From establishing healthy boundaries and practicing self-care to seeking support and reevaluating priorities, we provide practical strategies to help you regain balance and find fulfillment.
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Welcome welcome everyone to the burnout panel on Simple Solutions today we're talking about is burnout really simple you're chatting before we went live and a lot of us are thinking this isn't rocket science but sometimes it really does feel that way when you're feeling burnt out or you're just honestly in a life where you're not really zooming out and looking at the forest from the trees So today we're going to talk about acknowledge and insights and actionable practical tips for solving preventing recovering from burnout from each of our experts today.
So very serendipitously I have my own little burnout mitigation happening right now I'm joining super quickly my name is Aileen and I got the call school is closing early for snow so life happens but this is what we're talking about life happens instead of pushing against it and honestly that strategy in and of itself is a way to reduce burnout or to reduce stress that we feel in our bodies right paying times resistance equal suffering so let's reduce our suffering so we took today before I scoot in the snow storm is for Burnout Simple Solutions more executive functioning part of our brains comes back online we can actually start to see what's contributing to our stress what is the biggest source of struggle for us and what can we do and Implement in our lives to take action to start to create more ease so I will pass it on to Cait.
Hey everybody this is real life around here so when snow storms happen and children have to get picked up you know we roll with the punches my go-to solution for Burnout might sound a little bit counterintuitive but I really want you to spend some time tapping into what I call the anger group of emotions anger irritation annoyance and my favorite resentment I want you to tune into resentment because I think that I can be bold enough to say that the past couple of years have left a few people that may be watching a little angry you know we've had a lot of change there's been a lot going on just this past week there was a lot of layoffs from a lot of big tech companies I want you to take note of where the most repetitive resentments are the most common ones in your life and then ask yourself a couple of key questions number one does this thing that I'm resentful about even need to be done sometimes you'll find that you're resentful about doing something that if you dropped wouldn't change anything this is beautiful because the next question is if I have to do it is there someone else that could do it now we're talking about delegation the question after that is is there a way to upgrade the tool do you need better software or do you need different help or do you need a new sharpened knife whatever happens to be that you're using that's causing frustration can you upgrade your tool to make it easier and then the last question is is there an unspoken assumption here and unspoken agreement between myself yes for yourself communication communicating with yourself and communicating with others. Now something happens when life happens for example when maybe you're not able to get done on that project that you told your boss or you told yourself or you told your team that you're going to be able to do and so it's very easy to then say okay who will be impacted all these people were counting on me oh my gosh I can't let them down instead Your solution is to think to yourself how do you communicate how are you going to communicate to yourself and to others that hey life did happen and now it is time for me to do X or do I do see for example and now I'm going to pass it off to Audrey thanks so much I will have to you know we were so excited to get into these tips that none of us introduced ourselves which I think is just really it actually it kind of goes to our passionate about this work like we were talking about strategies before you even got on this call and we were just like let's get it you know we were just ready to dive in so we'll have to do a little circle back on you know intros so without the intro just say really quickly that I the folks that I work with are perfectionist that's my my area of expertise is working with folks who are perfectionists have basically self-identified as having perfectionist Tendencies and one of the things that leads this particular population down the path of burnout is not having an adjustable speed and what I mean by that is that they are either in park or they're going 60 miles an hour and that can look at the speed of which they move physically it's often the way that they describe that their minds are running a million miles an hour and they've got so many things going on and if they have a moment just to sit their brain kicks in super super fast so one of the things that I start to bring to folks is teaching them the concept of having an adjustable speed just like a car you don't just have park or 16 miles an hour you actually transition you can try before you can even make the transition you have to start to be aware that there are different speeds so one of the exercises that he bring people through is having them starting to look around the room and to just notice the speed at which they observe their surroundings because often people who are in 60 miles an hour are scanning the room so fast that they're not actually seeing anything and when you're in that state where you're literally not even seeing the things in the room you're also not seeing anything in your brain either you're not going to see Solutions you're not going to be able to hear communication clearly you're not going to be able to grasp creativity the way that you want to so being able to recognize the speed at which your system is processing information is looking is is looking or not looking is scanning but not actually paying attention but not paying attention is the first step in figuring out oh wow okay I I feel like I'm in this this fast speed is there some adjustability here so just starting to understand that we have different speeds at which we operate and that we do have the ability to shift up and down in between them and it's very common that we only use two speeds Park which is an earliest speed but you know what I'm saying and 60 miles an hour which is going running right by and not even actually seeing any of the scenery so I hope that you know keeping that in mind I'm imagining that Doctor Sandra Lewis is going to have some even more juicy tips.
