206. Is Your Success Actually Killing You? The Shocking Truth About Achievement and Burnout

🔗🔗Links for today’s episode:

• Book a quick call with Kathie: https://tidycal.com/kathie-owen/top-workplace-15minutes
• Links for Kathie: https://www.kathieowen.com/links
• Blog post for today with bonus links and content: https://www.kathieowen.com/blog/the-dark-side-of-burnout
  
  In today’s video, we discuss:
  Top 10 Signs of Burnout & How to Overcome Them | Burnout Breakthrough Series
  
  Welcome to my latest event where I discuss an important topic close to my heart—burnout. This session is all about understanding the signs of burnout, whether you're an individual or part of a team. 
  
  Starting with the importance of setting intentions, I aim to create a ripple effect of kindness and happiness in the workplace. I share personal experiences, highlight the significance of a holistic corporate wellness program, and delve into the various signs and symptoms of burnout. From sleep issues and brain fog to team dynamics and collaboration crashes, I cover it all. 
  
  Don't miss out on my Burnout Breakthrough series featuring expert guests who provide valuable insights and solutions. Join me in making wellness a priority and transforming our lives for the better. 
  
  Timestamps:
  00:00 Welcome and Setting Intentions
  01:13 Understanding Burnout: Personal Experiences
  01:59 Burnout Breakthrough Series
  03:22 Signs of Burnout
  03:42 Introduction and Background
  04:57 Top Signs of Burnout
  11:00 Team Burnout: Recognizing the Signs
  12:49 Addressing Burnout in the Workplace
  14:40 The Great Resignation and Burnout
  20:38 Personal Story: Recognition Rejection
  25:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Kathie: 0:00

