Episode 286: Projector Avoiding Burnout
Are you tired all the time? Have you suffered from burnout?
In this episode, join me as I uncover how I navigated a significant creative project without succumbing to burnout. I discuss:
Why quick fixes and biohacking aren't the answer to burnout
What will help you overcome burnout
The 10 personal commitments that helps me evade burnout
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“To overcome burnout, it takes going inward and reflecting on what’s really causing your burnout. And then, deciding what changes can be made and what are you willing to commit to, so you don’t have to be burnt out, tired all the time, and suffer from fatigue anymore.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to The Live FAB Life Podcast. Before we get started, I want to take a minute to acknowledge that this past weekend marked seven years of this podcast! It debuted on August 11, 2017, and I can't believe it's been seven years already!
If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you! A lot has changed, but a lot has also stayed the same. And if you’re a newer listener, thank you to you as well! There’s a lot of things that capture our attention these days, so I always appreciate the time, energy and attention you give to this show.
So, with that let’s get to today's episode.
Last week kind of marked the return of new episodes after a three-month hiatus. In Episode 285, my friend, mentor, and past guest, Nadia Gabrielle interviewed me on what I'd been up to during the hiatus. So, if you missed that episode, you can go back and listen to get all the details.
Today, I want to talk about how I navigated that creative period and avoided burnout.
In a nutshell, I spent the first six months of 2024, January to June, creating five self-study learning programs. If you’ve ever taken a program by a coach, creator, or entrepreneur, there's so much work that goes into creating a new program – let alone five!
It doesn’t involve just creating the learning material but there's just as much effort required to operationalize how the programs are delivered. It’s figuring out how to make different platforms work together, marketing, support – all of it – a lot of things that may not be obvious to all of you but that take a lot of work. It’s quite a feat.
Being a coach since 2015, I’ve been offering programs for, wow, nine years now. In the past, I would run myself into the ground creating them. They’d be the focus of my life, and I’d let everything else slide by the wayside.
All of the energy went to the creative project at hand, which is why I was apprehensive about committing to five programs in a six-month period.
But I’d been working with Nadia for about six months and gained so much clarity after not having it for a long time that my drive to birth these programs was relentless. It was unsettling. I HAD to get them out.
I was focused, and my motivation and momentum was at an all-time high, yet I knew the effort and energy that would be required throughout the process.
So, learning from past experiences, I committed myself to going about things differently this time so that I would run myself ragged and burnt out.
That's what I want to talk about today – tackling ambitious, big things while still honoring our energy, putting our best work forth without burning ourselves out.
I’m a Projector and Projectors, being non-sacrals, need to prioritize rest. But so does everyone, regardless of your Human Design Type because we’re all human and rest is vital to our well-being. That also makes everyone vulnerable to burnout.
So, I want to share 10 commitments I made to myself during this focused period to prevent myself from burning out. But before I get to them, what causes burnout?
Many of you have reached out to me and asked if I struggle with burnout because you struggle with burnout and need help. And you’ve told me that you have so many responsibilities on your plate – family, work, maintaining your home, social commitments and general life responsibilities.
But when we peel back the layers, I think we can simplify the causes for burnout.
First, misalignment with our Human Design, meaning not using our unique energy efficiently – not working with how it flows.
For non-sacrals, Projectors, Manifestors, and Reflectors, it’s operating like we’re energizer bunnies - we just keep going and going and going.
This is how I operated in my early years of coaching and creating my programs. I pushed and pushed and pushed myself, not honoring my energy and of course, as a Projector, that led to burnout.
For defined Sacrals, Generators and Manifesting Generators, that might look like continuing to do things you don’t want to do; things that don’t light you up. That is the fastest way for defined Sacrals to burn out because you're expending so much unnecessary energy forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do.
Not only is that demoralizing, but you literally run yourself into the ground. It’s not life-affirming, rather it sucks the life out of you.
For Manifestors it can look like not informing. You initiate without informing so you’re met with resistance, people blindsided by what you’re doing and then you have to spend the time and energy dealing with that.
For Projectors it can look like doing something without an invitation.
When we don’t work with our unique energy, we're having to push against something. It’s like salmon swimming upstream and fighting uphill battles.
Functioning against how you're designed, out of alignment, is expending wasteful energy. And when you do that for too long, and too often, you're going to burn out. It is a mismanagement of energy. It's an inefficient use of energy.
When you're in that mode, I would bet that you're also not taking care of the non-negotiables when it comes to taking care of yourself.
Are you filling up your plate with healthy, nutrient-rich food? Or are you feeding yourself junk food?
