Episode 114: The Reality of Burnout (and What To Do About It)
If I were, to sum up, the last year, it would be “the year of burnout.” During that time, I’ve come to surmise that burnout is simply the misappropriation of energy and time.
In this episode, I take you behind the scenes and share with you what burnout looked like for me - the bad and ugly parts of it (hint: it’s probably not much different what it looks like for you), what steps I took to bring myself out of it and what lessons I took away from the experience.
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“Burnout, or recovering from burnout is really about making space, managing your time and protecting your energy - and a lot of that comes down to managing productivity.”
Read the Episode Transcript:
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Live Fab Life podcast. This week, I have a solo show for you where I'm going to be talking about a topic that I know many of us struggle with, because I hear you talk about it. I speak to my friends who tell me about their experiences and struggles with this. I see posts on social media. So, today we're going to be telling you what burnout, the reality of burnout and what it looks like and how we experience it, and then what to do about it. Because... and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but for much of 2019 last year, I was burnt out, and I know I have bouts of burnt out over the course of my life, but I think last year was the first time where I actually recognized that I was going through a burnout, and I took steps that I needed to take care of that, but I also let myself feel it, and it took many months for me to come out of it.
And I can honestly say now that I do feel like I'm out of that burnout period because I really let myself be in it, and also really made a genuine effort to come out of it, and I'm really hoping that that habits that I've worked so hard to adopt last year carry over into this year.
So, first let me talk about what life was like. I think I first started recognizing it around March, which was very early in the year, but it was a combination of many years. So, I really started side hustling, probably... I guess you could say in 2015 when I enrolled in nutrition school; so, I spent a full year doing that curriculum and that extra coursework. At the same time, I was laying the groundwork to start a business, and I was taking different courses and programs to teach me different aspects of business, of strategy, of web design, of communications, and that carried over into, once I completed that nutrition coursework, I continued on with some advanced nutrition and wellness courses, some environmental toxin courses, and then also really put more effort into really starting this business, my health coaching business, as well as my Beautycounter business, and trying to do both at the same time was daunting, and I didn't do either of them very well.
In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to do a lot of things and not doing any of them well, which is one of the big realizations I had last year. And it came to a head, I guess, in March; I had just come back from the annual Beautycounter LEAD conference, and I was just tired, and I'm going to go through in a minute what those signs look like for me, and from what I hear and talk to people in research, they're pretty common signs. And at that point, I just was like, I just need to let myself be. I need to let go and reset expectations of myself. Remember, I'm a type one person. I'm highly ambitious. I always think I could do more than what, in reality, I can do. I'm overly ambitious. I am overly optimistic with my to-do list, and my problem is, is that my brain is always thinking and I'm always coming up with all of these ideas and things that I want to do that I know I'm capable of doing, but finding the time and the energy and the brain space to do them, in addition to my full time job, was something that I had to come to realize that I'm not Superwoman and I really can't do everything all at once. I can do a lot of things. I just can't do them all at once.
So how did I know I was in burnout? So, I have a number of different signs I want to go over with you, and tell me if this sounds familiar, if you can relate to any of this.
So first of all, I felt frustrated all the time. The smallest things would just irritate me. And this is something that's been pretty common throughout my life. I've always been someone that's been short to anger, take things personally a lot of the times, but I've really put in a lot of work over the past five or six years to work on this. But I noticed myself regressing back into that behavior, and if there's anything that I've learned over the years, it's to stop and ask myself why. If someone left a comment and they used an emoji that I thought was questionable, I start doubting myself and have all of these feelings of self- doubt and really frustration come about, and it's not a good feeling to have, feeling this frustrated all the time.
Another thing I did was I really isolated myself. I didn't want to socialize with anyone. It wasn't that anyone wronged me or I got into an argument with someone; I just didn't have the energy or the desire to be social. It felt like such an effort to make the effort to spend time with my friends and my family and be social. It was easier just to stay home in my house, and I am a homebody, but I think I took it to a whole another level last year. So I spent a lot of time isolating myself, not socializing with anyone. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to be around anyone. And there were many times where I felt the world was just against me for no reason at all. It's just the way that I felt, and these feelings that I felt... I recognized were not who I was anymore. And so, there was another sign for me that something wasn't right here.