Hi, welcome, welcome, welcome to my event. I'm going to start doing this on a regular basis because I have so much to share with y'all. I am so excited. And with every event, what I plan on doing is setting an intention first. And this is a great way to even just start your day. Start your day with setting an intention. So my intention for this is to help someone understand the signs of burnout. It's amazing how we don't pay attention to these things. When we don't pay attention to them, they have a ripple effect. So that's another intention that I'm setting is I want to start a ripple effect of Kindness in the workplace of happiness in your life because really and truly you are love, peace, bliss, happiness and success all round up into one. But we forget that and burnout can be a big reason why. Burnout is like, The little light in your car when you're driving along and it says check engine or change oil. I remember a time when I did not pay attention to this sign. Because when you don't pay attention to that sign telling you something's going on with your car. car. It will dry up, especially if it's the oil. It will dry up and then things won't work as well. And it's the same thing with burnout. If we don't pay attention to what it is, you will end up burning out, just fizzing. On my YouTube channel, I'm just about done with the 12 days of Christmas or the 12 days of December. We're doing burnout breakthrough. I've invited different experts to come on and talk about how they coach or deal with burnout. I had a leadership coach. I had hypnotists. I actually had three. Hypnotists, come on. That's not their main specialty except for one of them. And Leonard, his episode was released today and it was, it was so delightful talking to him. He is a world renowned hypnotist and he's actually does a comedy show and he helped me see that It happens all over the place. We're hypnotized at different things and different times, but we can use that to our advantage and it helps with burnout. With each guest, I had a breakthrough. With each one of them, they taught me something that I didn't know. And I invite you to check out those episodes. In the, comments below, I will include a link to the page that includes all the episodes, and each episode has a blog post that includes, all of the, resources in there. Bonus, bonus resources and more. But today we're talking about the signs of burnout. And like I said, I started this with the intention of helping someone to understand. Oh my gosh, I'm on the brink of burnout. So what do I do? So let's talk about the different signs of burnout either for you or for your team. Before I get into that, let me introduce myself in case you don't know who I am. My name is Kathie Owen. I am a corporate wellness consultant, I also teach other people, human resources directors, how to set up a corporate wellness program. A holistic corporate wellness program, because a holistic corporate wellness program embodies physical health and mental health. Across the board, both sides of the coin. And we want employees to be engaged in our programs. So I work with employee engagement, getting employees engaged in your, in your wellness programs. I also teach physical, health and wellness. I've been a personal trainer since 2002. I love the gym. That is my forte and my specialty, but I also coach on mental health and wellness and burnout is a big factor in corporate today. It's a big factor in our lives, but what happens is we're not aware of the signs. So that's what today is all about. So let's get to the first sign of burnout. You're not getting enough sleep. One of my Expertises is sleep and helping others get sleep So physical exercise can help when it feels like you're not getting enough sleep but one of the signs of burnout is you're getting enough sleep, but it feels like you're not getting enough rest and that can show up as chronic fatigue, and we'll discuss that a little bit more as we go through these signs. So number two sign, it is in an individual, is every day feels like a Monday. You have the Sunday scaries every night before you go to work. Yeah, this happened to me and I was like dreading going to work and that's not like me. I love what I do and it was happening because I was burnt out. And again, I'm going to tell you the major reason I was burnt out and what happened to make me understand that that was going on inside the workplace. So, number two sign is you have a problem. Feel like every day is a Monday. You have the Sunday scaries the night before. Number three is a foggy brain, I'll tell you one that hit me that was brain fog was I was driving along and I didn't even know where I was. But all of a sudden I didn't know where I was. I lost it. That is a sign of burnout. And just having brain fog in general, you can be working on a task and then you'll forget, what was I doing? Why was I doing that? That is a sign. Number four. A passion, flatline. You just don't feel like anything feels like it's even worth it anymore. And that happened to me. I loved what I did. I loved my job. But I wasn't passionate about it anymore because I felt like Things were off. Another sign of burnout is you've got emotional overload. You just feel like, Everything is way heavy. I mean, actually the definition of burnout is physical, mental, and emotional stress overload. So emotions just come and go. But they can get to a place when you're burned out that you're just feeling very, very emotional. And I want to go back to the beginning where I was talking about The ripple effect, because this ripple effect goes out to everyone. So if you're having emotional burnout, it's going to affect everyone in your life, including your dog. My dog is very sensitive to what I'm going through, and if he senses I'm stressed or I'm burnt out, he's letting me know, because he's like, hold on a minute, something's not right here. He's That's emotional overload. The next sign of burnout. It has to do with food. Either you're emotionally eating or stress eating, it's called, or you're not eating at all. When I hit major, major burnout, I wouldn't eat. I actually couldn't swallow food. I went on a water fast, but that was burnout. It was hitting me and it wasn't helpful because, I needed to be nourishing my body and my mind and I wasn't doing that. Number seven. Your social life, you feel like a zombie. You're just walking through it. This one really hit me hard and the way I noticed it was I wouldn't interact with people like I used to. I'm a social butterfly. I like talking to everybody but I was going into my shell because I was just so stressed and so burnt out that I wasn't talking to anybody and even my conversations were like, Flat lines, they were boring, they were, I just wouldn't contribute because I didn't feel like it. That was a sign of burnout. Number eight. You've got an invisible weight you're carrying around, a big bag of problems and you're thinking about it all the time. That's where the overwhelm comes