Energy, Burnout and the Myth of Balance: Surviving in the Pandemic Workforce

If you are noticing your employee’s seem burned-out, resentful, unsettled, or apathetic it’s probably because they are. To effectively re-energize the workforce, we need to shift the focus from getting more out of people, to investing more in them.  When they are motivated and feel valued, is when they can bring more energy and show up as more of themselves.

Reports say it is an “employee’s market” … not according to employees.

The things we are forced to choose between as American workers have been shifting since early 2000 but since the pandemic, the job market and work culture have led to the highest burnout rates we have ever seen. People are choosing their next job not for the work, but for the benefits, the culture, and the kind of manager they have.  The pandemic has tilted the work life balance beyond what the market can stand, and people are fully leaving the workforce without jobs lined up to break free and reset.  Time is finite and workers are desperate to get more of it.  The problem with money is we can’t take it with us, and if we could no one could pay enough for what the tradeoff is.

I am hearing things daily like:

“My job consumes everything,”

“I don’t even know what I like to do anymore,”

“I don’t have time for the things that really matter.”

My practice is made up of all types of demographics, from high level executives to direct workers, across the board the topic is burnout, unrealistic expectations, and work life imbalance.  Coming from someone who works for themselves, I understand it is not as black and white as this article may sound, and that job security and feeding our families is not a lighthearted topic nor one that has any one solution. This article is to highlight a BIG problem that needs even bigger solutions and some tips for managing in the meantime. 

 If you are an employee here what you need to know:

1.     Balance is a Myth. This is your life, there is never going to be balance. Figure out what’s important to you in your life and then prioritize little things every day that you can show up for.  This could be taking a FaceTime call with your grandson in the middle of the day, leaving the office early to have dinner with your kids or put them to bed 1 night a week. Let yourself be a person first 2 out of the 5 (6, 7) days you are an employee. Small changes can make a big difference.

2.     Turn it off. Decide when you are going to stop taking calls, checking email and slack and then hang it up.  It will all be there for you tomorrow. Find a way to unplug for the day, the work will never be “done”, and you will not be more productive tomorrow or the next day if you are burning it out every night. This type of work is ineffective, leads to resentment and is often, thankless.  Our work is important, we are important but none of it is that important and we need to invest more in our sustained energy and the longevity of our higher selves so we can keep perspective about what matters most and then have our actions align with our values. In short: there needs to be a time when you are not working and not available so you can just be in your life.

3.     Protect Your Energy: NYT article just came out stating that the most valuable commodity for highly successful people is energy.  Sustained energy only exists if we protect it.  Energy is a reciprocated resource, working in an environment of negative burned out people only takes energy. Seeing your kid light up when they see you, or your dog run up and slobber on your pants, moments of shared joy and connection, these are things that give us energy back. An article written in Harvard Business Review in 2007 describes energy in the workforce: 

“Time is a finite resource, but energy is different. It has four wellsprings—the body, emotions, mind, and spirit—and in each, it can be systematically expanded and renewed. For instance, harnessing the body’s ultradian rhythms by taking intermittent breaks restores physical energy. Rejecting the role of a victim and instead viewing events through three hopeful lenses defuses energy-draining negative emotions. Avoiding the constant distractions that technology has introduced increases mental energy. And participating in activities that give you a sense of meaning and purpose boosts the energy of the spirit.”

Quick and Dirty Energy boosts:

1.     No matter what is happening, take 30 mins for lunch. Step away, take a walk, eat a sandwich, breathe.

2.     Push away from your desk and take 3 mins to re-set. Check in with yourself observe your breath, observe anything you are holding onto, consider letting go of it, even just for the present moment.

3.     Jump up and down. Literally.

4.    5-year question. “Does this really matter? Will it matter in 5 months? 5 years?

5.     Have a mantra to help you help your tired burnout self:

“Life is short, this is my life.”

“It is enough, I am enough”

“Nothing crazy is going to happen.”

“I am one human, and this is my life”  

If you are an employer here’s what you need to know:

1.     F@#cking pay me.  At the end of the day people are often motivated by money and success and if you are expecting individuals to trade long hours and endless availability they need to be compensated fairly. Obviously, there are budgets that confine spending but when it is possible, it can make a huge difference.

2.     Acknowledge and Value the effort and its impact on their humanity and life. People are missing family dinner, putting their kids to bed, hanging out with their friends, showing up for special events and significant things daily because of the nature of their work.  The only thing worse than missing these things, is to miss them and for no one to even notice or comment on the work you are doing or its impact. Not to say people need to be constantly validated for everything but when someone is working hard notice them, acknowledge you see the trade in they are making, it makes a difference.