Now this third one... this third sign is of no surprise because I've talked about my sleep challenges for many different episodes, but I felt tired all the time. You know, on Facebook, how you have memories and you can go back and look, and I think I started on Facebook in 2006 or 2007, so I have a lot of memories going back... gosh, 12, 13 years, 14 years.
And it was 10, 12 years ago, I'm looking at these Facebook memories of me complaining about not getting enough sleep or feeling tired all the time or having insomnia; so my sleep challenges, like I said before, I've battled them since childhood. And while I can fall asleep very easily, I don't have any problems with that, and the sleep that I get is very restful... I wake up at like 3:00 in the morning, and sometimes I'm able to go back to sleep and then wake up feeling refreshed, and other times maybe only go back to sleep for like an hour, and so I'm not able to get back into that deep restful state for a long period of time, which then makes me feel even more tired when I have to get up for the day.
That really revolved into this vicious cycle of being tired and not having the energy to work out, to exercise; not having the energy to be social... to be honest, that really was the brunt, and really, the backbone of all these fights that I had was that... I just wasn't able to sleep well. And it led me to feeling burnt out because I was tired all the time. I didn't have enough energy to get to the gym to workout. I didn't have enough energy to go out and be social with people. I didn't have the energy to do the things that I wanted to do and that I needed to do.
And that brings me to my fourth sign, is that... I could not bring myself to do the most simplest things. I could not bring myself to answer simple emails, whether they be personal emails or work emails. I just could not even bring myself to do that. I could not bring myself to complete the most mundane tasks like doing the dishes. I am someone who, every night, I need to go to bed with a clean kitchen; it's just who I am. And those things weren't happening.
Every night... I know I've shared this before, but one of my most proud habits or goals that I've accomplished is that I really got into the habit of flossing, and I let those things go, and it was just frustrating because knowing who I am... and I am someone who thrives on productivity and efficiency... but just not even being able to make myself do these most simple things? It was frustrating to me. Again, adding to those feelings of frustration is, like I said, it's this just vicious cycle that you become stuck in.
Another sign was that I couldn't focus. Like I said, I felt like I was doing a lot of things, but I wasn't doing any of them well. I had so many different things on my plate, and admittedly, most of them are self-imposed, but I couldn't focus on any one thing at a time. I would literally be working on... in one tab, working on an email, and then switch over to another tab, and then come back to the other tab and forget what I was doing, and it was really bad... and actually, this is something I'm still working on, but I have a lot of different ways that I'm working on addressing that. But feeling that I just couldn't focus... I had so many things going on, and my brain couldn't concentrate on just one thing and doing this one thing well.
Another sign that I had was that I just didn't care. Things that I should have cared about, I just couldn't be bothered with. I didn't care. I would be late paying my bills, and it's not because I didn't have the funds to pay them. I just didn't care that if it was late. For the first time in my life, I filed a extension to file my taxes because I just didn't care that I wasn't going to make the April 15th deadline. Like I said, I'm someone who likes to go to bed with a clean kitchen? I would let the dishes pile up. For an entire year, I didn't make my bed, and I'm someone who needs to have the bed made every day.
I got to the point where I almost didn't even recognize myself or who I was anymore. You know that I like to talk about the Enneagram. I find a lot of insight into that, and I'm an Enneagram One, and I remember last year, another friend of mine who's very well versed in the Enneagram, and who knows my type, said, "You know, there are times when I think you don't seem like a One sometimes." And I'm like, "Yeah, most of this year, I really haven't felt that much like a One in many different ways." In many ways I have, but in some of the more obvious ways, I just didn't that I was, and it's because I didn't feel like I was myself. I was in this place of just being so burnt out, for lack of a better word, and tired that I just didn't care.
And finally, a big sign... and luckily this didn't manifest too much for me this past year, but it has in the past... but a big sign of burnout is when it manifests itself physically other than being tired and exhausted all the time... was that there are gut issues that arise... things like IBS, things like anxiety and tension and nervousness, which then all tie back to signs that result in gut issues. You know that tension, that nervousness, those butterflies in your stomach, that upset tummy? It all manifested itself that way; definitely not as severe as I've had in the past, and luckily I know what to do to address gut issues, and so, I was able to manage those things so it didn't get out of hand.
So these are all the signs that I knew, and I recognized almost immediately that I am not in a good place right now.
