Episode 4
Hidden Factors that Cause Burnout: Are You Contributing?
Today, we're diving into the ever-relevant topic of burnout, which has become a pervasive issue for many people. I want to unpack how personal traits such as perfectionism, people-pleasing tendencies, and unrealistic self-expectations, can inadvertently contribute to our own risk of burnout.
Of course there are external pressures from our workplaces; but it’s important to look at how we interact with those pressures and the stories we're tell ourselves that are contributing to our chronic stress.
We’ll discuss the signs of burnout, the different forms it can take, and how it can manifest not just in our jobs, but in roles like parenting and caregiving. Tune in to reflect on your own unhelpful patterns, and to consider how you might take proactive steps to help you manage stress better and nurture your well-being.
Takeaways:
- Burnout is a consequence of unresolved stress, resulting in feelings of exhaustion and detachment.
- It's crucial to recognise the personal traits that may contribute to chronic stress and burnout.
- Perfectionism, people-pleasing, imposter syndrome and undiagnosed neurodivergence can significantly increase your risk of burnout.
- Understanding your own limits and setting realistic expectations can help prevent the downward spiral into burnout.
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Transcript
Foreign this is Crappy to Happy and I am your host, Cass Dunn.
Speaker A:I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher, and of course, author of the Crappy to Happy books.
Speaker A:In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy.
Speaker A:Foreign welcome to another episode of Crappy to Happy.
Speaker A:Two quick things note to self.
Speaker A:I have to change that intro because it still says, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring guests.
Speaker A:And that intro was recorded when all we were doing was guest interviews.
Speaker A:Literally, the show was all interviews.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:There were no solo episodes.
Speaker A:We started to add solo episodes and now there's probably more solo episodes than guest interviews.
Speaker A:Don't worry, there are guest interviews coming.
Speaker A:There are plenty.
Speaker A:And the second thing I want to say, if you're a bloke and you love Crappy to Happy, I am so happy to have you here.
Speaker A:It has been brought to my attention more than once that there are plenty of men who really get value from the podcast.
Speaker A:And I am constantly talking about women and to women.
Speaker A:And that is partly because it was kind of put to me that that's what I should do, that I should really try to speak to one particular demographic, I guess, and the majority of listeners indeed are women, but not all.
Speaker A:Then you're not all women.
Speaker A:I know there are men listening, so I apologize if I have made you feel excluded, and I will certainly keep that in mind in future.
Speaker A:I love having you here.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Uh, and then my beyond confident group coaching program, which focuses on overcoming imposter syndrome and cultivating self confidence.
Speaker A:Again, all of the marketing messaging around that is really about women.
Speaker A:And in the program we do talk about gender bias and stuff like that that impacts women in the workplace.
Speaker A:So there is a female focus.
Speaker A:But you know what?
Speaker A:It's opening up again in July, and if you want to join and you're a bloke, I'd love to have you in the program.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So that's that.
Speaker A:Let's talk about burnout.
Speaker A:I wanted to bring this topic up again because it's a topic that hasn't just gone away, it is still very prevalent.
Speaker A:And I wanted to just share today a few ideas for you to think about in terms of what you can do or how you personally might be inadvertently contributing to your own risk of burnout.
Speaker A:Now, let's just start with definitions.
Speaker A:Burnout is a consequence of long term unresolved stress.
Speaker A:The World Health Organization, a Few years ago, identified burnout as a workplace phenomenon.
Speaker A:They don't call it a medical condition, but it's a workplace syndrome.
Speaker A:It's a workplace phenomenon and it particularly has three dimensions.
Speaker A:The first of those is that it is characterized by feelings of energy depletion, exhaustion, like completely physically, mentally broken, basically nothing left in the tank, not just a bit tired, completely burnt out.
Speaker A:Second one is psychologically feeling distance from your job, feeling negative, cynical, detached, really not emotionally engaged in your work.
Speaker A:And, you know, detached and negative, I guess.
Speaker A:And the third one is reduced professional efficacy.
Speaker A:Now, efficacy means how good you are at what you do, how effective you are at what you do.