3.     It is still a global pandemic. People have just spent the last 20 months in a compact space managing more than can be expected (especially parents, especially mothers). Don't let that be lost on you. Make room for people to do their jobs efficiently and effectively in ways that work for their unique situation. I am looking at you in office mandates.  Work with people and talk to them, there are ways to make our workforce so much more humane and have direct impacts on quality of life and organization culture.

4.   Numbers don’t lie. There have been countless studies on workers motivation, productivity and general task completion being connected to less billable hours not more. The Corporate Executive Board found that people who have a good work-life balance are 21% more productive. In a Stanford University study from 2019, economics professor John Pencavel found that productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. “After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours would be pointless.” Does anyone work 50 hours a week anymore? No.

 Bottom line: everyone has someone they are reporting to. Everyone is managing the best they can in a system that is broken, with no so protections for the quality-of-life factor for any of us.  The Harvard Business Review article quoted at the beginning of this article was published in 2007! We have been talking about this problem for 14 years and it has gotten worse and worse.  Instead of blaming or finger pointing let’s all try and make room for the collective humanity of the workforce. No one wants to be trading this much life in. The best way to influence the behavior and relationships to work for your employees is to model good boundaries and be consistent. It’s going to take a lot to shift the work culture back to a more manageable place and it is going to take everyone moving in that direction, together. 

5 Ways to Mark the New Year Without Totally Invalidating Yourself!

Happy New Year! We made it! Life, you are a lot!

New Year’s Resolutions are quite invalidating considering the very nature of the concept is that we "decide" on changing something and then do it.  Wouldn't that be a blast?! Behavior change is quite complex, and is rarely a discrete or single event; however, we tend to view it in such a way. Change occurs gradually, over time. Change must be intentional and is never easy. In fact, there are only about 15-20% of things we do in our lives that are not habitual, meaning about 80-85% of our behaviors happen automatically.  Deciding to change something that is essentially happening on its own, doesn’t work.  We often have resolutions that are grandiose and global, for example, this year I will finally stop smoking, drinking, lose the extra weight, get healthy, figure out my life, etc. That’s a lot. Resolutions are also often things we feel we “should” change rather than things we are particularly motivated or compelled to change. Considering change is so dang hard we want to make sure we are actually invested in the thing we are changing.

Change is incredibly difficult, and while we often believe we aren’t accomplishing our goals or changing things in our lives because we aren’t trying hard enough, it has very little to do with trying. Things we really want to change about ourselves and are unable to change, is not because we aren’t trying hard enough, but that something is getting in the way- something is wrong. Things unconsciously maintain our behaviors; our behaviors serve functions and often we may not even be aware of what they are. Sometimes the something that is wrong is we are completely missing the mark on the approach to behavior change, particularly around setting SMART goals vs. less effective means such as deciding or white knuckling tactics. Without behavior chain analysis which breaks down behavioral sequences into itemized slices including thoughts, emotions, and actions taken, we really don’t know why or what maintains certain behaviors.  Behaviors are also usually layered, so for example weight loss is not as simple as, “I am going to finally lose the weight,” we must examine the different facets at play. We cannot responsibly target weight loss without talking about our beliefs about ourselves, emotional eating, family of origin behaviors around food, the function food plays associated with escaping distress, numbing discomfort, and masking other emotional challenges.  Then we look at health and healthy weight loss which involves exercise, knowledge of macronutrients and nutrition, all of which require access, resources, and a lot of change.

Science tells us that behavior changes only when we specifically target something and work to shape the behavior incrementally. If you have a big goal or something you really want to change in your life, start with something you can absolutely accomplish.  Be specific and make sure the behavior is measurable.  Make your goals SMART like your phones.

• S- Specific: be as specific and detailed about your goal as possible. Clarity on what exactly we are working towards.
• M- Measurable: We need to be able to track the progress and measure the outcome. How much, how often, how will we know when we have met the mark.
• A- Attainable: The goal must be feasible and achievable. Do we have control/influence over it?
• R- Relevant: The goal must be compelling and feel worthwhile, goals must be meaningful to the person trying to attain them.
• T- Timely: What is a realistic timeframe? Goal will be completed day/week/year.

If you are going to make a New Year’s Resolution make it a SMART one.  Here are some alternatives for marking the New Year.