So, what to do about it? I spent a lot of time, like I said, allowing myself to feel this way so that I could intuitively come and recognize what I needed to do, what was going to help me to work myself out of this. And some of these things may work for you, some of them may not. You may have your own things that work for you. I'm just sharing what did help me to give you some ideas.
So one of the things that I did was... and I usually don't have much problems with this now; in my younger years, I did... but I really had to go back and really emphasize and learn how to say no. If somebody wanted me to partner with them on something, I had to say, "Actually, I can't do that right now." I had to say no to a lot of things and a lot of people that I normally would have loved to say yes to, but I needed to preserve the energy that I had; really set boundaries around the things that I knew was going to help me come out of this funk... and so, learning how to say no was a big part of that. I normally don't have problems seeing no in most situations, but I really had to hunker down and really put some strong boundaries around that.
The second thing I did to help myself, and this was really, really hard for me because like I said, I'm type A... I always have all these grand ideas of things that I want to do. They are a mile long. And so my to do list would be a combination of work and personal and business things, and I would just be overly ambitious about what it was that I could accomplish in a day, and so, my to-do list would always be a mile long. And of course, I wouldn't even tackle a third of those things, which then would pile up into the next day when the next day was already a mile long, and when you feel like you're not accomplishing what you set out to do, it also adds to the burden on your shoulders, that weight that you feel, which then trickles down and eventually spins you into this state of burnout.
And so, I really had to hunker down and really only allow myself a daily list, realistically, of accomplishing one to three things a day. They might be one big thing or three little things, or a combination of things. But if I was being really realistic, I committed myself to only truly accomplishing three things in a day. Of course, there was 20 other things under that, that it was like, "If I get to those, great," but I cannot let this day go by without doing these three things, whether that be sending an email to someone, whether that be paying this bill or whether that be making this phone call. Some of those three things were that mundane and little, but because I was in such a state of where I felt like doing those simple things took so much effort, I really would just limit myself to those three things.
And yeah, a lot of things that I had wanted to do last year hasn't happened yet. You guys, there's so many things I want to offer in my health coaching business and my Beautycounter business. There's so many things I want to do personally, but I have to be realistic with the time that I have, because I also want to protect my energy and my downtime, and really understand what it is that gives me energy and what drains me of it, and to find the balance between those things.
Another thing that really helped me was getting into a routine for everything. Now, this might sound a little bit funny because I'm someone who thrives on routine. I have a routine for everything, but like I said, when you get to the point where you just don't care, some of those things fell to the wayside, and I really had to make the effort to bring those things back into my life. I have a morning routine that if I stick to it, my day starts really more efficiently, which then leads to a much better day. I try to get up early and... well, I do get up early because I get up at 3:00 AM every day, or 4:00 AM some days. If I can sleep until 5:00 AM, that's a great day.
But I spend a lot of time just lounging in bed, trying to get the rest that I need knowing that I'm deprived of sleep, but I try to get out of my bed by 6:30 in the morning so that I can actually get ready for the day, and not just put on sweats and put my hair up in a bun and call it getting ready. I've actually tried to make an effort to brush my hair and put on some dew skin-tinted moisturizer, and sometimes actually even put on real clothes other than workout clothes if I'm not going to the gym that day. So, I really tried to keep my morning routine of actually getting ready, and then taking Cocoa Pop out for her morning walk, and then coming home and making breakfast so that when I sit down at my desk, I am not already scrambling behind on the schedule I had set for myself for that day.
So I would work really hard to get back to my routine, my morning routine, my bedtime routine of actually shutting down my computer. I don't know if we're connected on social media... you may notice that I don't spend a lot of time on social media in the evenings, and that's a boundary I put on myself. I try to shut my computer down by a certain time every night. And this is the one thing that's been working really well for me because I would... by the end of the week, I would look around my home and be like, "How does my house get so messy by the end of the week?" So before bed, I would set my timer on my phone for about 10 minutes and I would just spend the time picking up around the house, picking up the clutter. And that really helps me to... again, when you have clutter, it's like this burden on your shoulder that you don't even realize is there, and just doing these simple things help to take off some of that burden off of my shoulders.
So morning routine, bedtime routine... cooking routine. I'm not a big meal prepper planner, but I at least have an idea of the meals that I want to cook throughout the week, so... now remember to defrost the meat. A big thing that I've started doing that has been hugely helpful is, I would let dishes pile up in the sink throughout the day, whereas now, I'm really trying not to let that happen. So if I eat, I try to do the dishes right away. Or if I cook, I try to do the dishes right away so that, again, that's not more clutter sitting in the sink, so that when the end of the day comes, there's not this huge pile of dishes that I have to do that feels so daunting, right?