Speaker A:I think it is more like it is a decrease in your feelings of accomplishment, your perception of your own efficacy.
Speaker A:It may well be that your performance does slip when you're burnt out.
Speaker A:I mean, understandably, if you're very unwell and really struggling.
Speaker A:But it also, I think it's really characteristic of burnout to believe that you're not doing a good job even when you are doing a good job, which is why you keep on pushing yourself and feeling down on yourself and feeling like it's your fault and you're not doing enough and what's wrong with you, et cetera.
Speaker A:So they are the three kind of criteria for burnout according to the World Health Organization.
Speaker A:Now, what I want to say is we will talk about workplace burnout today, but I do also want to make the point that burnout is not just.
Speaker A:It's not just a workplace issue.
Speaker A:You can have maternal burnout or parental burnout from caring for children.
Speaker A:You can have carer burnout caring for anybody who is chronically unwell if you're in a caring role.
Speaker A:Even when we talk about workplaces, the professions that are most susceptible to burnout tend to be caring professions.
Speaker A:Medical professions and teachers are the most susceptible to burnout.
Speaker A:Academics, uni students, PhD students.
Speaker A:There can be that kind of scenario where people burn out.
Speaker A:Athletes, high performing athletes, over training, over scheduling, constantly pushing themselves, unrelenting standards, not getting enough breaks.
Speaker A:So there's lots of different areas that, where individuals can be affected by burnout can really suffer the consequences of burnout.
Speaker A:I just want to make that really clear.
Speaker A:But the consequences are really devastating and it can creep up on you and you can end up in a really bad place before you've really twigged that something is wrong and can take a really long time to recover when you have completely burnt out.
Speaker A:I mean, the effect on literally every system in your body, your adrenals all of your whole immune system, endocrine system.
Speaker A:You can experience high blood pressure, heart issues, panic attacks, anxiety, depression.
Speaker A:Then it flows on and impacts obviously your personal relationships, the people around you, impacts every area of your life and takes a really, really long time to recover.
Speaker A:So I think it's important to just take a minute to come back and re examine what some of the things are that contribute to burnout.
Speaker A:And I want to talk specifically about the stuff that is not to do with your work environment.
Speaker A:So first and foremost, burnout is largely a problem of the organization.
Speaker A:It is a problem of management styles.
Speaker A:Poor leadership, poor management, lack of communication, not rewarding staff, expecting too much from people under resourcing, people, undervaluing people, not having appropriate grievance systems in place or appropriate systems or reporting structures where people can go to somebody if they are really being put under too much pressure, if there is too much expectation put on them and they can't effectively do their job with the resources and in the time that they're expected to.
Speaker A:So there's all of these workplace situations, poor relationships, just unchecked bullying and unfairness, favoritism.
Speaker A:So these are all of the things that happen in workplaces that will contribute to your chronic stress and that can ultimately lead to you experiencing burnout.
Speaker A:I am not for one minute saying that if you're experiencing burnout, if you are struggling, if you're experiencing chronic stress in your workplace, that this is all a you problem.
Speaker A:Not for one minute.
Speaker A:Please don't interpret me the wrong way.
Speaker A:What I am saying, what I do want to say is that I think it is important for all of us to be really cognizant of the kinds of personality traits and the kinds of patterns and behaviors that we as individuals might fall into, you know, to our own detriment.
Speaker A:That's the kind of stuff that I want to talk about today.
Speaker A:So having just established that there are a lot of issues to do with the organization and the workplace that are going to be the major causes of burnout as an individual having unrealistic expectations.
Speaker A:Now, the organization might have unrealistic expectations.
Speaker A:Absolutely, that might be the case.
Speaker A:But what about you and your expectations?
Speaker A:Are you constantly trying to meet impossible standards that you set for yourself?
Speaker A:So this is the kind of stuff that I want you really reflecting on.
Speaker A:If you are feeling really overly stressed, you might not be at the point of burnout just yet.
