How to overcome burnout

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

One of my favourite childhood movies, like many kids of my generation, was The Lion King. It was one of a few films that my cousins had on VHS and we would watch it on repeat, until we knew all of the words by heart. 

My favourite character was always Rafiki the monkey. That guy gives NO f**ks. He’s an incredibly wise shaman, a total oddball and an all-round good time who, on close examination, has a lot to tell us about life, work and leadership. (OK, that might be a step too far, but honestly – that monkey (mandrill, actually) knew what was going on.)

 In one memorable scene, Simba’s moping around all depressed and confused and decides to project a bit of his angst at Rafiki, who’s bouncing around annoying him. Amused and unfazed Rafiki hits him with:

 “I’m not the one who is confused. You’re the one who doesn’t even know who you are!” 

 Truth-bombs.

Since speaking out about my recent meltdown, and being inundated by personal, beautiful stories, I’ve sought to understand more about the risks and benefits of being open about potentially shameful aspects of our lives. I know for a fact that the version I’ve articulated to the world is still a glossy one, and the messages and emails I’ve received have made it clear that having a tough time is still shrouded in shame.

Suppressing your feelings will eat you alive

 As it turns out: all that suppression is extremely bad for us. Suppressing our emotions leads to having more negative feelings than if we’d expressed them, makes us more depressed, isolates us interpersonally and all around makes our life feel worse. And annoyingly: just because we don’t acknowledge our emotions or experiences, doesn’t mean they don’t show up! Our feelings impact our relationships, work, performance and behaviour, whether we realise it or not. There’s a few different theories about why that is, but the prevailing thesis is that when we suppress what’s really going on, we battle with a sense of internal inauthenticity.

 Yep. When we’re not ourselves, we fall to bits.

Now, we talk a big game about ‘authenticity’ these days. We tell people to bring their whole self to work, and we praise people who speak out and speak up. We know that genuine interactions at work strengthens our connections to each other and our jobs, make us happier and more productive, and reduces stress levels. But knowing that doesn’t make it easy. And while it would be easy to point the fingers at our bosses and colleagues, there’s a big part of this that’s an internal job.

Own your reality

Owning our reality – messy, disappointing, conflicting or otherwise – is work we do for ourselves, first and foremost. It’s one thing to accept ourselves and value who we are – but it’s another job entirely to admit what needs accepting in the first place.

I reckon a lot of us aren’t quite sure who we are, and what we’re about. We spend so much time crafting narratives for ourselves and the world about what our lives, values and goals are, that it’s easy to lose touch with our personal reality. The line between what we post on social media, how we talk to friends (“really good thanks, how are you?”) and what we know to be true starts to blur, and then we shrink and fade.

All this suppression and obfuscation makes life much harder than it has to be, because while we might still experience all the impacts of living out of alignment – a loss of purpose, sense of internal frustration, despair or apathy – we don’t get the benefits of being able to identify why.

 Really owning our sh*t is hard to do. It needs radical honesty – about the dark and the light – and deep interrogation. We need to work out why we’re like this, what we really want, what’s working and what’s broken in a way that isn’t guided by shoulds, musts and have-tos. 

 On the one hand, I can accept that this is a life’s work, and it’s never going to be done. But that’s no reason to stop trying. When we deeply understand ourselves, we’re taking steps toward building one of the most powerful tools we have in our arsenal against burnout and breakdown. 

 Fight burnout with authenticity

When we know what’s important to us, what our values are, what our interests are and what our boundaries look like, we can make decisions that are in alignment with those. By tackling the root cause of our inauthenticity, we can fight back against the internal conflict and tap into a deep well of passion for the things that really matter.

When we truly understand what we’re about, it becomes easier to care about our work – and to identify when we’re not fired up by it. We can spot situations that put us out of our personal moral code, and take action to stop it. We can put less effort into behaving the way others expect us to, with a renewed sense of confidence in our own conviction.

Because here’s the lightbulb moment I had last week: authenticity is not intrinsically valuable on it’s own. Authenticity without legs is just introspection. What it needs, to be useful is accountability.

Authenticity needs accountability

What’s the use in being authentically messed up, if we don’t use that as a catalyst to understand why and how we could shift it?

What’s the use in showing our deepest and darkest sides to anyone if we don’t intend to do anything about them?

Without accountability, authenticity is impotent. But when we combine the two, magic happens. When we add a dose of accountability, we start to take ownership of ourselves. We start to own our problems, our responsibilities, our goals and our behaviours, and that ownership opens doors to change and next steps.

Ask yourself hard questions 

So, if you’re falling to bits, or trying to come back together, try making some space for some bigger questions. They won’t have easy answers, and being honest with yourself and others is unlikely to be the easy path.

But it’s less work than remembering to be somebody else all the time, and even if you wind up broke and friendless for a while, you’ll definitely sleep easier.

I reckon that’s probably worth it. We’re alive for a long time. Let’s do a good job of it.