1. Vision Board- Make a collage of cut outs with images, words, phrases, and designs that capture the essence of what you want to manifest in the year to come. You can do this with friends/family/clients/partners.
2. Write a letter to your future self- Write a letter to yourself next year describing your hopes, wishes, fears, and goals for the new year. Seal the envelope and open it next year on New Year’s Day.
3. Write a letter to your-past-self: Write a letter to your past self, marking all the progress, accomplishments, challenges, connections, and events over the last year. Take note of things you are proud of and things you want to do differently in the New Year.
4. Future Mapping- Map out the next one year with specific benchmarks of things you would like to accomplish.  Look at the different domains of your life; emotional, relational, career, spiritual, physical.  Decipher between short-term and longer-term making the goals SMART and broken down into manageable parts.
5. Intention Setting: Set intentions for the upcoming year in each domain (emotional, relational, career, spiritual, physical).

3 Tools for Self-Fluency and Emotion Regulation: Make Being Human More Manageable

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

There are a lot of things that make emotion regulation difficult.  Likely the most challenging aspect is the unpredictability of the human experience, things we don’t know until we know, and the circular nature of our lived experience and history.  We can be walking along on any given Tuesday, and BAM out of nowhere, a thought, smell, situation, or person, can trigger some historical experience that is like a gut punch to the entire sympathetic nervous system, or fight-or-flight response.  This happens automatically so there is little we can do to prepare and it’s common to short-circuit on skills.  It’s so tricky, because sometimes it can even be something we have “worked through” and presents slightly differently, or exactly the same. I often find myself coaching around reducing vulnerability factors, which helps by making us less vulnerable to impulsivity or reactivity when these moments arise, and it makes sense that when we are walking along and suddenly sideswiped, being skillful can feel almost impossible. 

What can we do then?

1. Mindfulness and Self-Fluency: When we are aware of our baseline, we are aware when our baseline is destabilized. Self-Fluency is a term I like to use to describe the relationship we can create with ourselves, our past, and our understanding of our worldview that makes us “able to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression.” The more connected we are to the notion that we are who we are, and come by it honestly, the more we can make peace with the parts of ourselves that are less desirable. We all have them.

Practice: Checking in with oneself daily, what’s going on for me? How do I feel? How do I feel about that really?  What’s underneath this feeling? How can I make sense of why I am experiencing this a certain way?

2. Cope ahead. Have an “Oh Shit” plan: think in advance about what types of things about a situation or event could be challenging. Plan what you will do, what skills you will use and who you will contact if you encounter these things.  Then visualize yourself going through the motions of your plan and connect to how you will feel after you have exited this challenge skillfully. When we have a plan for how to cope with difficulty our brain has a map for where to go when we don’t have a plan. I call it a dysregulation protocol, it doesn’t always look the same but we can respond to triggers/dysregulation in the same way: Stop, don’t react, breath, and do whatever it takes to regulate.

Practice: Meditate! I know meditation is “trendy” and may feel kind of intangible, but the benefits are insane! For the sake of simplicity here: It gives us more space between thought and action, creates a pause, literally makes it so we can experience things more slowly.  This is especially important when we are triggered as things get unbelievably fast and narrow.

3. Repair and move on. There are times when we are going to just plain miss the mark on being skillful. Whether we try and miss, or the skills don’t work, or we say F*%k that I’m going in (hard).  It’s going to happen and its part of being imperfect and human.  What really gets messy is when we experience shame and self-loathing, while simultaneously not taking ownership of our unskillful behavior because then everyone will know.  This creates dissonance both in our experience and in our self-concept.  For example, when we are wrong or behave poorly, it isn’t a secret.  Avoidance doesn’t change it, justifying it doesn’t change it, and the ironic thing is when we don’t acknowledge and repair, it becomes exponentially more likely that we will repeat the behavior.

Practice: Practice repairing and taking responsibility with small things and safe people.  Accurately describe your experience and self-validate that you are going to make mistakes and screw up and even try to make sense of why it happened based on yourself fluency.  Then move on.

The "Not Enoughness" Cure: Really Good Enough

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

Really Good Enough

 Full disclosure, I started writing this blog hours before getting my jacket caught in the elevator doors while taking my 9.5-month-old son out for a walk.  Motherhood has taught me so much about this topic and I am humbled every day.