Speaker A:But if you're feeling really stressed at work, if you're feeling really stretched, really stretched too thin, these are the kinds of things I want you to start thinking about are you holding yourself to impossible standards that might look like not asking for help, knowing that you're going to struggle to meet a deadline, but feeling uncomfortable or not registering that maybe this is too much for you to do in this amount of time, or perhaps you want to bring in some extra recruits to help you to get this over the line.
Speaker A:And there are just some people, people particularly, who have more of that avoidant attachment style.
Speaker A:If you're a person who grew up in a family where you were emotionally very self reliant, if there wasn't much available nurturing for you, if you were kind of expected to just pull your socks up and get on with it and look after yourself and as a little one, then you may naturally have grown up with that kind of more of avoidant attachment style which is often characterized by this very fierce independence, very strong sense of self reliance, just doesn't even occur to you to ask for help.
Speaker A:You just do it all yourself.
Speaker A:And it's good to know that about yourself, right?
Speaker A:It's really good to know that about yourself because it could be to your own detriment and maybe you need to ask for help.
Speaker A:You know, it could be that you're really fully believe that you can get these three projects over the line in whatever ridiculous timeframe.
Speaker A:And actually maybe that's, you know, probably not gonna work unless it's at significant cost to you in terms of your work life balance, your sleep, your self care routines and things that you need to do for yourself to look after yourself and your wellbeing.
Speaker A:Perfectionism, if you're a perfectionist now, perfectionism, don't get me wrong, if you hold yourself to a high standard and you really got meticulous attention to Europe, dot the I's, cross the T's, like I love that, I love that for you, I love that about you.
Speaker A:We've got to be considering the impact of overthinking.
Speaker A:Constantly double checking, constantly re reading, re going over, making tweaks, making little changes, constantly feeling like something is not quite up to scratch, never resting, because there's always more to do.
Speaker A:That kind of maladaptive perfectionism is going to take you straight to chronic stress and burnout.
Speaker A:Maladaptive, unhealthy perfectionism is exactly what it, what it says.
Speaker A:It is unhealthy and unhelpful to you.
Speaker A:Now there is a big difference between a perfectionism that is a striving for excellence.
Speaker A:I want to really do a good job, but also not having my sense of self worth attached to the outcome that I achieve, not being completely shattered by not producing something that's perfect, because you know that you gave it your all and you did your best, and there is no such thing as perfect.
Speaker A:The unhealthy kind of perfectionism is more driven by a fear of being judged or criticized or rejected, or an internal belief that you are not good enough, that nothing that you do is good enough, and that therefore you feel it in your gut, right?
Speaker A:You'll feel it as an anxiety, this needing to overthink, double check, reread, redo, tweak, edit, think about things long past when you should be, you know, going home and still thinking about things.
Speaker A:That kind of overthinking perfectionism, it's time wasting, it's energy wasting, it's emotionally taxing and it's unnecessary.
Speaker A:So that might be something to think about if you recognise that in yourself.
Speaker A:Being a people pleaser, having poor boundaries, having difficulty saying no.
Speaker A:It's one thing to say that the organization shouldn't be asking you to do this extra stuff, but when somebody does, if somebody does ask you what your workload's like, can you take this on?
Speaker A:Do you have the capacity, if your instinct is to say yes, even though maybe that's going to cause you to be really, really stretched, but you're not comfortable to say no, and you just want to do a good job and you just want to make people happy, or you're thinking about, oh well, who else is going to do it because they're all overstretched.
Speaker A:So I'll take it on.
Speaker A:Sacrificing your own physical health, mental health, work life balance, in order to take something on and say yes, because you're so concerned about everybody else's workload that they're all so busy they can't handle it, I've got to do it.
Speaker A:And genuinely taking that responsibility on yourself when it may not necessarily be expected of you.
Speaker A:Again, this all comes back to, like on the inside.
Speaker A:How much do you believe your needs matter, your work life balance matters, you having a manageable workload because your needs are as important as everybody else's.
Speaker A:And I'm not suggesting that you prioritize your needs over everybody else's, but that you give your own needs as much consideration as other people's.