So a routine around that, a routine around my errands, a routine around grocery shopping, and the most important thing was allowing ample time for these routines to happen. I can't say I'm going to start my day at 6:00 AM, and then when would I do my morning routine? At 5:00 AM? Of course, like I said, I'm up at that time, but I needed to be really realistic about what it is I could accomplish in a day; remember my to-do list of one, two, three things, but also allowing time for the routines that I have for everything else.
Another thing I did that really helped me was really learning how to reframe my thoughts, and I did this in a few different ways. When I would get really angry or upset or felt like I was wronged in a situation, whether they be professionally or personally, my first instinct would be to react, maybe to fire a charged email back at someone or to make a snippy response back, or to make a inflammatory comment back.
But I really have been working on pausing, and really rethinking about the situation, and trying to figure out if there was an offending person, what that person's motivator was for behaving the way that they did or saying what they did, and really asking myself if I could put myself in their shoes and understand where it was they're coming from. Can I look at this situation through a new set of eyes and see it in a different context? And then, maybe I can have more kindness and compassion and less anger towards the situation.
And it takes a lot of energy to do that, you guys. It takes a lot of resisting when you just want to fire back at someone. It takes a lot of reaching out to someone that you trust, who knows you well, to get their take on the situation, and maybe perhaps to have them validate what it is that you're feeling, that I was feeling. I'm lucky that I've had people do that with different work situations or personal situations or business situations that had to be like, "Hey, can you help me out here? This is what happened. Am I reading this wrong?" And those are people I trust who are able to say to me, "Yeah, I think you're overreacting. I don't think it was meant this way," or, "No, this was inappropriate. You have every right to feel the way you do." And then, it would really help me understand what was the best way to go about addressing it.
But again, that really helped me to tame down some of this anger that I had in me that was just unnecessary energy that could be spent elsewhere. So, reframing my thoughts and trying to see situations in a different way was also something that helped me deal with burnout... because again, burnout is all about losing energy and having a lack of energy, and finding ways to maybe protect that and redistribute that... that's what coming out of burnout is all about.
Another thing I did was letting go of things that don't serve me, and this is something I've gotten really good at. Whether they be relationships, I'm definitely... and this is going to sound really bad... but if I feel like there is a relationship that is no longer serving me, I am okay ending it. I've been doing this for a few years now, and I think it's actually helped me for the better. And so, it's not always easy, it's not always pleasant, but it is necessary sometimes. And so, letting go of relationships that don't serve you... and then also letting go, like I said, of the clutter; whether that be mental clutter in the brain, physical clutter in your home. In fact, at the time of this recording, I've spent the past few weeks decluttering my home, and I can't even tell you how amazing it feels. I think there is something to be said when it comes to our health and wellness about letting go, and letting go of physical clutter that surrounds our living space. Because once we let go of those things and get rid of it, it literally feels like a weight off your shoulder.
I spent, a couple of weekends ago, an entire day cleaning out my storage unit, because again, it was full of clutter, of things that I was hanging on to that I really didn't need. And the whole reason I did that was because I was getting a new bed, and I needed to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom, and I wanted to put some things in storage, but there wasn't room there, so I had to get rid of things in storage. I got rid of a lot of things in my room, too, but there were a couple of pieces that I really do want to keep for future use, and so, I was able to make space for that.
Again, coming out of burnout is all about making space physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And so, letting go of things that do not serve you in whatever capacity it is, is huge way to come out of burnout.
And then the last thing I did was I reevaluated where I was spending my time. So if you think about it, a lot of these things come back to making space and managing your time and protecting your energy, and a lot of that is surrounding productivity. And so, I really had to evaluate where I was spending my time, whether it be who I was spending my time with, what things I was spending my time on; whether they be with people in person or in Facebook groups, or people I was giving my energy to on social media and Instagram. I really had to reevaluate that and really decide if that was where I wanted to spend my energy. And for many of the times it was, yes, this is where I want it to be. And for other times it was no, and so I had to go about addressing that as well.