I am going to have some tips but I'm going to give Dr Sharon her chance to go so that we can so she can share something on how to decode your burnout and then we're going to talk about your bodies thank you so much onthat but something came up today. Because one of the reasons that I find that a lot of people burn out is because of that negative chatter in their mind and you know Audrey just talked to us about perfectionism that's an example of something where if you set those standards for yourself and you don't actually have the kind of results that you want you might end up beating yourself up if I have a client who is very much in this place of wanting things to be amazing you know great intention but then tends to beat himself up when things don't turn out the way that he would like and he said something and I thought this is such a great mindset shift that I have to share it and this is what he said it's redundant to beat myself up because I already felt the pain and I was like that is so good right so think about that when you really care about doing something well and it doesn't work out the way that you would like that's painful right it's like here I am showing up putting an effort putting in time and then we don't have control over everything that happened so it's not necessarily your fault but it didn't work out sometimes it's because we have external circumstances that are beyond our control sometimes it's because we're not quite at the level that we need to be in terms of our skills and sometimes when something doesn't turn out we can learn from that experience and that allows us to do better the next time around so this idea of getting away from beating yourself up is a great way to avoid adding to the stress that you already have in your life and with that I would love to now pass it finally to the lovely Doctor Sandra.
Thank you so much I'm going to tell everyone disconnected from everything including their own bodies so when I'm talking to them and they're describing a work situation or some challenge that causing them to feel even more exhausted and anxious I'm noticing that they're either breathing all the way up here in their chest are there holding their breath but they don't know they're doing it so I call them when we get really exhausted and really anxious at the same time what does that mean now we're just feeling even worse we can't focus we can't be present our whole frontal load right as Aileen mentioned has gone offline so the first thing is to get back in your body just get in your body think of your body here's what I call your body your closest partner all of those signals you're feeling from your body will help you get through the burnout you just got to be able to listen so come back into your body by a simple little task simple thing you can just do is notice where are your feet just notice your feet notice your butt right notice what your eyes are looking at and then notice something that you can see right if you're a visual person if you need to close your eyes notice what you smell notice what you can touch feel your hands on your body even you can squeeze yourself you can massage yourself a little bit to get back on your body and then simply ask from your heart what do I need right now breathe as Aileen mentioned and hear what could you use in that moment to stay in your body it's your frontal load back online and then move to do the next thing but getting in your body is important and I recommend people do this like a few you know if you really burned out person just a few times a day a short little standcan help you reconnect toSo you have what you need to start moving out of the exhaustion and anxiety and in closing what I would like to do is share with you that you can hire us to come and talk to your people you can hire us to come and help your team be absolutely well and brilliant like you want them to be I'm going to pop a link and fill out this form to let us know who you are and what you need and we will reply to you and say hey this is how we can help you and with that I am going to turn this over to Vanessa who's going to lead us through our Q&A awesome people here yes how do you prevent being your worst enemy I'm sure always at some point has been a soulpreneur or maybe right now how do you prevent being your worst enemies who would like to smile I'm just enjoying the facial expressions and everybody this is a great question for us as a panel in general but you know also because we're all about preventing burnout what I would say is at least for my experience the thing that's been really helpful to me and what I encourage my clients to do is to be really intentional about yourself care and how that fits into your day so when you're running your own business and you're at the top of that pyramid you might have people helping you and you might be completely alone right even when you're solopreneur you might hire a virtual assistant and things of that nature but ultimately it's your business with you it's so easy to fall into the Trap of working around the clock to really do this in a sustainable way you have to think about what do I need to keep going without burning out so that I can continue to help my business grow and maybe that means that you plug in days and times that you exercise maybe there's meditation that you like to do that really centers you whatever it is for you figure out exactly when you're going to do that ahead of time and schedule that end so that it's not an afterthought and I'd like to pass it if anybody else has anything they want to add Cait.
