Running on Empty: Bouncing Back from Burnout

Key Takeaways

Do you feel like you just woke up one day and felt burnt out or did it happen slowly? What what did that feel like for you? What was the process? Yeah. No, I didn't wake up one day and feel burnt out. If we are talking about kind of the true condition of burnout, I liken it to the frog in the boiling pot of water. Right? You're in it and it's getting a little bit warmer, but you can still take the heat. and it's getting a little bit warmer, but you can still take the heat until one day you can't take the heat. I pushed so far and so hard that there was a moment where like one morning I woke up and I was like, "Okay, I'm I I'm alive. I could get up out of bed. I can make coffee." But I just lost the ability to really engage in life or work in in any meaningful way. But there were so many signs along the [Music] way. Let's be honest, when it comes to a thriving career, we're all still figuring it out. Welcome to the Still at Work podcast. I'm Kim Taylor, head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Corsera. And as a Corsairian, I believe self-improvement is a constant journey. But while we're on that journey, we often have more questions than answers. This is a show where we discuss some of those questions submitted by you, the listener. Join us as we uncover insights and advice about how to navigate the workplace together. Let's get to work. [Music] Hello learners. I'm so excited to kick us off and welcome our very first guest on the show, Jen Fischer. Why Jen? Well, she is a foremost expert in well-being. She literally wrote the book on it. It's called work better together. How to cultivate strong relationships to maximize well-being and boost bottom lines. Each week, we'll focus on a different topic and question, but I wanted to start with Jen because her story of perseverance is packed with lessons. Today's topic is burnout. And I believe our question will resonate with many of you. So, listen closely. So, I've been feeling burnt out lately, but I'm afraid to bring it up to my manager. What are some ways to recognize burnout and address it before it gets [Music] worse? After a long career with Deote, Jen became burnt out. She didn't see it at first, but her manager and mentor brought it up and helped her figure out what she needed to overcome it. Now, Jen's made well-being her mission. Through her own story, she'll explain how to prevent, spot, and deal with burnout. I was delight's first chief well-being officer, and that wasn't my only role at Deote. I was at the organization for 23 years. I started at the organization in marketing uh because that was, you know, my degree out of college and, you know, had many many roles in deote. I went on to kind of be the the chief of staff to our chief operating officer who then became the CEO of the organization. And this is where we get to the topic of today's of today's uh uh podcast is that after coming out of that role um I went back into marketing. And the truth of that is that I was I was coming out of that role and I was really in a complete state of burnout. And so I went back into marketing to work for our chief marketing officer at the time and she was the one um you know many people had pointed it out to me and we can get into kind of what burnout looks like etc and the details of the story. Many people had pointed it out to me but she was really the one who sat me down and was like Jen you've given so much to this organization so much the roles that you've had. Um you need to take some time off. Um, and this is 10 years ago when we weren't talking about burnout in in the workplace the way that we are now. And so I really didn't know what I was going through. I knew I was struggling, but I, you know, I didn't know what it was or how to fix it or how to ask for help. And so I did take that leave of absence to focus primarily on my mental health, but I my physical health was struggling also. Do you feel like you just woke up one day and felt burnt out or did it happen slowly? What did that feel like for you? Such an important question. Um and and so no, I didn't wake up one day and feel burnt out. If we are talking about kind of the true condition of burnout, I liken it to the frog in the boiling pot of water, right? It's like you you you're you're in it and it's getting a little bit warmer, but you can still take the heat. and it's getting a little bit warmer, but you can still take the heat until one day you can't take the heat. I pushed so far and so hard that there was a moment where like one morning I woke up and I was like, "Okay, I'm I I'm alive, but I can't I can't function. Like, I can't keep going at this pace. I could get up out of bed. I can make coffee, but I just lost the ability to really engage in life or work in in any meaningful [Music] way. Sometimes it's hard to recognize burnout, especially when we're in the thick of it. So, I asked Jen for specific signs we can watch out for if we think we might be getting burnt out place. You know, if I was having a good day at work, I was doing I was great. I was all the way up. if I if somebody said something the slightest thing, it tanked me and like I was on the floor and couldn't get out of it for three, four, five days, right? And so like are you unable to kind of manage your emotions, you know? Okay, so things that you could look for, you know, have you tried to, you know, take some time off and really disconnect from work to get that rest and recovery? And were you able to feel refreshed and go back to work? Right? If the answer is yes, then you may have just been experiencing a period of exhaustion. If the answer is no, then that means that it's something more. How are your relationships? I think where it shows up most is in our in the relationships with our loved ones, right? At home or with our friends, right? Are you are you distancing yourself from the things and the people that you used to really enjoy because you don't feel like you have the capacity or the energy and you rather just sit on the couch and do nothing. For me, my relationship with food also changed, right? And so, you can look at those types of things. Are you overeating? Are you undereating? Jen and I also want to urge our listeners to seek out a mental health professional if you think you might be experiencing burnout. You don't have to go through this alone. Back to Jen's time at Deote. When Jen returned to work after her break, she was ready to resign. She planned to focus more on health and well-being, and that role just didn't exist at Deote. But the same leader that told her she needed a break