Jenna: Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Elevate Yourself podcast.

Today I wanted to talk about something that I think we are all going through on some level, all of us especially coming out of this whole COVID crap and the stuff that we have all been through on one level or another for the last couple of years. And I wanted to talk about it because I think we are all on one way or another one level or another going through some form of burnout. Whether we realize it or not, I think once we like acknowledge it and kind of recognize the symptoms and are able to move forward through it and find some productive ways of dealing with it. Then we're really able to move out of this and to start harnessing our positivity and moving in a positive direction and having a lot more good vibes about everything. And I think right now, things are opening up for everyone and everyone is ready for change. When things keep on piling on top, it's sometimes hard to see the end of things but now, really, the end is in sight. And there's a lot of hope out there. So I think it's just a great time to talk about burnout. Especially so that we can be moving forward.

The World Health Organization actually classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon and not a medical condition. But I definitely would think that it would be qualified as a mental health thing for sure. I don't think that it's all related to occupational either. I think that parents can get burnt out. I think that spouses can get burnt out on each other. I think there's a lot of different levels and layers of how you can get burnt out. But I do think that the causations are very similar and also the ways of getting out of burnout on all those different levels. Whether it's your job or your personal relationships or your family dynamics. I think that they are very similar ways to get out of those unhealthy little patterns that we get into.

Burnout is defined as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. So people are really compartmentalizing it as a workplace thing. But I would encourage you to think of it in different ways like also with your personal relationship and with even like your marriage and for mom's like being a mom is a job but we don't always think of it like that, like stress in the home as well. I do think can be chronic stress.

The characterization is by these three dimensions. So number one, feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion. This is a central symptom of burnout- causes profound emotional, cognitive and emotional fatigue that undermines people's ability to work effectively and feel positive about what they're doing.

So number two, increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job. So also can be called the depersonalization. It represents an erosion of engagement. So just detachment from really wanting to be present in that role is essentially a way of distancing yourself psychologically from your work, or your relationship, your marriage, your family or other personal relationships happening. Instead of feeling invested in your assignments, projects, colleagues, customers, marriage or family you feel detached, negative, and even callous.

So now third is reduced professional efficacy so refers to feelings of incompetence, and lack of achievement and productivity. So just that feeling of spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere, people with this symptom of burnout feel their skills slipping and worry that they won't be able to succeed in certain situations or accomplish certain tasks. This can definitely be felt in lots of different not just in your work life. It can definitely apply to your personal life and family dynamics and stuff like that, too. So if you're feeling like you relate to any of those things, this podcast is created for you. And I feel like everyone in one way or another is feeling a little bit like this because of the stresses that we've all had to endure from this really strange period in our lives and this period in time that we're living through. So in a survey, which polled more than 65,000 North American employees, 42% of women and 35% of men reported feeling burned out often or almost always in 2021 compared to 32% of women and 28% of men in 2020. And I bet that number is even higher in 2022.

So definitely an upward trend and definitely, I think related to some of the circumstances that we have been put under and the additional stresses we've been dealing with. But the good news is that almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, and that includes yourself. So common causes of burnout can be taking on more than what you can handle, work, school, interpersonally with family and friends, poor self care, job expectations that are unclear, workplace dynamics that might be dysfunctional, social support that's lacking, never taking a vacation, lack of control, lack of workplace communication, so all those things can really add up and cause burnout. But maybe you aren't really identifying what the causes you just feeling the symptoms. So signs of burnout include the following, unable to complete tasks on time, losing track of tasks and time, mood swings, experience with anger, sadness or irritability, not getting proper sleep or experiencing insomnia. This is huge.

I just listened to this Joe Rogan podcast with a neuroscientist, all talking about sleep and I've been referencing this a lot in our discussions in the studio because of all the implications of not getting proper sleep in your life. And it's just insane. 70% reduction in your cancer fighting cells from one hour less sleep per night. And that's just like the tip of it. So, so much of us are cutting our sleep. I'm gonna link that podcast to the notes so if you're interested in that just head over to the show notes. Drinking more alcohol than normal or using it as a coping mechanism.

Physical symptoms like headache, dizziness and experiencing depression. When you say yes to others, you just have to make sure you're not saying no to yourself. That's like a great quote by Paulo Coelho. How to manage burnout, so that's how to start saying yes to yourself. Number one, and this is the biggest one probably, that we are forgetting when we are experiencing burnout is to prioritize self care. So it's essential to replenish your physical and emotional energy along with your capacity to focus by prioritizing good sleep habits, nutrition, exercise, social connection and practices that promote your well being. Self Care is an integral part of managing burnout. Although self care looks different for everyone, here are some ways that we can help at Elevate.

We have created Elevate Yourself podcast so listening to podcasts can definitely help with burnout. We have created this podcast since December 2021, and have covered many topics that are valuable and worth listening to and most of these are related to your self care goals. So I encourage you to check that out. Brendon Burchard makes a really good podcast. He has an app growth day that is integrated into his like whole podcast thing and it covers a lot of different self care things that are worth listening to. If you have any other suggestions, we'd love to hear your suggestions and you can DM us and we'll post about them in the show notes.