And then the last thing I did was I really made time to do the things that I enjoy doing. So, I think if you're already there experiencing burnout, here's three things that I think... other than what I've already said... can really help you come out of it, is number one, clearing off your task list and re-prioritizing, and really asking yourself, is this really important? Do I really need to do this right now, or can this be done later? Put it on a parking lot and save it for another time, and just take care of the things that are time-sensitive that need to be taken care of right now.
The other thing is to make time to do the things that light you up and things that you enjoy doing. I love recreational reading and reading for pleasure. I have spent so much time over the past many years reading personal development and self-growth books, reading health and wellness books, listening to podcasts about these same topics, reading business books, and those are all things I enjoy and I love.
But there is something to be said about recreational reading, so I'm going to let you in on a little... I guess you could say it's a guilty pleasure of mine that I have probably only showed if a handful of people. I didn't even know what this was a year ago, but I somehow stumbled into it, is... I really learned what fan fiction was, and so, I really like it and I spend time reading it. And it's really relaxing for me, and the fact that now actually don't watch a lot of TV, because I read a couple of stories and then I go and do something else that's actually more productive... and so, it's been another way for me to rechannel my energies and spend some time doing something I really enjoy and find really relaxing, because it's thoughtless for me, right?
I can just read it. Guilty pleasure. Don't have to put a lot of thought into it. It only takes maybe, depending on the length of a story, an hour, maybe less than that, maybe more than that. But then I can spend whatever time I used to spend just watching TV mindlessly, actually doing something that's more productive. So, make time and find time to do the things that really light you up and things that you enjoy.
And then, lastly, get back to basics. Get back to the basic essentials. So when you are in this period of burnout, make sure that you are taking care of sleep. I don't want to say getting enough because sometimes that is a work in progress. So, make sure you are prioritizing sleep and really trying to take care of that something you struggle with. Do the things that you need to to try and get more of it.
Make sure you that you're eating well, because when you're burnt out, you are going to be reaching for the sugary foods, the junk foods, the things that's going to spike your blood sugar really quick, but then going to give you a huge downfall. So make sure you're eating healthy, nutritious meals, foods that have lots of vitamins and minerals that will feed your body when it's clearly asking for it.
Make sure that you're moving your body. Like I said, it was a vicious cycle that I was in because I was too tired to exercise at the gym. I was too tired to go there physically and mentally, but you know what? I don't have to have this hard workout every single time. It could just be going out for a simple 20 minute walk, 30 minute walk. If you're feeling up to it, maybe an hour walk... just moving your body in some way. Maybe it's even just stretching in your home. I have had workouts with my personal trainer when I was really in the depths of burnout, where he would just spend the entire session with me just doing some mobility work, some stretches, and he would say, "I'm sorry this wasn't a more intense session." I'd be like, "No, you read and understood that this is what I needed and this was exactly what I needed for right now." But it was movement for my body and it was really caring for my physical wellbeing.
And then lastly, like I said, schedule some fun time on your calendar. I have had many weeks for many years just constantly working, because I spend my Mondays through Fridays working on my full time job and spend Saturdays and Sundays trying to really build a side hustle. And for many, many years, there was no time for anything else. And so, while those things are still important to me, I do still try and dedicate at least one full day or two half days on the weekends to going out and actually being social, to spend time with my family or my friends, or make new friends, or going out to a new meetup group. And that is so, so, so important.
So, there you have it. This is the reality of what burnout looks like. This is what my burnout looked like... culminated in 2019. I'm thankful that I had the insight to realize what it was and to just let my body experience it. When you become a health coach like I am, and you recognize that you're going through a lot of these things that you help people with, I find that I've come to appreciate these experiences because I really become a student of them, so that I can take notes, and I can see how it feels, so I can relate to my clients when they're going through it, and then also take note about what really helps me to come out of it so that I can convey my experiences to you, and hopefully they can help you, as well.
So, the next few weeks, we'll be talking more about this topic and maybe related topics to it. I have some great guests lined up who are going to come on and share their experiences related to burnout and mindset and mindfulness and difficult decisions that they have had to make in their lives that have definitely helped them for the better. And really, it's about getting out of your own way and finding joy, and doing things that make you feel happy, because when you're happy, most likely you're also healthy. So, thanks so much for listening. I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I will be back next week with a new episode for you.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps passionate, ambitious high-achievers who are being dragged down by fatigue, burnout, sugar cravings, poor sleep, unexplained weight issues, and hormonal challenges optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy so they can do big things in this world.
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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