Speaker A:If you are taking on things and saying yes to things because you're concerned about what other people are dealing with.
Speaker A:Another big contributor which has been identified is a misalignment with values.
Speaker A:If what you're doing feels really out of sync with what matters to you, your personal values, the things that are just important to you in life, if your work, whether it's just the organization, whether it's what you're being asked to do, the whole career potentially might just be not a good fit for you.
Speaker A:And maybe you've gone down this path and it's not the thing for you.
Speaker A:Like, it is not what makes you happy.
Speaker A:It doesn't tap into your skills, it doesn't feel good for you, it doesn't give you any opportunity for growth.
Speaker A:It just doesn't feel right for you.
Speaker A:And it might be worth taking a step back to reconsider what you might do instead.
Speaker A:Now, that's a tricky one.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Because that can feel really hard to just up and go in a different direction can feel really challenging if there are financial considerations.
Speaker A:You know, just the whole.
Speaker A:If it involves retraining or making a big change, if you've been doing something for a long time can feel difficult.
Speaker A:Sometimes it can feel impossible.
Speaker A:But I think having the willingness, giving yourself permission to open your mind to the possibilities, to give some consideration to what it might be if you were to do something different.
Speaker A:You don't know what's around the corner.
Speaker A:Anything can happen around the corner.
Speaker A:I've met so many people, even in my own life where you might think that something is an impossibility, that it could never happen.
Speaker A:And lo and behold, things change in an instant.
Speaker A:So it's worth giving some consideration to what else you might do that might be more a good fit for you if you're experiencing chronic stress because what you're doing is really not a good fit for you.
Speaker A:Now getting back to that perfectionism and people pleasing, broadly imposter syndrome.
Speaker A:Now, we all know that I run a course, I've written an audiobook, talked a lot about imposter syndrome over the last few years.
Speaker A:And imposter syndrome is a pervasive belief, persistent and pervasive belief, that you are not as smart and capable, intelligent as other people believe you are, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Speaker A:And when you internally don't believe that you're as smart as other people think you are.
Speaker A:When you feel like you are a fraud, fraud.
Speaker A:Other people are saying that you're good at this, but you don't actually think that you're that good at this, that leads to overworking, over functioning, trying to prove yourself because you feel like all these people think you're so good.
Speaker A:So you've got to work like twice as hard, do twice as much, put in that much more effort in order to, for them to continue believing that you're that good.
Speaker A:You haven't registered that actually what you're doing already or what you just showing up and doing what you do is enough.
Speaker A:Now this is especially a trap.
Speaker A:If you have been overworking and over functioning, being a perfectionist, overthinking.
Speaker A:And people as a result think that you are like really good at what you do and they give you feedback.
Speaker A:And in your mind it's like, well, that's only because I have to work 10 times as hard as everybody else.
Speaker A:And because I do all this overthinking and perfecting and working late and, and stressing and not sleeping, like, because I put all of this extra effort in, that's the reason that I get those results.
Speaker A:And therefore that's what I have to keep doing.
Speaker A:And you don't give yourself the opportunity to have a different experience, to do something different and to get some different feedback.
Speaker A:Imposter syndrome will cause burnout 100%.
Speaker A:And you may have already experienced that yourself.
Speaker A:You may have experienced burnout and you know that it's the imposter syndrome.
Speaker A:It's this drive to have to do more, be more.
Speaker A:The constant stress of feeling like you're not enough, never feeling satisfied, and never really internalizing positive feedback results.
Speaker A:Achievement, success.
Speaker A:You can have all the degrees in the world and get all the promotions in the world.
Speaker A:You can get all the awards and the accolades in the world.
Speaker A:But on the inside, if you don't believe that you are deserving of that, if you've constantly got an excuse that you just got lucky, that you just were at the right place at the right time, or that you had to just work 10 times as hard as everybody else.
Speaker A:All of the stories that you tell yourself about why people think that or why you got those achievements means that you can't rely on that.
Speaker A:Like you don't actually ever cultivate that really solid, grounded, stable belief in your own inherent intelligence, capability, knowledge, expertise.
