Why Avoiding Burnout is Really an Energy Game

This episode explores the critical distinction between everyday stress and career-threatening burnout, examining how emotional exhaustion and hopelessness can signal a deeper problem. Learn to spot these warning signs early and understand how societal pressures, particularly "human giver syndrome," can push us beyond healthy limits.

Key topics:

• Practical strategies for managing tasks and energy, including the "four Ds" framework and work sprints
• Understanding the physiological impact of stress and how to use this knowledge to your advantage
• Essential boundary-setting techniques that help prevent burnout before it takes root

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding and Avoiding Burnout
• 11:49 Effective Strategies for Preventing Burnout

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey friends, this is Jill Griffin, the host of the Career Refresh podcast, and with everything I'm seeing and hearing, I thought it would be helpful if we went a little bit deeper on burnout, treatment for it, how to avoid it and, most of all, how to build up your immunity Ready. Let's jump in, friends. I want to discuss how to ensure that we are not burning out, making sure that you have some tips, some tools that you can implement and, after you leave this episode, hopefully ensuring that you feel a little better. So I want you to pause for a second and give some reflection. And give some reflection.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Who listening has checked their work email while in a towel, basically naked right? Are you checking email when you're on a family outing or you're out with your friends and you're on your personal time? It's a judgment-free zone, but what we know is that 41% of US workers report feeling burnt out, that the cost is about $190 billion in annual healthcare costs related to burnout, and replacing a burnout employee if you're a leader is anywhere from 50% to two times their current salary. And what I've seen from working with a few hundred clients is that burnout around your career and your career well-being is real. It shows up in the way and the impact and changes our relationships. We're often in an overconsumption or an underconsumption of what's good for us and we tend to want to escape or chill out whenever possible. People are at capacity. But as we think about burnout, I want to just touch on stress for a moment, because there's some confusion between stress and burnout. Stress is defined as what arises when something you care about is at stake. Stress isn't always bad, burnout is always bad. But there's a different state of mind within stress and I'm going to come back to that point because I want to go a little bit deeper on burnout. Once burnout takes hold, it's this idea that you're out of gas and you've given up hope of the surmounting obstacles around you.

Speaker 1: 2:24

But before I go deeper, I was really struck by a book I've read in the last year which is called Down Girl. It's Kate Mann and she writes that around are you a human being or are you a human giver? And she defines it as human giver syndrome, where you're expected to offer more time, resources, attention, support when necessary, also affection, assuming it's appropriate and not gross right. And you have to do it with a smile. You need to have a great attitude.

Speaker 1: 2:55

There may be a sense of moral obligation, and sometimes this really falls into gender normative for women, but sometimes it's also relegated to a title or a position. You may be the most junior person, you may be the newest person in a group, you may be the intern, and for anybody who identifies with the idea of the human giver syndrome, well, I have to guess it's probably slowly killing you. This may show up where, like you're the one who's planning the office, where, like you're the one who's planning the office party, you're the one who's been asked to take the notes and disseminate them. You sometimes hold back and you don't ask for the most basic things or you pay for them yourself, meaning you need a new office chair, a new screen, perhaps you need a mouse or a mouse pad, and you're like it's no big deal, we're in a tight budget, I'll just pay for it and you know when you're in this idea. The concept again is tied to societal gender roles, but we've been often socialized to have the person in this case, whether it's the female or the person who is not in the power position be the adopter and the giver right that they have to constantly create. There's a cycle created of expectation and delivery, and what Mann's work I'm seeing emphasizes is the importance of recognizing and resisting these roles so that we can maintain healthy boundaries and self-respect.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Similar to people pleasing. Where I see the difference between the human giver syndrome and people pleasing is that people pleasing is often I'm going to do this. I don't want to do it, but I'm going to do it because somehow it's going to benefit me. Where the human giver syndrome is, you're acting out of obligation, often to your own detriment, but you do it because there might be some fear there or that you're just feeling like, well, who else is going to do it if I don't do it? I find that people who are in this place are also seeking validation, needing compliments and feedback a lot. There is an imbalance in their relationship where there's a lot of unreciprocated sacrifices. They may struggle in setting boundaries and you really want to avoid hitting conflict.

Speaker 1: 5:16

So burnout, now going back and connecting the human giver to burnout. So burnout is defined as emotional exhaustion and this was defined back in the early 70s. Right, it's the emotional exhaustion. That's the human giver syndrome, that's the belabored. I'll do it. I'll get it done right. It's the fatigue that comes from caring too much for too long.

Speaker 1: 5:40

The next is depersonalization. This is the it's fine, I don't care, whatever, just do it, I'll just do it right. This is the depletion of empathy, caring and compassion. And then, lastly, is the decreased sense of accomplishment. This is like I can't keep up. This is like anything you do it just feels futile. It feels like anything you do is not gonna make any difference. You're constantly discussing the same topic over and over again and nothing's changing.