asked, "Why can't we make it exist?" And so she created that space for me to, you know, put together a business case and really think through what wellbeing at Deote could and should look like. And that's really how I started down the path of becoming Deote's first ever chief well-being officer. Um and that's what I've really focused the last decade of my career on is you know helping others in the workforce at Deote and beyond. My work now is like okay yes self-care is really important and working for organizations that provide you know the opportunities and the tools and resources for you to take care of yourself is really important. It's foundational. But there's an and because you can't self-care your way out of, you know, bad work environments or work environments that are creating bad mental health or or burnout outcomes. And so we have to change our behaviors, but from a workplace and leadership perspective, we can't just leave it up to the individual. We need to really start looking at what are those systemic what are the what what are the ways of working that are creating so much exhaustion and so much burnout for people. Okay, remember the question from the beginning? In our scenario, someone is afraid to bring up burnout to their manager. So to try and figure that part out, I asked Jen, how can this person advocate for themselves and how can any manager who's listening create an environment where people feel more comfortable coming to them for help? I do think that it's really important that we find the courage to have these conversations with our with our leaders and our managers because if chances are if you're struggling, there's other people on your team that are too, which is a big responsibility to huge and kind of astounding, right? And so chances are your manager, it's not that they're not a good person or that they hate you or they're trying to hurt you. Um, but they might be struggling also. So if you and some teammates can go to the manager and say, "Hey, this is what we're experiencing." And we have some ideas about how we can change it to make it better for the collective team, you might find that the manager is like, "Oh, thank goodness." because the manager is probably feeling some of those same feelings and emotions and they also don't have the capacity to fix it. I think those I think those transparent conversations also help to ease some of that tension. Um, I know for for myself personally, I experienced a a manager at one point in my life who would put on their calendar time that they would take away to um devote to therapy. Um, and I that was a breath of fresh air for me. So much so that I started doing it. So when I had my therapy sessions, you know, bi-weekly, I put it on my calendar and what do you know? One of my direct reports came to me and said, you know, it's so awesome that you do that and you let us see that you're taking away time for mental health and you know, you put it out there for everyone to see and they started doing it. I know that you've written about work life integration versus work life balance. You know, just hoping that you can sort of explain that and and pull those concepts all together to help this listener understand how they can uh balance their workload. Yeah. So what we know from the research is that workload right now is the number one driver of you know poor health and well-being outcomes in the workplace. If you're feeling overwhelmed with your workload, um I think the first thing to do is really, and I know when you're feeling overwhelmed with workload, the last thing you have is time, but carving out some time to really understand kind of doing, you know, a time audit, like how are you spending your time and is that time being spent in a way that's valuable? I love that. A time audit. I love that. How are you truly spending your time? And is it is it effective? Is it, you know, is it helping you get your work done? Are you wasting too much time? Are you saying yes to things that you should be saying no to or that you would prefer to say no to, but you just don't know how or don't feel like you can? Because a lot of times what I find when people come to me and they're like, "How do I talk to my manager?" um is that it's not it that what's creating kind of this overwhelm is in many cases a lack of clarity, right? And so everything's been dumped on my plate and I believe it all has to get done ASAP, but the manager who was just moving it primarily from their plate to my plate to help them get it done. Not bec again not because the manager is a bad person but because there wasn't a real conversation or there wasn't a lot of discussion or clarity provided around hey we need to get this done but it's not urgent so like you know can you get it done within the next 3 or 4 weeks right and so I think that that's also a lesson learned when somebody asks you to do something if they don't give you context and kind of timeline don't make the assumption that it needs to get done right away. Write back. Ask the question if it's through email or if it's, you know, conversation. Ask the question, you know, when does this need to be done by or said differently, I think I can get this to you by next Wednesday. Is that going to be okay for you? And if the person says, no, I need it tomorrow. Then that opens the door for you to say, well, these are the five other things that I have to get done by tomorrow. would you help me prioritize where this fits in because I can't get all of them? Yeah. Right. And so it's those types of conversations that weirdly and unfortunately are missing. They are from the workplace, right? And really simple when you think about it. It's very simple. Um but they these are the hard it seems to be the hardest conversation to have. Um but it's very simple. Yeah. I mean these are ways to advocate for yourself. These are ways to set boundaries. I hear a big call to you know to managers and leaders um to you know establish a culture of clear communication respecting and setting you know boundaries that humanto human interaction and I and I feel like you speak from experience being you know the first uh chief well-being officer at Deote. Okay. I'm about to share something personal. Jen and I are both cancer survivors and it's changed the way we think about work. There's something that I just wanted to um recognize as um that you're a cancer survivor. Um congratulations. Um I too am a cancer survivor. Um and um you know one of the questions that has come up is around you know what are the myths or misconceptions that maybe you hear or tired of hearing around like mental health and work life