Speaker A:So when you've got imposter syndrome, remember also that apart from a lot of the early childhood stuff, a lot of the feelings of unworthiness, blah, blah, we can we talk about that in my program, it's opening in July.
Speaker A:Apart from all of that, there is these stories, there are these stories that you create in your mind about what you need to do or be in order to be competent.
Speaker A:Really faulty rules that you are running in your own head.
Speaker A:It's like I, to be considered an expert on this topic, I have to know everything that's ever been written or published on this topic.
Speaker A:Otherwise I'm a fraud.
Speaker A:Otherwise who am I to be talking about this topic?
Speaker A:It could be that I have to do everything perfectly all the time.
Speaker A:It could be that I have to do everything on my own.
Speaker A:And so you, you may not even be consciously aware, but you're running this story in your mind.
Speaker A:You're following this rule about what you think you need to do or who you need to be, or what you need to achieve, or how much you need to know, or what training or qualification you need to get, what results you need to be getting in order for you to feel worthy, in order for you to feel good enough.
Speaker A:And so it's this, what Brene Brown calls hustling for your worthiness.
Speaker A:All right, this hustling, even if you're not physically doing, it's the, in your mind, the low grade stress and anxiety that is always there, this agitation, restlessness, this feeling that I'm not doing enough, I need to be doing more, that is going to cause you to burn out all of that stuff.
Speaker A:You can work on that because that's got nothing to do with the organization and the job requirements.
Speaker A:That's all to do with your internal programming, your inner world, thoughts, feelings, sensations, reactive patterns, behaviors, all that old programming, conditioning.
Speaker A:So that's something that you can look at yourself, that can make an enormous difference.
Speaker A:And the other thing I want to add on here, as somebody who was recently diagnosed with adhd, is that I now recognize, I know many people now recognize undiagnosed neurodivergence, whether it's autism or adhd.
Speaker A:Many people are realizing that the symptoms of that, I mean, whether you have a diagnosis or not doesn't matter.
Speaker A:But some of the traits of those conditions just make you an absolute prime candidate for burnout.
Speaker A:So with adhd, for example, there is a difficulty following through on a project in any kind of logical sequential order with consideration of the time frame required to get the thing done.
Speaker A:Like that doesn't work in the head of somebody with adhd.
Speaker A:In the ADHD brain, there are only two times.
Speaker A:There is now and there's not now.
Speaker A:I'm either doing it now or it's later.
Speaker A:And later is not fixed.
Speaker A:Later is just I'm kicking it down the road, like I'm just kicking the can down.
Speaker A:And I all I know is that the deadline is not for another six weeks.
Speaker A:So I know it sounds like it's just an organizational problem, but I promise you it's not.
Speaker A:It is a fundamental inability to be able to take action on A task or a project if it doesn't need to be done right now.
Speaker A:This is why there's all of this procrastination.
Speaker A:It looks like procrastination and doing all of these other things instead of the actual thing that needs to be done until it gets too urgent, like actual panic stations.
Speaker A:Urgent.
Speaker A:Adrenaline fueled.
Speaker A:We use adrenaline to get moving because we lack dopamine.
Speaker A:Most people use dopamine to feel good, for making progress, taking action.
Speaker A:Dopamine.
Speaker A:No, we don't get that, got no dopamine.
Speaker A:So we rely on the adrenaline to pull the all nighter to get the thing done.
Speaker A:Now that's highly stressful, highly stressful.
Speaker A:And every single time we say we won't do that again.
Speaker A:And also you feel shit because you know how much better a job you could have done had you put more time in, had you planned ahead, used your time well.
Speaker A:So there's loads of self criticism about that, there's loads of shame about that.
Speaker A:And there is just the stress of that kind of adrenaline fueled activity that is flooding your body with cortisol and stress hormones.
Speaker A:So the thing about the time blindness, when I say now and not now, it's that now.
Speaker A:If it's now, it's not that I have no attention, it's that I have loads of attention, but I've got 16 things in front of me and there is no ability to prioritize those into what is important and what is urgent and what can wait.
