At least once a year I am compelled to sit down and write about what burnout is, and isn’t.  I keep thinking I won’t have to do this again (it feels like I’m being redundant) but then I read another article, or two or three, about burnout that makes me seriously consider pulling my hair out.  Then I remember how much that is ultimately going to cost me at the beauty salon (poor Pascal, my stylist, moaning “My beautiful, what have you done” as he does when I take scissors to my fringe) and I start writing.

Here goes.

Burnout is not just stress on max.  Burnout is not about having too much to do (what woman doesn’t?!)  Burnout does not result from a failure to prioritise.  Burnout is not about having crappy juggling skills.  Beware, my darlings, there are plenty of male ‘experts’ (and sadly quite a few women coaches) out there who will still tell you that burnout is all of these things.  They will also tell you that you just need to…

♦learn stress management ♦ improve your coping ability ♦ prioritise appropriately ♦ make better decisions ♦ establish proper work/life balance ♦ just take a little time off and get better at self-care♦

Uh huh, sure, ok…

I must say, this ‘advice’ absolutely puzzles me since all of the women I know and have worked with for over 3 decades have been genius at all of those things.  If they hadn’t they wouldn’t have been so amazingly successful at parenting, partnering, their profession, well at everything.

Burnout sneaks up on you when you are busy, very busy, but it is not the busyness that causes burnout.

Burnout happens when you have lost your centre, your dream, the vision of what your life was going to be.  Burnout is a result of having lost your stride, which doesn’t mean that you still aren’t doing everything in your life.

Some women have learned to burnout from the time they were little.  Burnout finds its roots in beliefs, expectations, perfectionism, not being front & centre in your life, and having a burnout personality or what we fondly call your BOP factor.

The danger of burnout is that once it gets a foothold it develops a life all of its own and you, my lovely, are along for the ride.

Burnout doesn’t cause your life to fall apart, when you are burned out you really don’t care if you hold it all together.

In fact I will go as far to say that you kind of consciously let it go.  The meaning has gone out of your life, you feel discouraged, disappointed, disillusioned and ultimately so disheartened that you ask yourself, “what’s the use of holding it all together?” and you let it drift.  Then the drifting becomes a raging torrent and you panic.

You feel sick, depressed, and spent.  You feel so overwhelmed you don’t know which way to turn.  You feel so exhausted and lost that you ‘figuratively’ sit down in the middle of the road and wait, tick tick tick…

You’re not even sure what you are waiting for, you just know that it feels like you are on hold.  Then when you realise that nothing is going to change you sadly get up, slowly cause you are so tired, and set off down the road that takes you back to where you left off.  It won’t be long till you are once again burning out.

Overcoming burnout isn’t about changing stuff, it’s about reconnecting with your dreams, your ideals, your passions.  It’s about connecting with people that truly fill you up, instead of depleting you.  It’s about finding work that has meaning and value to you in every little ordinary detail.

You will begin to live a life without burnout once you begin to respect and trust yourself more.

You won’t allow others to pressure you into things you don’t want or believe in.

You will say ‘no’ to work that doesn’t bring joy, meaning, value, and purpose to your life.

You will cherish relationships with those who love you for who you are.

You will release yourself from the torment of perfectionism.

You will stop burning out when you believe in yourself.

Yes, that’s when you will stop living a life that keeps you constantly dancing on the edge of burnout.

Now, one thing left to say before I go get that cup of tea.

Being a Highly Sensitive Woman (HSW) ups your chances of burning out.  No not because you are flawed in any way, but because you are tuned in and turned on (if I may use an old 60s phrase).  Being Highly Sensitive kind of means that you were born with the makings of a burnout personality and then given who you were you were likely raised and trained to burnout.

Your amazingly sensitive nature means you ‘get’ the inconsistencies in life and you feel the incongruency of how we are told to live and what you value.  You are ‘tender’ to the angst of the world:  you feel the pain of people, animals, flowers, and the planet.

Sometimes you just don’t get life; you don’t understand why the world has to live with so much hate and not enough love or peace.

You care about doing the ‘right’ thing, caring for others, doing a good job, and never ever letting anyone down.  All of that, my love, makes you lovely but also makes you super-prone to burnout.

Now, here’s the glass half full!  (You know us we always have one.)

You don’t have to burnout ever ever again.  And listen up, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on any of the stuff you love to do, in fact we want you to do more of what you love to do.  So please, even if you do it to just please us, no more listening to ‘experts’ telling you you must give up half of what you do, how you do it, look for less stressful work (what if you love your work?) or dial down your dreams.  That is simply not our style and it certainly doesn’t have to be yours..