Speaker 1: 6:07

And the primary signs of burnout and there may be others, but just to name a few there's sort of this mental and physical fatigue. There's an exhaustion, maybe moodiness, low patience, trouble concentrating, irritability. You may have a loss of motivation, feeling underappreciated. And when all this is happening, depending on who you are and your constitution, you may lower your immunity and therefore be more susceptible to an illness. And what I'm reading and seeing, and also experienced myself, is it's really about the energy. Right? You know that if you are tired and have had a very long week, but I offer you tickets to something and it's like your favorite band or a show you've wanted to see, or a playoff game, you're going to rally, right, that's tired.

Speaker 1: 6:58

You are tired, but your mindset is in a place of positivity where, if you are tired physically tired, or exhausted and you are in negative emotion, like I said, the ways that burnout shows up, right, feeling underappreciated, feeling depersonalization, you lack the empathy or the comparing, or you just have this decreased sense of exhaustion. Right, if you're in those places, you're going to fall into the burnout, because it's not just the physical, it's not just running the marathon, it's running the marathon where your thoughts and mind feel negative. That's when you fall into burnout. So the first thing we want to do is treat burnout. This is what I'm going to tell you to make a playlist of some memes, if it's social media, if it's comedic shows on Netflix or Hulu, make a list of things that you know can get you laughing. That's one of the best ways of getting out of burnout. Right, because you're actually shifting your move, movement and exercise.

Speaker 1: 8:05

You've heard this before Box breathing. Right, which is breathing in for four, holding for two, out for four. That also resets your nervous system and calms you. There's positive touch. So maybe you have a pet or you can get an appropriate hug from someone in your life Again, emphasis on appropriate, because this is a career show. And then, lastly, creative expression. So even when you're tired and even if you're feeling that negative space, if you can draw or do art or cook or writing or journaling I mean, I knit all the time.

Speaker 1: 8:40

I am a terrible knitter, but I knit all the time because it doesn't really take much mental capacity. But it gets me out of my head, so to speak. So I make lots of like tubes and scarves and then I tear them out and I start over again. But you want to make sure you're getting into some level of action that feels restorative. Now, when you're thinking about avoiding burnout, I want you to think about are you managing minutes or are you maximizing months?

Speaker 1: 9:13

This is where you're checking email before you're finishing priorities, or it becomes like a buffer. You got to get this thing done, but it feels a little hard, so you keep checking email just to see if there's something else. A lot of times our bodies, we get ourselves wired for the hit of adrenaline, so we almost become this adrenaline junkie, right? It's the same reason why social media works. You keep going back to get that hit, that sensation, whether it's positive or negative. We do the same thing with email and checking to see if someone has asked for something. It's also saying yes to something when it's not important or urgent and you had other plans.

Speaker 1: 9:53

It could also be postponing strategic work for any of these busy tasks, because the tasks can make us feel better, because we're ultimately feeling productive or busy, but that doesn't mean we're creating volume. And then what I often find and Lord knows I had this happen enough is that come 6 pm that's when my day started. So I spent so much time doing until I figured this out. I spent so much time doing tasks or being in meetings that weren't necessarily important enough for me to be there, but there was like pressure and presenteeism that I should be there, so that it meant my work started at 6 pm and then I would have a couple hours of work in front of me, right? That's when you start to realize you know what you're really managing minutes instead of maximizing months.

Speaker 1: 10:43

So when you think about avoiding burnout one of the first things that you may have heard and perhaps you even read the book it's called eat the frog. This is when you do the ugly thing first, the gross thing first. You might want to put it off, but you don't procrastinate. That's not how you find success. I always have this thing when I travel, that I want to travel first thing in the morning, and I never realized that this was about a serotonin boost. If I wait for later in the day, then I'm sort of watching the time I got to get to the airport or the train or whatever it is I'm doing, and it's sort of that energy right Going back to the energy game around burnout. It's sort of that management now where I have to manage this thing, versus if I just wake up and get on the plane, the train, the automobile, whatever it is that I'm doing, I get the thing out of the way first. I eat the frog first and now I have the rest of the day to kind of be boosted in a lighter elevation or a flow of hormones, and you get those good hormones early, right. So eat the frog, as the book title states.

Speaker 1: 11:49

The second is what we call the four Ds, and this is again making sure that you're giving intention to the task that you're doing. So if it takes less than two minutes, you're doing it, if not, you're deferring it, you're delegating it or you're dropping it. This is where you ask yourself how important is it? Is it important in two minutes, two hours, two weeks, two months you get the idea. Okay, this next tip is about energy management through task switching.

Speaker 1: 12:18

When we're in the extreme something we like versus something we hate and we're toggling back and forth we waste so much energy because we have to either psych ourselves up right, that's the eat the frog or when we're doing something we're enjoying, suddenly we're like oh, I got to do that thing next. So we start to lose momentum. What we know works for the brain is having it be a smoother transition. So going from something let's say that you really like, to something that is more neutral to you, you don't have a lot of opinion about. So let's say that you really like to something that is more neutral to you, you don't have a lot of opinion about. So let's say you're doing something you like, you decide to do something that you don't really have that much opinion about, like answering emails, and then you leave your expenses for last, because you hate doing expenses, you don't want to go from the thing you hate to the thing you love. All right.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Next, you want to be thinking about interval training. Every interruption you get, whether it's text, chat, a quick question makes the task you're doing 25% longer. If you're on the creative side whether that's writing or drawing or strategic thinking, any of that you know that when you're interrupted, it's constantly to get yourself back into the zone to be able to create. It takes time. So you want to make sure that you are working in and you've probably heard this from performance hacks. It's that 90 minute interval Work for 90 minutes, set a break and even if you find yourself getting distracted like you want to check your phone or you want to do something, you got it. You're going to do it in 90 minutes. You're right back there. The next.

