How to Understand Yourself Better and Avoid Burnout in 5 Simple Steps.
If you’re frequently getting triggered, feeling helpless, low, frustrated or angry, and finding yourself seeking external measures to make you feel better or make things better, and this makes you feel exhausted and overwhelmed which then leads to burnout, it may be a sign that you’re disconnected from yourself.
In my experience, this feels like we’ve lost ourselves and let ourselves be controlled by the external environment. Instead of stopping, letting it go and just being, we’re doing more. It’s not surprising that we feel more exhausted, overwhelmed and even burnout.
Before working with me, Caroline was struggling with burnout and overwhelm at work. She was just getting through each day and not enjoying what she doing as a GP. It was having a significant knock-on effect on her home life. Caroline was stressed all the time.
The signs and symptoms of stress that you might recognise include being restless, agitated, unable to sit still, the need to keep moving and doing, not sleeping well, adding more things to do, generally keeping yourself busy so you can’t sit and be still. You’re avoiding and not allowing yourself to be still.
If you recognise any of these, then great. You have some awareness of yourself. What else do you notice? Perhaps other behaviours such as being snappy, short-fused, losing temper very quickly, shouting and screaming a lot; generally feeling tense and like your brain is going to explode. My other client Ally was just like this that she often lost her temper and shouted at her kids.
I’m pleased that you’re able to acknowledge these. Please know that you’re not being judged. I know how it feels because I’d been there. It’s hard and I totally get you.
We can make things better for you, here’s how:
Needs - do you know what your basic needs are? Your physical, emotional, mental, psychological, social and relational needs. Some examples include sleep, food, water, time alone, time with family, time out in nature, reading books, having regular treatment to relieve you from pain, movements and exercises. These needs are individual to you and without which you’re not OK. Knowing these is really helpful because when they’re not met, it could mean that you might get easily triggered and slip into disempowering archetypes, such as martyr, bitch, victim or superwoman. However when you’re meeting your needs, you’re prioritising yourself.
Triggers - when your basic needs are not met, you could easily be triggered by small things that are otherwise tolerable or you might have dealt with in a rationale way. Being triggered could get you in different sorts of unwanted behaviours and/or thoughts (disempowering archetypes) that might affect the next action you take. Triggers are a warning sign, which can be very helpful in understanding yourself better.
Patterns - notice your trigger, you can begin to see a trail of similar patterns. For example, being snappy and grumpy when you get home because someone in the office really annoyed you. You get annoyed because they seem to walk all over you. The fact is probably they don’t but you think that because you’re frustrated as you feel you’re not good at your job or being a mum. Can you see how this can be a vicious cycle? When we go back to basics, it points to you not getting your basic needs met.
Values - knowing your values will help you to think about whether what you’re doing is motivating you toward what you want in life and whether what you’re doing supports this. If what you want in life is to find more joy and have more fun with your family on a daily basis then what steps can you take to achieve it? One way could be that you look into your priorities again and make a decision about what you can let go and/or delegate. It might be useful to ask yourself ‘is this important?’ or ‘is doing this taking me away from my family’, or ‘is saying ‘yes’ to lead on a project means I won’t get to help my kids do their homework?’, ‘how important is this project if it means I miss out yet again in being able to eat together as a family’?
Action - getting off the roundabout and breaking the cycle of going round and round. What is the first step you can do once you get off a roundabout. You can stop and see where you’re going to go next. On the road, you can look at your map. In life, your body is your map. Stop and listen to what it tells you. Maybe it’s telling you that it’s tired and you need an early night. Or you might have a headache so you need to drink more water. Sometimes when we’re too busy, we even forget to drink and no wonder we’re cranky and headache-y.
Caroline was able to retire the ‘superwoman’ mentality - the idea that she had to do everything and within a specific timeframe. Now she prioritises her time to not only do essential work but also things that bring her joy.
Ally has been able to make sure that her basic needs are met because she knows when she’s at her best she can bring her best to her family. She rarely shouts at her kids now and has more fun with them. I couldn’t be more delighted for them.
Can I invite you to take some time this weekend to just stop and tune into your body, be present with your family and rest.
I hope this has been useful to help you to start to understand yourself better so that you can do something about it now and avoid getting burnout.
As with Caroline and Ally, we go into more depths with this in my Thriving in Career and Relationship programme and if you’d like to find out more about it, please by all means get in touch by email to info@clarynnicholas.com. We can explore your needs, challenges and aspirations and I can tell you a bit more about what I do. This is a free exploratory call with no obligations.
If this article could be useful to anyone you know, please feel free to share it.
I’d love to know your thoughts, just let me know!
Thank you for reading.
Love
Claryn x