B Y O B be your own bestie right if you don't want to be your worst enemy then you have to be first and foremost to yourself and to me being a friend to yourself starts with what I call in my work foundational self-care there's a massive joke with my podcasts being your own best friend means paying attention to your body's basic signals and responding to them in kind this is how you build self trust every time you need something and then you give your body what you need your body says oh cool we're going to be good over here like we're all set every time you ignore your body it says how else do I need to scream so bye and you don't have to do anything massive or drastic you have to drink when you're thirsty and rest when you're tired and pee when you got to pee like right now for example you know that the snow storm and I'm no pretty cool but yeah so love that bestie without add to that is what I usually say during my workshop is be selfish and owning the word selfish right that's ultimately what it's about it's really understanding what is that you need to best succeed so not even in a moment by moment for everyone else around you because it starts with you it starts with like there's a post I saw actually right before we got here You know she was looking at the snow and she just felt like cuddling on her couch and watching Netflix but then she told herself no I got to do these photos I got to put in all this work and my comment was and sometimes you just have to rest and watch Netflix yeah I had a thought about this is that the whole idea that sometimes it we get into this place where it feels like the business is running us instead of us running the business right so the business is actually literally directing how we feel is directing how we see ourselves more importantly so we now if the business isn't going exactly as we wanted then we say oh there's something wrong with us we start the internalize it because the business is not working so that means I'm broken right but in actuality you had a reason for creating this thing you fell in love with this for a reason so this relationship you have with your business it really is a relationship why did I fall in love with doing it with me and being with you oh okay so let's work this partnership out a little bit more let's think about how you can give me a little bit more how I can recognize what you're giving me and what I'm giving you right do some give and take thinking about but staying grounded in why you are running the business why is it important to you what is the gift you're giving to the world what is it that impact you want to have that thing will help you keep saying in love with that you're doing and you'll have to love yourself because you know you won't be able to do it if you don't love yourself oh man I'm living everybody's I was like I was like I need to hear everybody's answer to question I need to hear like the entire panels and I and I think that that is that is my input to this is that you need to surround yourself with people that are doing business in a way that you want to do business that are exhibiting Exquisite self-care that are using business models that are that that are working for them and that they are sticking to you mind and their clients and themselves that is a you know a mutually nourishing and supported model because I think that for many of us who step into these things.
Just as Dr Sandra was saying we do it because there is a calling in us and we may not be natural business people right I'll say for myself I'm not a natural I'm not a natural business person right this is not the thing and the business had to be right so my models for what a boss was was not all was not maybe necessarily who I need to be for myself so for me how I work is I need to see the examples to understand the concept I need to be with the examples to understand the concept so starting to surround myself with people that were displaying and modeling and being in the world the way that I want to be in the world is the way that I started to get my you know get my feels around how to do this myself I need to get I need to see the examples in order to understand what that looks like for myself.
I'd say keep showing up to these discussions and surround yourself with more people like us who maybe are you know modeling away that helps you do that for yourself I love that I love that so if anyone's watching whether you're watching a replay or watching the slide continue to type your questions in the comments because we are here every month and so we'll take your questions and answer them on the next panel happening in February okay such a great such a great event yesterday.
Righty well in that case you don't control other people's feelings and you have to learn how to disappoint people sometimes absolutely and the point about you know listening life happens right and understanding how to deal with life and what you're hearing whether you are maybe you work for a company or you know a company or you know someone who can benefit from the burnout panel and hearing what is we have to say to you.