balance. I know when I was going through my journey um of cancer um and really I say my journey of chemotherapy because that's the thing that really you know knocked me down. Um I remember wanting to work and you mentioned something about this like earlier on where sometimes you know people feel like well if you get burnt out you don't want to work anymore. There are some of us who like will throw themselves like head first into work um to sort of like distract, you know, from other things. But for some people, um and I'd like to include myself in that group. Sometimes work is actually therapeutic for me because it's something that I know and I can do and I know what I'm doing and I feel good, right? I can control it. That's it. And so when I um when I um was going through my journey, um I worked every other week throughout my six months period of um chemotherapy. I felt strong enough. I'd go into the office and I'd work and it helped me. Um I know that's not the case for everyone and I and I don't recommend to anyone who's going through that, you know, to say that I need to throw myself into that, but for me um that helped me and my mental health. Um, are there any myths or myth misconceptions that you hear often? Um, or any perspectives that you want to debunk or anything you're just tired of hearing when it comes to burnout, you know, mental health and how we integrate work and life and and make it all come together. Yeah. Well, number one, I'm glad that you're healthy and doing well. Um, and my story is not dissimilar to yours. I chose to continue to work and Deote was very accommodating with me in terms of of what that looked like. Um and and and I think what you're hitting on is so incredibly important because so much of what we hear right now, everything about work is broken. um and that everybody's burnt out and that everybody's struggling. Again, not to, you know, discredit or make light of that situation because it is absolutely real, but we know from Deote research that, you know, there is a good majority of the workforce that isn't struggling. They might not be all the way to thriving, but they're doing okay, I think. And so and so what is important is yes we need to focus on those that are struggling and understand why they're struggling so that we can move them from struggling to doing okay or to thriving. And so how do we do that? I think we do that by understanding what the people that are doing okay and thriving are doing. And so I don't I haven't yet been involved in that type of research. If anybody's listening that wants to help me do that research, my cancer journey was the reason I wanted to continue to work is because I found meaning and purpose in my work. And work should provide us some level of meaning and purpose. And that's why there's this big drive out there to really understand what is meaningful and purposeful work. And when you juxtapose that with AI and generative AI and is AI truly going to be able to um take on some of the work that human workers hate doing in order to free us up. um and to and and to get us out of time poverty to allow us to be more human and be more creative and do more purposeful and meaningful work I think is a really exciting you just excited I got goosebumps while you were saying that I'm like but that's not the narrative that we're hearing around generative AI right so like we need to change that narrative maybe you and I can work on that together let's do it. But the truth is is that there should be a lot of great things about work. Like doing meaningful work challenges you. Um it helps you grow. It helps you learn. Doing work with people that you enjoy being around helps you deepen your relationships and have human connection. you know, hopefully most of us get, you know, paid fairly for the work that we do and financial well-being is so critical to our physical well-being and our mental well-being and we do get paid for work and that was I mean that was it for me. Um, like during that journey, my my cancer chemo journey, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about yes, like I felt like I was in control, but in control of what? And then I realized like I was still earning. I was still finding, you know, value and purpose. And it it was more than one thing. It was more than just like showing up and working. It was, you know, having people to come in and talk to and not have to talk about being sick. Um, it was earning, you know, it was doing great work. Um, so all of this is true. I think we have to be intentional about thinking about what um helps us to thrive in the workplace. Um and I'd love we'll we'll have to connect on this because I think you're absolutely right. There is this there's a huge magnifying glass on everything that's wrong. But are we taking a look at the people who are thriving and who are doing well and they do exist and and what are they doing and how can we talk about that and help feed that over into the other spaces um where I think um others might need some support and some help. Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Jen. It's been amazing. I wish we had more time. Um, I encourage all of our listeners to check out Jen's book, Work Better Together. I think it's a wrap. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you are taking notes on Jen's ways to spot and address exhaustion and burnout. Here's some of mine. Let your managers and co-workers know how full your plate is. A culture of clear and respectful communication is so important. If you feel burnt out or exhaustion creeping in, try taking a short break. Remember, PTO exists for a reason. Make sure you're taking it regularly. Check in with your friends and family. They might know you better than you do. And of course, never hesitate to seek out a mental health professional. I also hope the end of our conversation sticks with you. In the right environment, work can be a joyful place full of purpose and connection. The future of work looks really bright and we're all still working towards it. Thank you all for joining me on this episode of Still at Work. And thanks especially to Jen for sharing her story and helping us work through [Music] burnout. Do you have questions about how to navigate your workplace and everything that goes along with that? We can help. Go to the form in our show description to submit your question. While you're there, please don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, Still at Work, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also rate and leave our show a review to help others find us. That's it for today's episode. We'll see you soon. [Music]