarding in your relationship with your pet? You could say “I am grateful for the cuddle session I had with my pet after I woke up”

Make this a habit, and in time you will notice you will become mentally stronger.

2. Go for a Walk

You’ve heard it a thousand times: exercise is good for your mental and physical health. But you are overworked, exhausted and busy like nobody’s business. You don’t have the energy to squeeze in an exercise routine.

But what if I told you that you can do it in a way that’s fun and relaxing?

Walking is exercise. It has actual benefits:

  • it gets the blood running, which is good for your heart
  • it strengthens your bones and your immune system
  • it helps you sleep better, which will improve your mood
  • it boosts your energy

And you don’t have to do a lot of it to see benefits. A half and hour long walk 3 times a week can do the trick. Although you will notice the benefits right away, and you’ll want to do more.

And if you think adding walks to your already busy schedule is not fun, I hear you. But the good think about walking is that you mind is free to do whatever it wants. If you can’t face the idea of letting your mind wander, I can see how that can be boring. Try listening to music that relaxes you. Or a podcast. Or an audiobook.

How do you find 30 minutes in your day? Easy: first check your app usage on your phone. My guess is there’s an app or two that take up a lot more than that every day. Could you replace scrolling with a walk every now and then?

3. Have Fun

If you are in burnout, chances are you forgot the meaning of the word fun a long time ago. You are too overwhelmed, you don’t have time for yourself because you are adulting. But this is exactly what’s going to help you break out of burnout.

Replace one of the boring activities with a pleasant one and see what happens. My guess is nothing. The world doesn’t end if you leave the dishes for tomorrow, or skip grocery shopping because you want to go out with a friend.

We make these concessions for our work all the time. We postpone daily tasks in our personal life to add more time to our work schedule. But we don’t do it for our mental health, were it matters.

You need to re-frame your thinking and re-shuffle your priorities. Your number one focus right now should be mental stability. Because without it, you won’t be able to do any of the tasks which now make up most of your day.

  • Go for a meal with a friend
  • Re-discover old hobbies
  • Watch a comedy special
  • Go on a night out, if that’s what you like
  • Go on a short trip this weekend

We need time out to rest, re-calibrate and re-charge. You can’t go around that, it’s how we’re built.

4. Practice Self Compassion

Have you noticed that when something goes wrong, you put yourself down?

It’s your fault for missing that deadline. You messed up by not organizing yourself better. You’re always making the same mistakes over and over. You’re not good enough. You promised yourself you would eat healthier. You could always do better.

Except you can’t do everything and do it perfectly. We compare ourselves with the best in everybody else and we find ourselves lacking. We forget that if someone excels in something, they are failing in other areas. We keep ourselves to impossible standards.

Try practicing self compassion instead. Whenever the critical voice comes up, try to focus on the practical reasons why you are not perfect.

Make sure you talk to yourself the same way you would a good friend or a child. You will realise that you have been bullying yourself for years, or your whole life. We tend to see the mitigating circumstances in the people we love, but seldom in ourselves.

Give yourself a break. Remind yourself that you too are someone that you love. Be patient, be compassionate.

5. Connect with Others

You can’t do it all on your own. Also, you don’t have to.

Human beings are social animals, we evolved in communities and we need each other to survive. Studies have shown that loneliness raises your stress level, increases the risk for heart disease and dementia. Not only that, but social isolation is linked to early death.

  • Reach out to your friends and don’t feel ashamed to talk about your issues.
  • Get involved in your community. Volunteer, meet new people.
  • Talk to your neighbors
  • Call your loved ones more often
  • Schedule playtime and activities with your kids, if you have them

Take this seriously, because you can’t heal from anything without a support system. Make sure yours is a strong as possible.

Conclusion:

You can break out of burnout by starting with a few quick and easy changes to your everyday routine. You don’t have to turn your life upside down to be effective. Start focusing on your self care, one small step at a time.

Change your mindset, try to have some fun, cultivate relationships and the weight you are feeling will start to lift off.

Do these habits feel easy to implement in your daily life? Let me know in the comment section which one you would apply first.

Best Strategy to Begin Your Self Care Journey and Stick to It

If you want to begin your self care journey but don’t quite know where to start, don’t worry! You’ve come to the right place.

In this article, I will break down the process for you and guide you on your journey step by step.

Best Strategy to Begin Your Self Care Journey and Stick to It

Self care covers many aspects, like mental and physical health, community, purpose, rest and hobbies. There are plenty of areas which you can improve on, and you can’t do it all at once.

The best strategy is to break them down.

If you start with the easiest step first, you will build a strong and sustainable self care routine in no time. And you will stick to it!