from. It's like you're carrying around all of these problems and thinking that everything is so giant. In the book, Psycho Cybernetics, one of my favorite books, he talks about how, we make mountains out of molehills. And that is the biggest cause of ulcers, he says, is we're making mountains out of molehills. That's what this is. You get help for the burnout. When you get relief from the burnout, you start to realize, Oh my God, that was just a little molehill and I was making it out to be a mountain. I was carrying around this heavy weight. You don't need to do that. Number nine, energy drip. You don't have any energy. I was just so burnt out. Emotionally trying to climb that mountain. That was in my mind. It wasn't even there. It was It's an illusion and I just needed to put it into perspective. That's one way to overcome burnout. And number 10, you fantasize about running away from it all. You just go, Oh my God, I'm going to leave it all behind. I'm done with it, but that's not going to work either. What I like about my burnout breakthrough series is each guest had a story. an input on how to deal with all of these across the board, all of them. And it was very, very helpful. I've got to say. So when we come to team burnout, because remember I'm a corporate wellness consultant and my solution deals with burnout. That's what I solve. I solve burnout. Which is kind of ironic the fact that I had to go through burnout. And my burnout was really really bad. So stay till the end because I'm going to tell you what the icing on the cake was. But the first sign of team burnout is there's a collaboration crash. Okay? Your teams don't want to work together. People are saying, I'm not going to do this. This isn't my job. But they don't want to work together because they're burnt out and they're tired of each other. And there's conflict going on that hasn't been resolved. Number two, you've got people who come to meetings But they're a bunch of zombies. They don't contribute. They don't partake in the meeting. They don't want to have anything to do with it. And this is a sign that your, your team is in burnout. Number three. An energy vacuum. So no one wants to volunteer. No one wants to help. No one wants to contribute to what is going on inside the company or inside the team. They just don't want to contribute. And I would say a lot of this burnout happens because They've done so much and it's not rewarded or recognized. When you don't reward and recognize your team, you, you start to have these effects of burnout. So rewards and recognition is one of my big things inside my corporate wellness programs. When I'm talking about rewards, I'm not talking about putting a ticket into a bucket and giving a reward away. No, I'm talking about rewards for a job well done. Recognition for something that this team member. And that is going to shift that. You have to have a system in place that takes care of that. And that's what a corporate wellness program can do. Creativity freeze. There's no brainstorming, no innovation. Innovation gets shut down. So again, they're not going to contribute and they're not going to give input in there. Oh my gosh, number five sign of team burnout is conflict explosion. Conflicts go crazy. Remember the ripple effect I was talking about? What happens when you don't have a team? good team collaboration or team communication. You have the conflict explosion. Conflict resolution is something that needs to be taught inside company. It's because you're gonna have conflict, especially if you have a really good culture that's like a family. A family? Guess what? There's no such thing as a functional family. So, I always say that, but there's going to be conflict and we need to know how to resolve that and it can't be one sided. It can't be just the leaders of the company solving the conflict by pushing you into a box. I'm almost giving away my, my tip. Number six, the great resignation. I have been doing some research on the great resignation because I realized that burnout is one of the number one causes of resigning from a job. That's why I'm talking about this because when you have a really good corporate wellness program, You attract and you retain top talent. You don't lose top talent because they want to stay there. And the Great Resignation is actually what took place back in 2020 during the pandemic. People were quitting their jobs because of all of that dysfunction, all of that burnout that was happening. We all felt the effects of that. That was the Great Resignation. In 2020, four years later, we're finding out that it's happening more now today than in 2020. There's a Gallup poll that was released, I want to say about two months ago, that states that the people are resigning from jobs more so now than they did in 2020, the great resignation. People resigning is a sign from the team that they are burnt out. Alright. I like this one. Morale freefall. Laughs and smiles are rare visitors. Oh my gosh, this just happened in my department at my last company that I worked with, the last corporate job I had. But I'm on a mission to eliminate this. So nobody was having fun anymore in my department. I'm not talking bad about the company. That will never happen. You won't hear me say that. But I will talk bad about circumstances that happened because people were not having fun. And it was all of these signs of burnout. There was no team collaboration. People would go, I'm not doing that. That's not my job. When, yeah, it is your job. And people just were not having fun anymore. And then number eight, what is the fine default? So, you know, whenever you go, how are you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. They're not fine and that's another little issue that corporate wellness can help with because that's a communication issue. Whenever somebody's just telling you they're fine, first of all, you're not asking the right questions. And second of all, if somebody just says I'm fine, if you really want to know, you need to dig deeper. For example, one time I was in my manager's office and there were other people that needed things and I finished talking to her about what I needed and I left and as I was walking out the door, she turned and told this person that was standing there, what do you want? Just like that. What do you want? Well, that person needed something that had to do with work. But she wasn't going to ask her because when you ask like that, again, go back, I'm asking the wrong questions. What happens is, they're not going to talk. And that person needed something for work. Do you know what that person said to her? Oh, I just wanted to say good morning. And when you have no emotional awareness of what is going on inside your environment, which is what happened in that scenario. That's not okay. You're going to have people just going with the status quo and just following with whatever's the, the rules of the department. And that's not good. That's not good. But a corporate