In my Eating for Energy program. I use an analogy of nutrients being currency and our body being a bank.
Eating nutrient-dense food is like making deposits into your savings account. When you don’t eat nutrient-dense foods; i.e., junk food aka nutrient-depleting foods, you have to make a withdrawal of nutrients from your savings account so that your body can still have the nutrients it needs to function. But make too many withdrawals and not enough deposits and soon you’re bankrupt.
And I’ve found that when we’re burnt out, it’s highly likely that we’re also in nutrient bankruptcy because your attention isn’t on taking care of yourself.
If you're burnt out, then I know that you’re also not resting nor making time for relaxation and rejuvenation.
It’s a perfect storm.
I have an Undefined Head Center, so creative projects tend to be extra challenging for me because there is no shortage of ideas floating around in my head and it can feel very overwhelming. So, I have to have clarity, focus and practice discernment to know what I’m creating and how I’m doing it. Following my Authority is crucial and the process requires a lot of creative energy from me.
So to preserve my energy and use it efficiently, there were a number of things that I promised to myself that I would do and things that I would not do during this focused period of creativity to ensure that I was nourished to be able to create my best work and avoid burnout.
- Not working past 7pm This was challenging because with a full-time job, extra time was limited, and I work best in long blocks of time. So that left me doing most of my creative work on weekends.
But every chance I had to put in an hour here or there, I took it, with having a hard stop at 7 pm because I'm someone who has to go to bed early.
I'm not a night owl, I’m an early riser, so for me to get a good night's sleep I have to go to bed early. And I require a couple of hours to wind down from my day to be able to fall asleep when I need to.
So, no work past 7 pm.
- Go to bed at the same time every night
Related to number one of not working past 7 pm was number two, going to bed at the same time every night. With limited time, it was tempting to stay up later and later, but here’s the deal.
I wake up at the same time every day, like clockwork, within an hour's time, give or take, usually between 5 and 6 am. No alarm clock needed.
So, if I’m getting up at 5 am, I need to be in bed by 9 pm so that I fall asleep between 9 and 10 pm. My body doesn’t know what weekends are – it doesn’ differentiate a Wednesday from a Saturday so I have to go to bed at the same time every night.
If I don’t, I don’t sleep well, and when we don’t sleep well, our energy is compromised and we can't put forth our best.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me for help with fatigue and burnout. They’re not sleeping well and they’re tired all the time.
Now, I’m not a parent, but a lot of my friends are and I’ve heard all their stories about sleep training their kids. When adults get into a pattern of poor sleep, they also need to sleep train themselves and going to bed at the same time every night is a great way to start doing that.
- Committed to one day of no work
A marathon training plan or really any athletic training plan usually has one day of complete rest. I adopted that concept with my work – at least one day a week of not working on it at all.
I’m very much about not forcing things to happen that aren’t there, so this provided a mental break and in turn, kept my motivation and energy going.
- Accept all social invites
I work from home, so there are many days where my interaction with other people is limited to virtual meetings, chats and phone calls.
So, I have a general rule that whenever I’m invited anywhere, I accept!
So, I promised myself not to sacrifice being in community in favor of working on the programs. I also made sure I did my own extending of invitations, so that I had a solid amount of social time every week.
- Prioritize movement
It was really, really important to me to prioritize movement and my workouts. If you're a longtime listener, then you know that my relationship with exercise and my definition of a workout has evolved.
But it’s important for me to have dedicated time to move my body – and walking my dog, Coco Pop and doing housework doesn’t count.
I need dedicated time every day for intentional movement. In the past, I’d sacrifice this and go days, sometimes weeks without exercise because I was so focused on whatever it is I was creating.
I didn't want to repeat that. I’m meticulous about tracking things, my workouts included, which helped make this a commitment I stuck with. I'm really proud about the gains I made in my fitness, cardio-wise strength-wise, with mobility and flexibility; I'm really proud that I stayed consistent with all of it.
- Kept my house in order
Don’t let my house fall into shambles which is what I did in the past.
I thought I didn’t have time to grocery shop or clean, and this time I vowed not to fall into filth!
So, I was diligent about making sure that I did my dishes, always going to bed with a clean kitchen.
Doing laundry every week, cleaning floors, keeping the fridge stocked.
For me, the trick is to put it on my calendar. If there’s dedicated time for it, it’s much easier to ensure it gets done.
- Remove myself from the spaces and places that weren’t nurturing or positive
How could I create programs about aligned energy if I wasn’t aligned in my energy? In order for me to be in alignment, I had to remove myself from the spaces and places that did foster alignment. Accounts I followed, what I allowed myself to consume, communities, collaborations – whatever didn’t foster positive energy or goodwill, was a space or place I had to remove myself from.
