How to keep working as much you do now, keeping burnout at bay
As an executive coach, you know what it means to be always there for your clients. But since the pandemic exploded, you see yourself facing more and more challenges.
You have noticed that lunchtime was a luxury of the old days and that Saturday and Sundays are full of commitments. Your agenda has changed, as well as your life, and you know that you must be resilient and serene.
Daily, you join your clients in the journey of facing all sorts of problems and situations: from team members management to communications problems; from leadership capabilities building to tight budget management. You are a steady source where all your clients seek comfort. You are always ready for them; besides your expertise.
Lately, your agenda has been full of new and complicated scenarios — as well as your life — and you definitely feel the stress of not having enough clients.
Let’s face it. The truth is that all that hard work has taken a toll on you, and you began to notice some signals:
◈ crankiness some days,
◈ extreme fatigue others,
◈ lack of clarity and even lack of motivation (particularly those mornings that anticipated a full-day agenda)
◈ physical pains
◈ you find yourself thinking about work all the time (even when you are with your family),
◈ emotional instability
Everybody tells you that you need to relax, take a couple of days off and try to slow down somehow. They all recommend different things to do, different approaches. But nothing seems to really work!
The clock ticks. You know you cannot stop working, but you also know that it’s time to do something about the amount of stress you’ve been dealing with, and that’s been taking a toll on your health.
It goes like this: you get stressed; your family noticed it, you noticed it, but you cannot stop working. You decide to try some general “miraculous” advice — that you got from Social Media — which doesn’t work.
You keep getting stressed and now also disappointed, so you try another thing, this time something you read in a reputable book. But again, it doesn’t do the trick.
You need to find a way to cope with high doses of stress and maintain your daily activities without depleting yourself.
It is possible.
Let me tell you something.
You are not the only one who’s going through this. Over the past few months, many of my clients had the same sensation. I noticed there is a pattern here, a vicious circle that seems to have no end.
🔴 STOP! 🔴
If you keep on consuming general advice — you are getting nowhere!
Let’s take an example: The breathing exercises.
They work. Of course, they work!
But they are designed to work with your own body. If you don’t really know your mind and body's actual status, and you don’t adapt the breathing exercise to it, it won’t work!
Nevertheless, there is a way to solve the problem once and for all.
What if I tell you I can show you how to make the most out of that stress?
What if I tell you that the secret about stress is to understand it and also understand yourself?
Did you know that you can learn to use the stress to your benefit?
So instead of feeling depleted and anxious, you can feel energised and motivated!
Let me tell you: when you are overstressed, and you try methods that work for other people (like meditation or breathing exercises), you apply them in a general way, without the right knowledge about them. Or about you.
Therefore, they won’t work, and as a consequence, you will begin to create negative thoughts that eventually become behaviours.
What you need to understand and follow is the right process.
In fact, it is a four-step process, as follows:
1.To be connected with yourself.
2. Becoming friends with your stress
3. Creating your personalized mind-toolset
4. Applying a mind-toolset regularly to beat stress
Once you follow these steps, you will be ready to manage your stress.
Curious about how to do it?
Keep on reading.
🟥️ 1. To be connected with yourself — The Awareness Stage
Getting to know your present mindset and understanding your choices and actions is the first step. Your mind is there to protect you, so the stress signals you are getting are literally a cry for help.
Learn the language and understand the message. Knowing yourself is the magical key that will unlock all sorts of secrets for you.
Without awareness, you operate from a place of not authenticity.
Let me share with you an example. This is Sandra’s story (Sandra is a fictional name. I cannot disclose personal information related to my clients, but, with her consent, I can share her story, changing her name).
Sandra is a successful lawyer and co-founder of a company that emerged as one of the most promising in its niche. So, the more the clients and responsibility, the more the pressure and stress.
Sandra followed her friends' advice, which concurred with a “very enlightened book” she read (and I literally quote her here). So, she began to practice yoga, three times a week, one full hour each -including a meditation at the end of each class. She committed to it, waking up really early in the morning and doing it to the best of her ability.
But in the end, she ended up more stressed.
Why?
Because, between you and me, Sandra is a Type A personality. During the meditation, she was all the time thinking about the cases she needed to solve and the problems she needed to sort out with her colleagues. No “peace”, no “relaxation,” time but in the end, more stress.
The game-changer for Sandra arrived when she learnt how to prepare and calm down her nervous system in less than a minute, and then, how to concentrate on just one thing (instead of 20), with a straightforward exercise. In short: using the right tools for her, adapted to her needs.
You see, once you get to know the real you, you are ready for the second step.
🟥 2. Befriending your stress
Once you begin to be yourself, the puzzle starts to take shape.
Understanding the signals (and knocking the triggers) gives you the advantage of the knowledge and on that, you can take action.
