When I coach my clients, knowing where to start in their burnout recovery is a common challenge.
I coach in a person-centred way. This means the client directs where they focus and what they want to work on. They determine the specific outcomes to aim for.
I'm here to provide a safe space for them to recover, and offer options and approaches to try if they want to.
This is important particularly in burnout. We often feel out of control and as if the world is happening to us.
But if we own and decide the areas to focus on in our recovery, we build agency, even if the insights or steps seem relatively small.
Movement forwards is still movement.
What is the Burnout Cycle?
I've enjoyed reading Debbie Sorensen's book ACT for Burnout, which was published last year.
Debbie is a therapist and uses Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a main approach for treating her clients. I've incorporated these techniques into my own coaching where they make sense for the client.
ACT aims to develop psychological flexibility so we have the ability to make an informed choice in various situations, often driven by our core values.
The book describes burnout and different burnout patterns since we don't all respond in the same way. Your burnout signature is yours alone.
Understanding the burnout cycle adds valuable context to how burnout occurs, where we to start our burnout recovery, and how to approach it.
Here is an image of the Burnout Cycle I've adapted from Debbie Sorensen's book, incorporating internal and external factors that contribute to burnout.
Burnout Cycle Image by Sabrina Ahmed
Key areas to consider:
Context: No-one exists in a vacuum, and the world you inhabit can have a significant impact on your mental and physical wellbeing.
External drivers:Research suggests there are 6 main drivers that contribute to burnout. You'll see that excess workload is only one of them - it's a myth that it's the only thing that drives burnout.
Internal vulnerabilities: Our life experiences shape who we are, how we move and respond to the external and inner world. These vulnerabilities show up in common burnout signatures and coping strategies.
Feeling discomfort and stress: Seeing where the contributing factors come from shows how your stress appears or worsens, and relevant stress management approaches.
Strategies: Once you notice stress or discomfort, it's natural to want to reduce or remove it. This is where your stress management and general life coping strategies kick in, as well as the support you have from the environment and your social network.
Short to long-term impact: We often repeat coping strategies because they are familiar and habitual. But over time, even if they give a short-term sense of relief or control, they might cause unhelpful habits and reduce our psychological flexibility. We miss a few gym sessions to do more work now. Over time, we become less fit and our insomnia gets worse.
Burnout: Productivity expert Ali Abdaal suggests 3 types of burnout appear depending on the drivers and strategies used: Overexertion Burnout, Depletion Burnout, and Misalignment Burnout.
Where Can You Start Your Recovery?
I hope the image of how burnout develops and becomes habitual brings perspective, Reader.
There isn't one correct place to start your burnout recovery. This might seem annoying but it's great.
That means you can apply the whole to your situation and decide where you want to focus and are ready to change.
Context:
If you're in a toxic workplace or client relationship, that sits in the context bucket as a backdrop to your experience.
It's where people often wonder whether to leave a job or ditch a client. Sometimes, it's not worth the pain even if you need the money or learn skills in that engagement.
External drivers:
You might look at the external drivers and which of those might be adapted.
If you have a lack of social support at work, making you feel lonely or isolated, you could look for allies and mentors who offer much needed connection.
Internal vulnerabilities:
If your perfectionism is making life miserable, you may want to stop the high standards you have for yourself and others.
Experiment with doing 80% instead of 110% for a week and see what happens.
Strategies:
Sometimes changing your mindset and automatic behaviours feels overwhelming and too difficult.
Instead, making small changes to restore your body helps you feel more in control and improves your mental and emotional health too.
A reminder of the Top 6 Recovery Themes I share with clients might give you some ideas to use to feel better now:
Top 6 Recovery Themes Image by Sabrina Ahmed
Be a curious scientist and reflect on what you can change with the time and energy you have available.
Keep it simple and small changes will compound over time.
Your Recovery At Your Pace
There is no standard burnout recovery timeline.
From my own experience, if I am in burnout or close to burnout, I deploy some of the recovery themes above and notice the improvement within weeks.
That's because I'm more aware of my burnout signature and what might be driving it - both internally and externally.
I've seen the same response in my clients too.
You are the expert in you.
Don't feel like you have to keep sliding down the mountain out of control with no other options.
Don't put pressure on yourself either.
It can take months to start feeling mentally and physically better if you've been running on empty for a long time.
The most important step is to recognise you have burnout and believe that you can recover.
Once you realise that, you'll take the next step needed to get back to being you.
Burnout Coach, Neuroscientist and Art-based Practitioner, helping business owners and leaders overcome burnout, improve focus and reduce overwhelm to manage a fab business and life they love. I write about personal growth, lifestyle, relationships and work.