How to Escape Burnout and Stuckness

How do you know if you’re experiencing an extreme, unsustainable level of burnout, stress, and stuckness or if it’s simply an unavoidable part of modern professional life? It can be hard to tell and I’m sharing some questions that might help you figure it out. I’m also sharing experiments & retreat spaces for finding a way through the burnout and stuckness.

One of my clients was a serial startup founder and came to me when he was on his third startup, this go-around as a first time CEO. We’d spent a year coaching together, covering topics such as creating sustainable high performance for his team, understanding his leadership style of high expectations, hiring up the right C-suite team, and supporting the team through a fundraising round. He kept going faster and faster, recognizing that he needed more space and perspective but not able to do anything different because the company was in the midst of raising their Series B. It took his body giving out with a stress-related health emergency—he’s now fine— to get him to pause and recognize that he was burned out and needed to do something different.

You don’t have to experience a serious health issue before recognizing that something needs to change. Instead, ask yourself these three questions to see if it’s the right time for you to do something different.

1. Can you name the patterns that are no longer healthy?

Often we fall into patterns that work well for us. Many leaders in tech have a hustle mentality and drive that gets us to achieve goals in our professional lives. We’ve learned how to work hard and keep going no matter what. We’ve learned how to demand the most of ourselves and our teams so that they deliver on our high expectations. This pattern serves us well in achieving professional success.

Patterns become unhealthy when they start to feel different. Rather than being exhilarated or energized by the work, we feel negative emotions. It can feel like:

Deja-vu: “Oh I’ve seen this story play out before. I know what will happen. And it’s not good.”
Exhaustion: “I’m physically and mentally completely drained. Not even the weekend helps.”
Lack of control: “I’m not sure that anything I do can or will change things.”
Apathy: “Do I really care about this any more?”

2. How long has this been happening?

Many people can push through intense working scenarios for days, weeks or even months. Sprinting or pushing through the intensity is possible for a short period of time, especially when relief is visible on the other side. This working scenario may be a cyclical or seasonal pattern that you’ve seen play out in previous years of your career.

However, if it’s been going on for months or years with no end in sight, it’s likely time to make a change.

3. Do you see possibilities of a way out?

Often when we first encounter a challenging boss, a demanding workplace, or a stuck relationship, there are many possibilities for a next step forward. You might try having a difficult conversation, or setting boundaries on your work hours, or spending more time building trust.

Utter burnout and feeling stuck happens when you’ve exhausted all possibilities. It’s likely time to make it change when it’s impossible to see another path forward, even after talking with supportive friends, mentors, or coaches.

If don’t see any other possibilities of a way out, you might have hit rock bottom.

OK, You’re stuck. Now what?

The Inspiration of Retreat Space

These three questions can help determine if it’s time for you to make a change. Or they may confuse you even more. Sometimes, it’s difficult to even recognize that you need to change until you get a tiny bit of a breather. If you’re stuck or think you might be stuck, it’s time to move to the inspiration of a retreat space.

Retreat space is time for us to intentionally shift behavior and try something different. It’s a pattern break that uses physical space and time to shift into transformation. A retreat space doesn’t have to be a 7-day break or long weekend away from home. It can be a couple of hours that you block out on your schedule on a weekly basis to do nothing other than think, focus, and move into a different modality. It’s a meeting-free time for you to devote to what matters the most right now. At Facebook, we used this method of creating ‘focus blocks’ to let makers spend heads-down time deep into a project rather than having your time carved up in 30 minute meeting chunks.

In Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, she talks about blocking out a weekly artist date:

“An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form the artist date is an excursion a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child.”

You don’t have to make it about creating something, however, consider blocking out a weekly two hour chunk of time to do nothing but recharge. This mini retreat space can help you find a way out of burnout or stuckness.

Perspective and Possibility

A retreat space is expansive simply because it’s different and breaks the typical pattern of stuckness by shifting something—time or physical location— which then shifts mental states.

Being in a new environment and slowing down our thoughts to a different pace allows us to zooming out to a 10,000 foot perspective. We often miss this because we are myopically focused on what’s urgent, what’s due today, what’s someone else’s burning agenda item that we must accommodate. Instead, embracing retreat space allows for zooming up to see what really matters, which then opens up possibility.

Learn in Different Modalities

Finally, when in retreat space, we can find different modalities to learn from. It can be going deeper with ourselves in contemplation, journaling, day-dreaming, all of which can unlock different insights. It can be going deeper with a book or podcast, singly focused on listening for the lesson rather than multitasking our way through the day. And if you’re on retreat with other people, it can be best to learn from similar struggles, and breakthroughs, that other like-minded leaders have experienced.

Bottom-Line

Learn to recognize the signs of burnout or stuckness before they become overwhelming or before your body tells you to slow down. When this happens, carve out retreat space for yourself. This can be in 2-hour chunks in a week, or a longer retreat period.

If you’re looking for a nourishing retreat, feel free to reach out and I can help you find one from the leadership & coaching communities I spend time in.

Tutti TaygerlyApril 20, 2022