Booking yourself care appointments pre booking these appointments is the most awesome way to prioritize self care. But even if you have to get in there last minute, that's still better than nothing. But making sure you have time for self care is essential because if you are leaving yourself to last all the time, that means that you're not prepared. So it's just like running around with an empty gas tank all the time. If you have an awesome opportunity to do something or something that comes up last minute and you're like having to go it really does suck to not be prepared. Or like say you live in the valley, for example, and the gas stations closed. Well, you can't do anything right because you have not prepared and you're gonna run out of gas. So same thing if you do not prioritize your self-care you've got running on empty and you cannot do the things that you are going to want to be doing when you want to be doing them because you will be running on empty. So pursuing hobbies or interests can also help you prioritize self-care. You might have been interested in learning about lashes brows or nails or changing your career.

So there are courses that we have also created that you can take and that can be completed in a timely manner to help you align your career with your self-care goals and we do have another podcast episode about that because sometimes you are in a career that is completely opposite to promoting your self-care. So if you have any questions about how that looks, I would really check out that podcast because we go into depth with that. An empty tank as I said will take you nowhere so take the time to refuel with self-care as Lalah Delia says self-care is how you take your power back.

Number two, shift your perspective. So well rest, relaxation and replenishment can ease exhaustion, curb cynicism and enhance efficacy. They don't fully address the root cause of burnout. You must take a closer look at your mindset and your assumptions first, if you don't identify the problem, you cannot change it.

So number three, reduce your exposure to job stressors. You'll need to target high value activities and relationships that still trigger unhealthy stress. This involves resetting your expectations of colleagues, clients and even family members for what and how much you're willing to take on as well as good rules for working together. So creating boundaries. It's really important for you to create boundaries. Otherwise, you can't be everything to everyone. I'm not sure who said it but when you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one and that's including yourself. You really do have to pick out the things that are really triggering your unhealthy stress and kind of put up a little fence around them and focus on the ways that you can be effective in your life that are not triggering these stresses and move away from the activities and lifestyle that you're creating that are promoting the unhealthy stresses.

So are the dynamics that you've created with people that have created unrealistic expectations of you are just unhealthy ways of connecting with different people in your lives. We just really have to be accountable for that because if we don't teach people how to treat us, then there's no way for someone to know that they are doing something that is causing you more stress than maybe so you do have to create the boundary and set the expectation of what is going to really work for you and respect your self-care and still allow you to engage in a positive way with those people or colleagues or any clients or anything like that. So also really important to seek out connections when you're managing burnout. So the best antidote to burnout particularly when it's driven by cynicism, and inefficacy is seeking out rich interpersonal interactions and continual personal and professional developments. Sometimes that's like the spinning of the wheels, right? When we don't think that we're going anywhere and nothing is changing. It's really hard to be positive about things and it really is a personal choice because we don't stop and pause and seek out something different than words. we're just going to be repeating the same processes over and over again and keep burning ourselves out.

It is just like we said, everything will work again, almost everything if you unplug it for a few minutes, including yourself and so sometimes it takes a second tip. Don't take a day off, take a little mini-break or just like set aside some time to like meditate or journal and to figure out how you're going to rewire yourself and your life and how you can manage these expectations and continue on a different path by really seeking out different connections and stuff like that. I hope that everyone has been able to pull something from this episode. I know that I posted something about burnout on our stories a couple of weeks back and I was like, Ooh, some of those might be me.

And so I've definitely been looking at this and I know as a business owner, everything has been changing so fast for everybody. And when that happens sometimes like when we're in such an emergency situation, we're trying to react and adjust in the best way that we can, but also we're not really given the time that we need to reassess everything. So I think it's like just a really great time now, to be able to do that because we're having a lot of restrictions lifted. It feels like the pressures coming off things aren't as crazy. It's not as dire circumstances. Doesn't seem like the world is ending anymore. And so it really gives us some time to reassess where we're at and address these burnout things as things start to return to what is going to be normal so we can move forward from there and because there have been a bunch of things that have happened, it is necessary to go through and make sure you are just checking all the things that will be making you optimally run putting fuel back in that tank.

So make sure you're just doing a little checklist of prioritizing yourself care like are there things that you're deficient in that area because then you can fix those things. Also the shifting of your perspective. So that you can reset the mindset and your assumptions so that you can address those root causes of burnout. And sometimes that shifting your goals as well because through everything you might find that your initial goal has evolved and become something else and there's nothing wrong with that. And I think sometimes it takes like a second to know that one thing is not necessarily better than another as long as you're moving forward positively in a direction. There's no shame in letting go of an idea that you thought was so integral to like who you were because holding on to that is what's limiting you from becoming something more and becoming your future self and growing.

So I think opening yourself to let go of things too is going to allow you to shift that perspective and grow into the way that you need to grow out of a situation where you're burnt out and then reduce the exposure to job stressors. So creating those boundaries and teaching people how to treat you reassessing the things that are causing unhealthy or unnecessary stress. Because that is so easy sometimes to do just to protect yourself. In that way. And then seek out the connections and this is so, so so important because through this all really it has been a lot of lack of connection for a lot of us. So number four, I think everyone needs to revisit this all and so I'd really just encourage everyone to keep an open mind and listen to the podcast and take some notes about how this could impact your life.

If you know someone who's going through burnout or having a really hard time with all the changes that have been happening and maybe they don't feel like as shiny or bright as they used to. That's a really good indication that they might be going through burnout. Maybe they're grumpier than usual. Maybe they're not as fun to be around. And I think we all really do like connecting with someone else and helping them that's an epic way for you to also help yourself which is it sounds selfish, but it's not. If we're all looking after each other, then things go a lot better. Anyways, if you do know someone who could benefit from it, just share this podcast with them. I guess also the more people who are taking care of themselves and not feeling burnt out, the less stress we have in all of our lives because we are all feeling better. We're all brighter and shinier and loving life a lot more