Place myself in the spaces and places that were nurturing and positive I had to place myself in the places that were supportive and fostered alignment. These were the spaces and places – friendships, relationships, communities that brought forth good vibes, that put me in a good place to write programs on how to find alignment, follow your intuition, support your well-being and put your best self forward.
Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
In order to take on a new project and not burn out, I had to let go of something to make space for it because an effort of this magnitude while still maintaining everything I’d already had on my plate was not only unsustainable, but it was also unrealistic.
So, that’s why this podcast had a 3-month hiatus. If you’re a part of my email community, that’s why I went silent there. If you follow me on Instagram, that’s why I was the least engaged than I’d ever been before.
While I love showing up in all of those places, the reality is, they also take time and energy – creative energy – and I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to do all the things and do them well.
I recently had a conversation with a friend who’s also an entrepreneur about social media. She said, “Even if I didn't have my own business, I would still be a creator because I love creating content.”
That made me stop and think, “You know what, I love it too.” If I didn't have my coaching practice, I think that I would also still create content whether through a podcast or social media because I do enjoy it. She helped me shift my attitude toward creating content because I’d been resenting it and saw it as a burden.
A little bit of a tangent, but while I do love the content creation process, I did give myself permission to take a break and prioritize what I was focused on. At first, I tried to do it all, but I wasn’t doing any of them well. That’s when I knew I had to temporarily stop doing everything and prioritize.
- Go with the flow
I’m a planner and always have a timeline to get things done. I’m very routine-oriented, but one thing I decided to do differently was to stop being so rigid about my schedule.
While I had an idea of when I wanted certain things done by, I gave myself permission to go with the flow and to honor my energy.
If I had planned to work on a particular topic or create a handout but I wasn’t feeling it, I didn’t do it. I’ve learned that anytime that I try to force something, especially when it comes to creative work, it’ll never turn out how I envisioned it.
So, if I didn't feel like working, wanted to focus on something else, or to pivot and approach a topic differently than what I had originally planned, I did.
I have a Splenic Authority and honored whatever I was feeling in the moment. I followed my Authority and allowed myself to be flexible, not rigid, and not force anything; I just let things come to me, let things happen according to how the energy flowed on any given day.
So, that’s the 10 things this Projector did to avoid burnout.
Now, you may not be creating programs, but if you’re struggling with burn out, can you give any one, some or all of things a try and see what happens?
Because I hear you. You share with me how tired you are all the time. How you’re fatigued and struggling with burn out, and you ask me what to do.
You’re looking for that secret for success or that biohacking tip that will suddenly make you feel energized and better again, but the reality is, you need to go back to basics. That’s the secret tip.
First, align with your Human Design – how your energy is designed to flow. Are you using your energy efficiently? Or are you working against yourself and wasting energy?
Second, have you established boundaries and if so, are you upholding them?
The ten things that I just shared to manage my energy are boundaries – not working past 7 pm, having rest days with no work at all, going to bed at the same time, having dedicated time for exercise, removing myself from spaces and places that don’t align with my growth – these are all boundaries.
Have you established boundaries around how you use your energy? If so, are you upholding them?
I shared this list with you today not to tell you this is what you need to do, but I know some of you might be listening to this, not sure what boundaries you might even need. So, here’s some ideas of one, some or all the things to consider, always taking into account your unique Human Design, and remembering that boundaries only work for as much as you allow them to work.
If you don't uphold them, you can't expect anyone else to as well. It has to start with you.
If you struggle with burnout, how can you for one recover from it? And how can you avoid it in the future?
There’s no secret tip or pill that you can take that’s going to “fix” burn out for you. And if I’m being honest, yoga and meditation – I mean, they’ll help, but there’s a reason that you became burnt out to begin with.
So, unless those circumstances that caused you to become burnt out change, anything you try will just be a band aid and the root cause of it will still be there, and you’ll still be fighting it, not using your energy as you’ve been designed, wasting unnecessary energy fighting against tension.
To overcome burnout, it takes going inward and reflecting on what’s really causing your burnout. And then, deciding what changes can be made and what are you willing to commit to, so you don’t have to be burnt out, tired all the time, and suffer from fatigue anymore.
If you’d like to share your reflections, I’d love to hear from you. Find me over on the show notes for this episode at livefablife.com/286 for Episode 286 or find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi.
As always, thanks for spending this time with me. I'll see you right back here again next time. Bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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