Below is a step-by-step guide on how to begin your self care journey. It will be easy to incorporate in your daily life, and is customizable to your unique needs.

How to Begin Your Self Care Journey

Set Yourself Up For Success

Whenever you begin something new, it’s always a good idea to start with the easiest thing first. This builds confidence and motivates you to keep going.

When it comes to self care, no-one is starting from scratch. I mentioned earlier that there are several pillars to self care:

  • mental health
  • physical well-being
  • community
  • purpose
  • rest and hobbies

Chances are you are already have experience with one of these things, for example:

  • you used to work out at some point in your life;
  • you used to doodle in your free time, or you may have started a course on calligraphy a couple of years ago;
  • you volunteered when you were a student and found fulfillment in it.

The point is, self care can cover a lot of areas in your life. You have already lived some of it, so you have some experience and knowledge. Think about a time when you did something that felt rewarding, and start there!

Start Small

Let’s imagine you decided to begin your self care journey by focusing on physical health first. That covers a lot of ground: physical exercise, nutrition, sleep hygiene, preventative care, and so on.

Again, sounds overwhelming, right?

But what if you started with a 10 minute exercise routine 3 times a week? That’s doable.

It’s easy to find time for it. It doesn’t require you to change your everyday schedule or lifestyle, and it’s easy to do if you’re not in shape.

Does that make a difference?

Actually, yes. Any workout is better than no workout. But that’s not the point. You are starting small, because it builds habits and confidence. Soon, you will want to scale up. You will feel good abut it, and you will feel good in your own body. So you will make time for more. That’s how you grow.

Be Patient: Everything That Is Worthwhile Takes Time

When you begin your self care journey, please keep in mind: you will not see results right away. Your life will not change over night, and that should not be your goal.

Building up a new habit takes time, if you want it to be sustainable. So be patient. Trust me, you will see the results.

What happens if you fall off the wagon?

Nothing, you keep going. You skipped you workout routine of Wednesday? That’s okay, don’t stop. Be patient with yourself, because you are doing something new.

Re-adjusting takes time. Just because you didn’t exercise for a couple of weeks, does not mean you should give up. Go back into it, no shame. With every attempt, you will get better at it.

Build Around Your Small Habits

Great! Now that you exercise 3 times a week, you can add to it. You could extend your sessions to 15 minutes, instead of 10. Or you could decide to add an extra session.

Think of what works for you and what is feasible for you. Your goals should be achievable, otherwise your will feel overwhelmed.

When workout is part of your daily routine, you can start incorporating new things. For example, when is the last time you had a blood test? Can you schedule it? Did you have a dental check this year? Could you squeeze it in?

You could come up with a list of regular health checks. Plan them in the same month every year, so you’ll know: it’s January, time for my regular eye exam.

Add a New Level Of Difficulty

When your current habits are not a challenge anymore, you can add new elements to your self care. If you don’t have to make an effort about your workout routine, it’s time to focus on your nutrition.

Again, start with what you know. And if you think you don’t know the first thing about nutrition, you are wrong.

Most likely, you know that eating processed foods is bad for you. You could start by replacing two meals a week with cooked food. You don’t have to learn how to cook. The internet is full of easy recipes that anyone can make if you follow the instructions. Pick one or two and start there.

Educate Yourself

As you begin your self care journey, it’s important that you keep educating yourself.

What if I told you that learning is fun? I know, I know, your school days were either boring or hellish, or both. But those days are behind you. Because now you are learning something that interests you. You are putting in time towards your own well-being.

Start reading up on healthy eating. You’ll find yourself absorbed by the information. That’s because it interests you. We are interested in topics that concern us.

Learning is not only useful, but also rewarding. It expands your horizons, it helps you grow and develop, it shows you the way forward.

Take a few moments every week to study and then apply your leanings to your everyday life. You’ll love the person you become.

How to Stay Motivated on Your Self Care Journey

This Sounds Like a Lot of Work. How Do You Stay Motivated?

Easy: keep going. You give yourself permission to:

  • be imperfect
  • make mistakes
  • start over if you failed.

This is a lifetime commitment, you don’t need the threat of perfection looming over you.

Self care should be fun and rewarding.

A rigid attitude will only make your goals feel like homework. If you give yourself space for mistakes, you are giving yourself space for growth.

Conclusion

Remember, you are in it for the long haul. What you are doing may seem small in the beginning, but you are growing all the time.

Your goal is not to be a different person tomorrow. It is to look back in a year’s time and marvel at how much you have grown. This is only possible if the habits you are instilling are sustainable.

Be patient, trust yourself. You’ve got this!