We know (cause we have both been there) that if you begin to live your life your way and embrace your life with a big beautiful bear hug you can leave burnout in the dust.  Yes, my dear…

You can be the exception. 

Life is untidy, real life that is, not the ‘edited’ version that everyone shares nowadays.  Now, because we specialise in encouraging, and hopefully inspiring, women to tame their burnout monster and embrace the life they dream of, it is often assumed that the BOQs life is ‘perfect’ and (we love this one) ‘easy’!  Well, my darlings we hate to burst your bubble, but…

Ours is a layered life, as opposed to a balanced one.

It is calm and hectic, complicated and simple, spontaneous and yet organised, interesting and yet pleasantly boring, unexpected and at the same time deliciously ordinary.

Our life is anything but perfect.  It is most definitely well lived in.  There are even times when it feels like chaos, but it’s our creative chaos and when we embrace that we, like you, are free to ‘wing it’.

In the interest of sharing let me just say it’s been a week, or two or three.  One thing after another the interruptions and disruptions just keep on coming.    Now, we’re not talking earth shattering catastrophes, no, just life’s bits and pieces; irritations, hassles, interruptions, disruptions, unexpected dilemmas, sudden changes, and a couple of crises thrown in to boot, which is exactly why this article is a week late.  (Let me just say, I hate late, I don’t do late, not in my DNA to be late, but there you are it’s late.) Here’s a sampler…

Multiple tech meltdowns made it appear as if our systems had been hacked.  Don’t worry, and don’t rush to unsubscribe, they hadn’t.  We assure you no one is at risk, but it sure put our schedule behind.  Then, more tech…

Our mobile phone network deactivated our phones (don’t ask, never ask, they just did).  After hours of mind-numbing calls with off-shore call centres we cancelled the account. Little did we know they just cancelled our numbers!  So we are slowly getting reconnected to our world even though our world doesn’t know we are disconnected cause they don’t have our new numbers.  Next…

We were gardening (to offset the tech stress) and the pups were barking at our new neighbours’ cats (a new found entertainment) and the littlest one ended up with a sprained leg.  Why does this always happen on long weekends?  We set up an emergency visit but a few hours later she was ok so we were to monitor her.  Then she stopped eating.  That’s when we discovered a loose tooth!  Emergency dental surgery was scheduled for the next day.  Draw a line through any plans for that week!  Seven lost teeth later (she is down a total of 10) she is back in form but gumming her food and limping from time to time.   We have since discovered she has a bad hip, geez!  Then there were…

Deliveries for all the things we have realised we need (yes need not want) like a lawnmower since moving into a house.  Every day was something different: some deliveries arrived and some didn’t: some were found, some weren’t.  The best one was the ‘delivery boy’ who couldn’t find the parcel in the back of the van, didn’t seem to speak a word of English except to say “I’m going” and drove off!  Really?

Of course in between all the ‘glitches’ (to call them something polite) there is work and everything that is still being sorted from the recent move (oh to be able to find my shoes).  There have been days where life has felt dizzying!

I unapologetically confess that I prefer an ‘expected’ day-to-day existence.

I like to be able to predict my day on the most mundane levels.  I do not particularly like my schedule being turned on its head at a moment’s notice.  Yes, I definitely get frustrated, irritated, and in the case of the last couple of weeks stressed when my well planned plan gets tossed out the window.

Sometimes there’s not a lot you can do about it.  I cursed a few times, demanded answers from the Universe, threatened to quit (although not sure exactly what I am quitting) and of course told myself that I ‘should’ be able to pick-up where I left off after each and every interruption, get my head down and get it all done.  Yeah right! 

So I went for the next best ‘other option’.  What’s that you ask?  Get creative, tear up the plans, and change directions.  Instead of moaning, “What am I going to do now, my day is ruined, ruined!”

Don’t think ruined, think different. 

These Burnout Queens gardened, we went exploring, we organised the office, we ate cake, we went shopping!

Believe me we both spent years stressed to the gills, exhausted beyond repair, angry, frustrated, resentful, stuck, and losing steam trying to hang on to perfection, predictability, consistency, reliability, and (I admit it) sameness.  All this led to was tension and pressure alongside of frustration and crankiness, and let’s not forget that ‘yucky’ (that’s a clinical term) feeling of someone other than you pulling the strings of your life!