Speaker 1: 13:56

I want you to think about building immunity and really thinking what are the actual expectations? I know for myself that I put such high expectations on myself, which I assumed was what? If I had surveyed other executive leaders, they would have said well, of course you have to do that, and what I really found out in time is that it wasn't as long as you were creating value and getting the core of your work done. The other expectations were my own. So I also work with hundreds of people who have told me the craziest, freaking things ever. So not every organization is what I would say typical on the expectation scale.

Speaker 1: 14:36

So do a gut check. Is it your expectation or is it your interpretation? Response times how fast do you have to get back to a client or someone if it's not necessarily urgent? Are there last minute requests? How do you value them? What is the sort of the risk reward ratio for doing that? What's the level of effort versus the level of impact? Do you expect yourself and your team to always be working late nights, or is that you know what? There are certain seasons we work late nights. It's no big deal, and then we take comp time and we figure it out right. Also, pto do you check your email when you're on vacation? Is that expected of you, or is that something that you feel very stressed about and therefore you can't let go of?

Speaker 1: 15:28

Another thing that comes to mind about setting or building your immunity is setting a boundary around expectations and commitments, and what I mean by that is, if someone's asking you to do something, is there something you want as a trade-off? Again, you need to think through the dynamics of your organization, but the idea of all right, no, I will definitely stay late and get that done for you tonight, but I just want to get your commitment that I'm having a late start tomorrow and just sort of saying it matter-of-factly right, so that you're not going back and forth in wondering or feeling like you're getting away with something in the morning because you need a couple of extra minutes to rest after a late night. So to recap that treatment of burnout is some sort of movement or changing your state right Getting into laughter, getting into box, breathing positive touch. Avoiding burnout is eating the frog first and making sure you're doing the four Ds do defer, delegate, drop and beware of task switching. Then, building immunity is making sure that you're understanding that sometimes it is both a marathon and a sprint and you want to make sure you're working in those 90-minute sprints and then really thinking about the expectations. How much of those expectations are the ones in your head versus the ones that have been verbally said to you?

Speaker 1: 16:53

And I want to now come back to the part about stress. Two hormones are released during stress cortisol and DHEA, and it is the ratio of those two that make it between stress and burnout. So high cortisol impairs immunity, your ability to think, it suppresses biological function of secondary. So, like digestion, sex hormones, right, those don't really need to be working if you're running away from the lion, right. You don't necessarily need them. So the other hormone that's released is DHEA and that when DHEA is increased during a stressful episode, it reduces anxiety, depression, heart disease and other diseases that we think of as stress-related.

Speaker 1: 17:42

So when you perceive stress as a danger, cortisol increases. Your body moves blood away from your thinking part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex. Right, that's the animal trying to escape from the lion. Everything goes into secondary mode. But when your body and your mind looks at stress as a challenge, it provides a cognitive boost. It enhances your cognitive performance. That's the lion that's thinking, right, I'm like, hmm, how am I going to go after this?

Speaker 1: 18:16

So stress, when used well, can be your superpower, and using well meaning thinking it through superpower and using well meaning thinking it through, people who believe that stress is enhancing are less depressed and more satisfied than those who believe it is harmful. You're happier and more productive at work when you're thinking about it Okay, a little bit of stress is part of this versus understanding that when you're at the level of negative thoughts and negative energy, that's when you go into burnout, right? So when you're thinking that, all right, yeah, some stress, we've got a big pitch. We've got a big meeting, things are good. I'm thinking clear. It helps cognitive function, so brains decide when we are in danger. We get to process the emotion. We get to have the neurochemicals of a negative emotion run through our body. But listen, negative emotions sometimes have their benefits. Calm isn't always better and frustration can spur growth, so it really comes down to self-compassion. You have to practice self-compassion because that is going to help you manage your emotions and not get into that negative place of burnout.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Before I wrap, I want to know who is helping you with your career strategy. If you are a mid-career professional and you're looking to create what's next right where you are, or you want to move someplace else, I can help. I've helped hundreds of clients amplify their strengths, fine-tune their professional brands, increase their visibility, their salaries and create career narratives and really design what is this bigger future for themselves. Finding career fulfillment is possible. I recently helped a client double her salary. Yes, it was a mixture of nailing. The narrative and the negotiation is what created that success. She's not an anomaly. 77% of my clients get a raise of 30% or more. If you're interested and you want help with your career strategy, reach out. All my information is in the show notes. Friends, have a great week and I'll see you next time.