Learning to read the signals relates to prevention to get caught in the same spiral never again.
Let me tell you about Mark. He was the main founder of a promising startup. He had heavy stress problems that included insomnia. He drank lots of coffee and stimulant beverages because he thought that was the solution to keep up with the hectic life he lived. At the same time, he refused to understand that his behaviour was unhealthy, so he simply denied having a problem.
What does this mean?
Well, he said to himself: “I don’t have any problem. I can manage to be awake all the time I need. It is just for a certain period of time, I’m creating something important, so it is justified. There is no problem here, whatsoever.” So, he kept on avoiding the problem.
Well, let me tell you: he ended up with a burnout case, in the hospital. He lost a couple of excellent investors, he couldn’t attend crucial meetings. Half of the business went out of the drain. He was lying in the bed in the hospital, doing nothing. Because of burnout doctors forbid him to work, forbidden to have access to any device or internet, even the visitor’s policy was really strict. So he couldn’t work nor see his family.
Only when he finally accepted what had happened, when he finally embraced his demons and stressors — many months later — only then he was able to rebuild his business sustainably, not putting at risk his health, nor his company.
Knowing what detonates your stress and how it manifests in your mind and body, puts you in the advanced position of choosing the right tools to help you cope and overcome the stressor.
Moreover: you will be able to use that energy to your benefit, regaining calm and focus.
🟥 3. Creating your personalized mind-toolset
Now is the time to have fun and to explore. The time for the research begins!
You will find different tools and will be able to adapt them to your personality and lifestyle. Testing, experimenting, creating.
It is important not to depend on one technique, but to create instead, a “personal toolbox” that you will use depending on the circumstances.
For example, your toolbox might be as follows:
✅ Breathing exercises
✅ Short Meditations
✅ Long Meditations
✅ Journaling
✅ Long Visualisations
✅ Short visual exercises
✅ Auditive exercises
✅ Writing exercises
✅ Cognitive exercises
✅ Present moment exercices
✅ Gestalt exercises
✅ Extras (like the Toffler’s safety zones)
Let me ask you: have you tried any of those?
How was the result?
Did you tailor them to your needs
or
just apply them as a general rule?
A client of mine, Gregory, was trying the left-nostril breathing technique for a month, with zero results (but for a momentarily “clear nose” sensation).
You see, Gregory was prone to imagine things with a certain form, he enjoyed visuals and structure (he is an engineer), so what he really did the trick was a visual exercise, and imaginary that led his mind wander and create but, at the same time, responded to a certain structured, always with a goal in mind.
And once you have created your mind-toolbox set, you need to practice and persevere.
🟥 4. Applying a mind-toolset regularly to beat stress
Consistency will be your best friend and patience your ally.
Without the relentless practical application of the knowledge you have acquired, there is no change possible.
You see, when Nicholas came for the first time to my consultation, he seemed to know it all. Well, he runs a successful company, and he is brilliant, no one can deny that. His levels of stress put his health at risk, and even though he knew a lot about techniques and methods to keep at bay stress, he seemed to have failed.
The truth is he didn’t have anyone to keep accountability, anyone willing to support his path and walk the talk.
Until he met me, he didn’t have anyone to share his experiences with, to tell you the truth.
He couldn’t talk with his partners or peers at work and wouldn’t jeopardise his business sharing with investors.
After work, the situation was the same: he wanted to protect his family. So he said nothing to his wife. On to his friends, it was a forbidden conversation with the ones who belong to his industry. And the other social circles simply couldn’t understand, so he wouldn’t even bother to try.
All these situations did nothing but increase stress and make him miserable and alone.
Working together helped him keep focus and take responsibility for “the new” practice. Because you see, we tend to embrace our habits, and this is why we perpetuate so many behaviours that might’ve come in handy once, but not any more.
So, at this point let’s recap. Now you know what you need to do in order to cope with the stress. Are you ready to apply this strategy to yourself?
Hi. My name is Maiten Panella. I’m a Business Psychologist and a psychotherapist, with more than 25 years of experience working with executives, business owners and entrepreneurs, like you.
I have lived and worked on three different continents and that experience showed me that even though we share lots of traits as human beings, each individual needs to be understood and respected in its uniqueness and wholeness.
My commitment is to help you find the methods and resources that fit your work life and enrich it, finding the best way to pivot when needed and creating space to enjoy the good times and victories. No stress invited to the table!
I’m sure you have heard a lot about “burnout” and you might wonder how stress is related to it. If you are curious, please join my Business Therapy E-Zine and I will send you the special “Stress vs Burnout” PDF.
This short document will explain the difference between them and provide some possible solutions and resources you can implement, right away.
Plus, every week, you will get totally free stories where you can learn how to be aware, befriend your stress, create and use the toolbox, and commit to your true new life changes.
Hope to see you on the other side!
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