To burnout and back - a personal perspective on work-related burnout
In 2021, I suffered a work-related burnout – something I’ve been reluctant to talk about until now – which is perhaps not surprising, given the stigma that continues to exist around mental health conditions and those experiencing poor mental health.
No-one wants to admit that they’re struggling to cope at work – the associated shame and vulnerability, fear of what the organisational response might be, the lack of a ‘safe space’ where people can talk openly about what they’re experiencing without fear of judgement can leave them feeling like they have no choice but to stay silent, accept the increasing isolation, and carry on as best they can... until eventually it all becomes too much, and they reach burnout.
As Simon Cavicchia noted in a recent lecture for Animas, as human beings we need connection; we’re pre-conditioned to being and doing whatever we feel is needed in order to fit in. In organisational settings, this can lead to us constructing our idealised organisational persona – our ‘celebrated self’. It is the pursuit of this ‘celebrated self’, coupled with a lack of social, environmental, and contextual support that leads to burnout. I can totally relate…
For me, reaching the point of burnout marked the turning point at which I finally had to accept that my working life had become unsustainable and that I was paying too high a price in terms of my mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Whilst far from a pleasant experience, it taught me a lot - and without that experience and the learning that came out of it, it’s unlikely I’d be where I am today – both in terms of my career and my approach to life and work more generally.
The immediate aftermath of a work-related burnout is, in my experience, a slightly surreal place - to suddenly go from a place of total overwhelm and not being able to cope at work, to not having to engage with work at all. I felt completely drained and mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. Instinctively I knew that the first thing I had to do was to slow down and focus on restoring my health and well-being – although at that stage, I had no idea just how long that was going to take, and no real understanding of the extent to which my immune system had been compromised by prolonged exposure to high levels of unmanaged stress and anxiety. I also needed to understand what had happened to me, so I could start to make sense of it and figure out what I should (or shouldn’t) be doing to support my recovery.
Having drawn a blank with my employer’s EAP, I went on the search for books and other reading materials – avidly working my way through: Selina Barker – Burnt Out; Dr Catherine Buchan – The 5 Keys to Burnout Recovery and Dr Dina Glouberman – The Joy of Burnout, together with various online articles. I did receive some counselling support, although this was primarily focused on helping me recover sufficiently to be able to return to work.
It was primarily through the reading, reflection and journalling I did in the immediate aftermath of my burnout, that I was able to start to make sense of the complex mix of personality traits, life experiences, circumstances and events that had, over a prolonged period of time, culminated in me reaching breaking point.
By the time I went back to work, around 6 weeks later, I knew that this was no longer the right working environment for me and that I needed to focus on managing my energy levels and supporting my personal wellbeing, whilst getting my finances in order and starting to plan my exit.
In terms of what I was going to do next, at this point, I knew that:
I needed my work to be meaningful to me - I needed to be doing something I really believed in and for my work to have a positive impact on people and society, rather than just a financial impact
I needed to be doing something that I could see myself doing for the next 10 years+ of my life, with the ability to scale back my commitments if needed, as the years progressed
I needed to work autonomously and to be in control of when, where, and how I worked
I needed to feel more connected – both to others and to the natural world
I needed to be able to use my natural talents more through my work and to be able to be a more authentic version of myself
I needed to practice self-compassion and to recognise that it was going to take time for my body to fully recover from what it had been through
I’d been speculatively contemplating a career change for some time prior to burning out. Having spent 30+ years in the same broad area of work, I increasingly felt ready to do something completely different. In 2020, I’d started to actively explore a number of possible options and had started working with a coach again to give me some accountability, as I looked to create an actionable plan and a timeline I could commit to. However, the reality was I’d left it too late… as we headed into 2021, I increasingly lacked the capacity to do anything more than exist in survival mode at work.
When I finally left my corporate job, some 12 months on from burning out, I still felt very depleted and knew that my priority needed to be self-care – allowing myself sufficient time to relax, unwind, craft my new working identity, and rebuild my working life. By this point, I’d become increasingly drawn to the idea of a portfolio career, combining coaching, consultancy, and Pilates teaching, having started training as a Pilates teacher some 6 months previously.
Doing what you did previously but in the capacity of a consultant, rather than an employee, is very much a ‘tried and tested’ way of moving on from a corporate career and repackaging the knowledge and experience you’ve acquired along the way, whilst giving yourself more flexibility around your working hours and the types of clients you work with / projects you work on. So, initially this seemed like the obvious place for me to start on building my portfolio career. It was only once I started to construct the business proposition for a consultancy offering leveraging my previous corporate experience, that it became evident to me that my heart really wasn’t in it – there’s a big difference between embarking on something you’re capable of doing and something that you’re passionate about doing…
As a result, that plan was quickly abandoned and instead, I allowed myself to return to the arguably more challenging (but for me much more rewarding) area of coaching and to focus on bringing into existence the coaching practice I’d originally planned to set up when I qualified as a Transformational Coach back in 2018.
Whilst it’s still relatively early days in terms of building my coaching practice, I’m excited about my work and the potential it gives me to make a real difference to people’s lives, in a way that aligns with my values and meets my personal needs. Having now completed my Pilates training, I’m looking forward to being able to teach Pilates alongside my coaching practice, as a way of further supporting individual wellbeing and longevity.
“Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” Ralph Blum