Well, we are definitely wiser these days (ok wiser and older!) so now we embrace the creativity of the unexpected.  Instead of getting our knickers all in a knot we ‘wing it’, go with the flow, roll with it, and sometimes simply take a few deep breaths, chant ‘Om’ and accept it.  But here’s the real secret to living in a way that leaves us free from the ravages of burnout…

We understand the values that underpin our life, our ‘ground rules for living’ so to speak.  (If you are wondering what these are join the Realm, our free member’s club, and get your copy of The Burnout Queen’s Desiderata.  The rules are all there and they are not complicated.)  By having this foundation we can make on-the-spot choices and decisions that we know will get us through all the twists and turns that ordinary life brings.

When you ‘get’ your life, when you truly understand what makes it hum or sing out loud, you can ‘wing it’ whenever you want or need to without fear.

So, it’s almost Friday and I find myself thinking, “Next week, I can get a fresh, calm start next week”, it’s kind of like ‘starting the diet on Monday’ thinking, but I know better, it’s life.  What are we always encouraging you to do?

Embrace life, my darlings, no matter how chaotic, quirky, cluttered, creative, or ordinary…

‘cause when you wing it you are free to fly.

Our culture confuses burnout with achievement and success.  It seems at times that society endorses and admires living in a way that creates burnout.  Crazily working 60 hour weeks, driving the luxury car, and running from meeting to meeting in Manolo’s has become synonymous with making your way to the top and having it all.

Well there is one cultural icon that embodies a burnout lifestyle, you know the one…pink, fuzzy, 6-inches tall, musical, and just doesn’t know when to give it a rest!  Without further adieu, we introduce you to the B-Bunny and our slightly quirky little fable,

How The B-Bunny Got To The Other Side Of The Road!

B-Bunny #1  makes a mad dash, dodging cars, jumping curbs arriving out of breath, huffing and puffing but exhilarated with the rush and flush of success.  B-Bunny #1 uses this strategy even when there is no traffic.  Hey, it works.

B-Bunny #2 approaches every crossing with in-depth planning.  After all, she tells herself, timing is everything.  Well almost everything.  B-Bunny #2 also has to pick the perfect route; check the weather forecast; calculate how many tries it may take; and perhaps most importantly consider what all the other bunnies will think about how B-Bunny makes the trip.  With so much to consider, worry about and decide on B-Bunny #2 completely misses her opportunity to cross the road so heads back home promising to try it again tomorrow…if, of course, everything is just right.

B-Bunny #3 plans a route across, sizes up the road, looks both ways, checks for danger, does warm up stretches, then heads across.  She stops at the centre curb to recharge and reassess the situation then heads for the other side.  B-Bunny #3 arrives safely with a great feeling of accomplishment and indulges in a tiny celebratory dance.  Success!  You try crossing a 3-lane motorway when only 6 inches tall!

B-Bunny #4 stands by the side of the road, then sits by the side of the road.   She is trying to summon the energy to dash once more.  B-Bunny #4 remembers being just like B-Bunny #1 full of zip, never droopy, and never stopping.  Then one day B-Bunny #4 lost her zip, hit the wall so to speak…it wasn’t pretty.  B-Bunny #4 doesn’t know a different way to cross the road, so she sits and waits and waits hoping to feel that old energy and pep.  Finally B-Bunny #4 turns back, disappointed in her effort, and giving up on reaching the other side of the road this one last time.  B-Bunny #4 is finally out of juice.

Where does that leave our bevy of bunnies?

B-Bunny #1 continues her mad dash.  Most times it still feels pretty exciting to make it to the other side.  One day though her dash and dodge technique is going to get, well dodgy.  It doesn’t bare thinking about…Eeeww.

B-Bunny #2 is stuck in worry-mode.  Sooner or later, probably later, B-Bunny #2 will make a decision but until then it’s easier to not cross the road.  She’s on the fast track to losing her zip!

B-Bunny #4 lost the plot.  Too many mad breathless dashes left B-Bunny #4 at the side of the road, too pooped to pop…or hop.

Wait, what about B-bunny #3?  Well she read that other fable, you know the one about the tortoise and the hare, and she got it!  Although the allure of the hare was enticing, the tortoise made it to the finish line.  B-Bunny #3 has dreams and goals and plans a long life of crossing many different roads.

So, what’s the moral of our little story?  Frankly I was never that great at interpreting those famous fable lessons, but I do know this one for sure…

There is nothing sadder than a burned out bunny!

Before we go it begs the question…who are you like?

B-Bunny #1 Mad Dasher

B-Bunny #2 the Perfectionist

B-Bunny #4, Burnout Bunny

or…

B-Bunny #3 most likely to Succeed