wellness program can solve this because we start to learn what emotional awareness is, how to ask questions, how to talk to people to get them to say more than I'm just fine. Because it, it depends on how you ask that question. How are you doing today? Of course, they're just going to say fine. Number nine, deadline doom. So projects are rushed or missed all together and there's no enthusiasm to catch up. Enthusiasm is a sign that there is burnout going on inside your department. Because people are not going to be enthusiastic about work when you're burnt out. And myself included, when I was burnt out, which just happened just recently. I wasn't enthusiastic. You heard me talking about that earlier in this episode. That I was like, My conversations were dull and boring and I actually didn't insert any personality whatsoever in them. I even talked about this on my YouTube channel. I was saying, before I left my corporate job, which was in September of this past year, I had to change the way I was talking on my channel because I was being, um, Stalked. I was being stalked. And I was trying to make a difference. But I had to change the way I was talking and it wasn't me. I was not authentic. I was not enthusiastic. And if you know me, you know that is not me. If you know me, you know I am like, when I'm passionate about something, which I'm passionate about corporate wellness and helping people get through burnout. My enthusiasm shines through. It's just going to happen because I'm coming from, like I started this. My intention is set. It starts with your intentions. Got that? Okay, cool. Cause guess what? We're going to number 10 and that's the one I said stay to the very end because I have a really good one for you. Number 10 is recognition rejection. Recognition. I already touched on this a little bit, but I'm really gonna hone in on this, alright? So, praise falls flat and there's no excitement or acknowledgement. So let me tell you a story. In September of this year, I had a charity awareness day which was set up just like a for the team. And I I worked so hard on this. I was so proud of what I achieved in this. Because, get this, what happened was, the Women's Center was one of the charities we had there. And the Women's Center was asking me what we did at the company because we have, you could tell we had a really good culture. There were great things going on inside here, but not in my department, but they couldn't sense that. But the people that they talked to, they knew we had a great culture. And so they said, what do y'all do here? And I told them and they said, well, we have teenagers in the women's center that are housed there because their moms are in the shelter. And we would like to bring them over here just to see what y'all do and, and give them an idea of what could happen in the future. And I thought this was the coolest thing. And I know our company had done this before in the past. We do it with the Chamber of Commerce. It wasn't a job fair. It was a place for these teens just to come see what a career could look like in their future. So not only would it help these teens, but it would help the team members because the team member could go, Look, I started in the warehouse. I was doing this, this, and this. Or I started in operations and now I'm doing this, this and this, you know, five years later, whatever. And in fact, the president of the company thought this was a great idea. I had told him, he was like, yeah, that's a great idea. Well, turn around and HR did not like it. And they told my manager to come tell me In a very degrading, very rude way. She comes out there and she tells me, Um, We don't host job fairs. We don't hire teenagers. It's against the law. And you, that is not your job. Instead of, Hey, thanks Kathie great job. We love what you did. The whole thing got burnt. Burnt. Burnt. It crashed and burned in flames. My whole career crashed and burned in flames. Because of that. And it blew my mind because I'm like, what the heck? I don't know. I really don't understand why they bullied me out of there. Maybe I was doing their job and they didn't see that. I don't know. I, I can't understand why people would treat other people like that. Like, including my manager. I, I, I just can't understand it and I, I don't want to. I'm not wasting my energy and my burnout on that. But I did burn out because I wasn't recognized and rewarded and it had been happening for probably three years. No, actually I was talking to my coach and mentor. It had been happening since the pandemic because that's when the shift started happening. They started controlling everything. They forced us to do the shot. Um, they forced us to wear glasses at one time because thought that you got the pain, the Whatever, through your eyes, it was weird. There was so much that was not right going on inside there. That's when the Great Resignation happened. But now, it's getting even worse. And it's because of the culture. It's because of the way people are treated inside there. I'm innovative. I'm an entrepreneur spirit. I am creative. My intentions are pure. I am not going to let these rewards and recognition coming from somebody who's treating people ugly and hateful affect me and affect what my vision and my dream is, which is to help companies eliminate toxic workplace culture through holistic corporate wellness programs. That's why I was burnt out. I was put inside a box and told to behave like this and that's not how I work. That's not how I operate. I operate from a place of kindness. I have pure intentions and I want to help people. Because if you're anything like I was, I had no idea I was burnt out. Because I loved what I did. I was having a good time. I just didn't realize that the rewards and recognition were not there. I didn't realize that my personality had changed at home because I was having a ripple effect from the stress. And the stress was emotional, physical, and mental. I wasn't working out like I usually do. I wasn't taking care of myself, my self care. My routine was messed up because I was in that brain fog. I didn't want to do all that stuff. But now I've broken through that. And it's always, it's a constant process. It just goes and goes and goes. Again, let me close with my intention and my intention is pure and it is wholeheartedly about Helping, even if it's just one person, overcome their burnout in their life, whatever that may be, to live a healthier, happier life because it's a waste of time. It's a waste of energy. And I don't want that for you. I want, I want you to be happy. Where I am now, which is so much better place. It's a place of grace. It's a place of happiness and That's what we're meant to be. That's what we're meant to live. That's in the scripture. It's in the bible and I want that for you All right. So thank you for joining me today or thank you for watching this if you're watching the replay You And, until next time, I'll see you next time, peace out, and Namaste. Biyo!