So much of the human experience involves comparing ourselves to others, evaluating how we measure up, being judged or valued based on performance or standing.  It’s a tricky societal norm that unfortunately leaves most of us feeling self-critical, overwhelmed, and falling short a lot of the time.  Whether the context be work, relationships, appearances, parenthood, or status, the result is the same: not enoughness.

 Not enoughness (adj.) the experience of feeling alone, judgmental, and critical of oneself, while operating with the belief that everyone else has figured this puzzle out and you are behind, late, or incompetent.

 This description is two-fold, not only do we feel critical of ourselves and not enough, we compound this difficulty with further isolation where we trick ourselves into believing this isn’t a common experience held by most human beings today.  The antidote is connection, vulnerability, and honesty. However, let’s be honest, how many of us feel compelled to double down on connection and vulnerability when already feeling the above not enoughness. That we open ourselves to further criticism and scrutiny would not be “smart".

 What can we do? How do we find ourselves in the midst of this isolating space and see a way forward? Practice.

1. What does not enoughness look like in you. Everyone has their own flavor. Identify where this comes up most; what triggers it, who brings it out most in you. What does it look like, sound like, feel like? What thoughts, feelings, and behaviors accompany it? We need to be able to recognize when it is happening to redirect, refocus, and be skillful. The question is not if this experience happens for you, it is when and how frequently.
2. Check the Facts. When you identify being in the not enoughness space, look around. Check the facts, what is objectively true about this situation.  For example, it’s not objectively true that making a mistake, or not achieving perfection makes a person not enough. This may feel true or be someone’s belief but it is not a fact.  The belief that we should know how to do something innately without ever learning how to do it, or being trained in it, or practicing, is not a realistic expectation. If you identify the feelings of not enoughness and then when you check the facts realize you don’t have any objective evidence to support this feeling state, there are two choices:   

a.) Charge ahead anyway, beating yourself up will help keep you on your toes!

b.) Acknowledge you are being unfairly critical or harsh and then to whatever degree possible with your current practice level, let it go.

Use a wise mind mantra to ground yourself in the facts: (personal favorite) “I am enough, I have enough, I do enough.”

3. Reframe/Check the comparisons: Often a common trigger for “not enoughness” is comparing ourselves to other people, or our perception of other people. Before getting down on yourself about not having what another person has, ask yourself if it’s something you would actually want.  Sometimes we see things we don’t have and immediately think “I want that, I don’t have that, why don’t I have that?!” Before judging ourselves for not being enough or having something someone else has, first, let’s examine if we really desire it and secondly if we are willing to make the commitment to the behavior changes that it involves to get and keep the thing.  For example, we watch tv and see an actor who is playing a superhero in a movie, there is a scene where actor saves the day using a sword and takes off armor to reveal a flawless, chiseled body; wait for the immediate “I want that” to sink it.  Okay so couple things to consider, IT’S A MOVIE, THEY ARE A SUPERHERO, THEY HAVE HAD MONTHS OF DAILY/PROFESSIONAL COACHING AND PREPARATION TO GET TO THE SHAPE THEY ARE CURRENTLY IN, SWORDS ARE ILLEGAL. So, could I be a superhero? No, but if I really wanted to commit to the hard-dedicated work that goes into getting into that kind of physical shape I’d likely have to quit my job, my marriage, my kid, and my friends which isn’t something I am willing to do and therefore my choice. I am not a superhero, because I am choosing other things instead.  It isn’t that we Can’t do or have the thing, we are actually choosing how we want to use our energy and live our lives.  When we can think of this as a choice it puts the power and perspective back in our hands. We can do a lot, but we cannot do everything.
4. Let it Be Good Enough: Perfection is the number one destroyer of peace. Allowing our best to be enough, enough to be enough, and then to get busy doing whatever parts of life come next.  We can get trapped in the perfection game and caught up treating every task as precious. This results in not having the energy, time, or bandwidth to give to our valued priorities.  We must choose what we are prioritizing. We can’t be perfect, but we can be really good enough in areas that matter most. Don’t let your tasks take over your life.  They don’t have a strong enough return.  Figure out what things matter most and remind yourself of them when drift happens.
5. “Beauty lies in the details” or “The devil is in the details”: Don’t over think it.  You can find “evidence” to support all points of view on the internet these days. The black and white, non-dialectical nature of perfectionism is exactly why it is so destructive. Life is full of nuance and there’s no google search that can give us those answers. It matters, and sometimes it matters a lot, and sometimes it matters too much. Sometimes it doesn’t matter.  Do a good enough job, don’t be flippant or irresponsible about a task, or a conversation, or a commitment- give it a time, effort and respect and then move on. Don’t look back. If you are someone who struggles with perfectionism, I promise your good enough is enough!
6. Give each other the benefit of the doubt and collectively let go. We must stop taking ourselves so seriously, or seeing our actions as definitions of character. Of course, we should all take ourselves seriously, sometimes, and of course our actions make up who we are and what we value, sometimes, a lot of the time. And some of the time we just trip up, or need a break, or need a kind compassionate voice to remind us that we have all been there and then keep it moving.  