Speaker A:It's if it's in front of me, it gets my attention.
Speaker A:So therefore something's in front of me, it gets my attention.
Speaker A:But as soon as something else is in front of me, then that gets my attention.
Speaker A:As soon as something else is in front of me, that gets my attention.
Speaker A:So it's this scattered mess of attention on everything all at once.
Speaker A:It's not a attention deficit.
Speaker A:That is the biggest misconception.
Speaker A:There is no deficit of attention in adhd.
Speaker A:There is disorganized attention, there is disregulated attention.
Speaker A:It's too much attention on too many things all at once and not necessarily the important things.
Speaker A:And no capacity to put aside the other things and not give them your attention.
Speaker A:And when everything needs to be done now, that can also lead to crushing paralysis, don't know what to start on first.
Speaker A:And so therefore I'm just spinning my wheels.
Speaker A:And again, all of that comes with the self talk, self criticism, self judgment, just feeling incompetent, unproductive, ineffective.
Speaker A:And it's nothing to do with intelligence.
Speaker A:It's nothing to do with competence, it's nothing to do with capability.
Speaker A:It is all about a executive dysfunction, inability to prioritize and organize and do things sequentially and focus on the thing that needs to be focused on.
Speaker A:Now I don't know enough about autism to be able to talk about it specifically, but I do know that autistic masking the effort that people have to go to to manage themselves in a workplace, if they have an autism spectrum disorder, that can also lead to burnout.
Speaker A:And burnout rates are actually quite high in people with autism, and particularly undiagnosed autism.
Speaker A:So on that I think that's just really helps to understand what those conditions are, how they can affect you.
Speaker A:If you think it's you, maybe it's not you, but if you think that that could be you, if you think it's worth getting a diagnosis, looking at strategies, whether you want to try medication or not, having an ADHD coach, somebody who can, who really understands how that impacts you, can be super, super beneficial not just for your ability to be organized and get stuff done, but for yourself worth, like just for your sense of your own self confidence, your own self belief, just knowing that about yourself and understanding it's not you, it's not a weakness, it's not a character flaw, it's just that your brain is wired a little bit differently.
Speaker A:So I think that's really worth noting.
Speaker A:And I tell you what, since being diagnosed myself and having run an imposter syndrome course for the last few years, I will definitely be having to make updates to the course and to the curriculum to make sure that this is really covered as part of it.
Speaker A:Because I reckon there's a lot of people presenting with imposter syndrome really struggling with self confidence, really struggling with burnout, the perfectionism, the, the pleasing, all of the rest of it, who probably have got an undiagnosed neurodivergence.
Speaker A:Now the other one last thing that I want to say is sometimes it is not that with burnout that you have a massive big workload or you're in a really toxic work environment, really crappy relationships, bad boss, whatever.
Speaker A:The thing is that would be maybe what you would consider to be the contributing factors to chronic stress and burnout in the workplace.
Speaker A:Sometimes it really just is a long standing, low grade stress that can be caused by having the kind of personality or having the kind of conditioning from your childhood that makes it really difficult for you to relax.
Speaker A:If you are the kind of person who, even when you're not working, you struggle to rest, that you feel Guilty, sitting down, taking a break, you always feel like you need to be doing.
Speaker A:Even when you go on a holiday, you still never really relax because you are one of those people that's kind of always hypervigilant, that you're always on activated nervous system.
Speaker A:And that could be to do with early trauma, probably combination of personality and environment.
Speaker A:I don't know your personal story, but if that tends to be your nature, then you are probably a candidate for the kind of chronic stress that leads to burnout.
Speaker A:So again, it's really important to know that about yourself because you might be thinking, why am I, what have I got to complain about?
Speaker A:Like, I'm not under enormous stress, like my job's okay, I'm not working all hours of the night.
Speaker A:Like, you might think that you're not a candidate for burnout because you're not in that really high pressure, really toxic environment.
Speaker A:Maybe you're not.
Speaker A:Maybe it is actually the result of just a long standing inability to properly rest and take care of yourself.
Speaker A:And so you're always on, always overthinking.
Speaker A:You probably got a bit of that perfectionism, you got a bit of that constant busyness, got a bit of that just the doing all of the things for all of the people.
Speaker A:But maybe it really is just that feeling guilty for resting.
Speaker A:I think that's a real key.
Speaker A:If you feel uncomfortable being still and just giving yourself a break, then that's gonna do you in in the long term.
Speaker A:So I would really encourage you to consider maybe talking to somebody, talking to a coach, talking to a therapist, doing some mindfulness, learning some self compassion, really, really diving into those tools around slowing down, tuning into your body and noticing the stories you're telling yourself, having the tools and the skills to be able to unhook from the story and give yourself what you really need and be willing to give yourself what you need.
Speaker A:The rest, the compassion, just give yourself a break, basically.
Speaker A:So that's it, guys.
Speaker A:This has gone on for longer than I expected, but I really just wanted to touch on some of those personal qualities, those personal traits that may be contributing to you being more likely to suffer from burnout.
Speaker A:Regardless of whatever's going on in the organization, in the workplace, there's always going to be stuff outside of you that you don't have control over.
Speaker A:But I think if you can take care of yourself and take care of, you know, really look at what your own patterns are and where you might be contributing, it may also be that you are making false interpretations about what you can do.
Speaker A:You might Think this is all a workplace issue.
Speaker A:There's nothing that can be done, when in fact you haven't bothered to ask.
Speaker A:You haven't gone looking for a solution because of your mindset, because of your predetermined ideas and you're just believing the stories that you tell yourself that nothing can be done.
Speaker A:Just reminded me one other thing.
Speaker A:Just throw this in at the end.
Speaker A:When you experience stress, remember this.
Speaker A:This is really important.
Speaker A:When you are experiencing stress, you interpret neutral faces as hostile.
Speaker A:When you experience stress, you see the world differently from how the world is.
Speaker A:What you hear is different.
Speaker A:You are more tuned into low level kind of rumbling sounds because back on the savannah when you were a hunter gatherer, you had to tune into the sound of potential herds of wild animals coming or warring tribes coming.
Speaker A:When you are stressed or you go into hyper vigilance, hyper alertness, you are looking for signs of rejection.
Speaker A:If you've got an anxious attachment, you're going to be hypersensitive to any perceived criticism or judgment, negativity or rejection.
Speaker A:Like I said, so we talked about avoidant personalities, not asking for help.
Speaker A:Anxious attachment.
Speaker A:These are the people who are hyper alert to criticism and judgment and negativity.
Speaker A:Even if it doesn't exist.
Speaker A:That is going to cause you to be stressed.
Speaker A:That is going to contribute to your burnout.
Speaker A:Anyway, what I was talking about was if you are in a situation where you have been feeling stressed, it's really important for you to know, I need you to hear this.
Speaker A:It's really important for you to understand that you are not seeing the world the way it is.
Speaker A:You are interpreting things as more negative, more dangerous, more hostile than what they actually are.
Speaker A:And you're making your judgments and your decisions based on your perception of what's going on.
Speaker A:And I'm not saying that your workplace isn't shitty, because maybe it is, but it's also quite possible that you are making inaccurate judgments about what's actually happening and about who you can talk to and what you can ask for and the boundaries you can put in place and the time off that you can have.
Speaker A:If you're telling yourself that you can't, that would be impossible.
Speaker A:So something for you to think about.
Speaker A:I hope that's really helpful, given you something to consider.
Speaker A:As I said, if you think that you need to talk to somebody independently, look for a coach, look for a therapist.
Speaker A:I do zoom sessions and my program will open in July again, if anybody's interested in that, I'll put a link down in the show notes so that you can put your name on the wait list, but I'm not saying this to sell you my course, just presenting it as an option in case that is of interest.
Speaker A:Okay, you guys have a great rest of your week.
Speaker A:Hope this has been helpful.
Speaker A:I can't wait to catch you next week for another fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy.