Emotions Controlling Your Life? 3 Steps to Take Your Control Back!

Photo by Elijah O'Donell on Unsplash

• Do you feel like your emotions drive your behaviors and reactions? 
• Do you find yourself feeling embarrassed or ashamed about the way you reacted after the fact? 
• Do you wish you felt more in control of yourself and your emotions? 

Great, this blog is for you.

Feelings aren't facts. This is not to say that our feelings don’t matter or aren’t valid.  Every emotion we experience is caused by something, and therefore valid.  It gets tricky when we start talking about valid vs. justified; that is not for this blog post as I am working hard to stay in my “long enough to get the point across and not be aversive” wordcount. Bottom line is: valid means it make sense that you are feeling the way you are feeling, i.e. because you ARE, and justified means the feelings fits the facts, and the intensity of the emotion is appropriate and justified.  The intensity part is usually where folks get in trouble.  The main take away is that emotions are always triggered by something, it is often difficult to decipher what exactly triggered them, this takes practice, but the fact that every emotion we experience is caused and therefore valid is so damn validating! 

Level 4 validation in DBT’s 6 levels of validation is:

• Validate Behaviors based on history: We react to the world based on our life experiences and biological wiring, assuming if someone is having an emotional reaction there is a reason or a cause even when the reaction is not one you relate to or identify with. Identifying why it makes sense for this person given their history or biology that they may react in a certain way.

Emotions and feeling out of control is one of the main struggles people come into therapy with.  Knowing you are behaving or reacting in a way you aren’t proud of or happy with but not being able to change it is really challenging.  I have come up with 3 steps to help you practice getting those emotions under control.

Step 1:

STOP IT! Immediately pause, there is a 30 second window between skillful reactions and hot-mess emotional bomber.  The art of pause is one of the most important skills in regulating difficult emotions.  Pro Tip: meditation helps to build your pause muscle (read more about getting started with meditation). Stop, take a step back, don’t do anything. There is a fabulous slogan in addiction recovery, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It is fucking Brilliant!

Step 2:

Check Yourself: Check in with any stories, judgments, or assumptions you may be making about the current situation.  Check in with all the different parts of yourself that may be reacting to the current situation because it is like a past situation.  A past situation that is difficult, perhaps traumatic, and therefore difficult to react to with accurate intensity.  There is a reason we often experience the same things happening repeatedly in our relationships or lives.  Maybe they are happening and we have crap luck or continue to recreate the dynamic we need to heal, or maybe we are seeing our relationships through the lens of our experiences, where we interpret behaviors based on the things we fear most.  Again, your emotions are valid and caused, however, they are sometimes not caused by what it is happening in the present moment.  Rather, caused by a historical wound that is just below the surface and when it is activated it takes over leaving us feeling like prisoners to our emotions.

Pro Tip: Ask yourself 1. Do my emotions fit the facts of the situation I am currently facing? 2. Is my intensity measured and appropriate? Am I at a 9 when the current situation only warrants a 2 or 3?

Step 3:

Self-Validate: Validation is the best.  As humans, we need a lot of it. When it comes to our emotional experiences one of things that makes our reactions worse and more difficult to regulate is invalidation.  For example, “why am I so sensitive,” “why can’t I just chill,” “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” etc. When you are feeling intense emotions there’s a reason, something is happening, our emotions communicate to us and for us.  Saying to yourself, “of course, this is difficult for you it is another example of feeling taken advantage of by someone you trust. That is shitty, and that is hurtful.” Simply acknowledging our reactions to difficult situations can help regulate them.  Pro Tip: Validate yourself and validate the people around you. (More on levels of validation in Why you “Help” Isn’t helpful.)

Practice, Practice, Practice!  Change is really hard, and emotion regulation is a difficult skill to master specifically because we don’t always know when or what will trigger them.  The more fluent you become in your own experiences and identifying what your emotional triggers are, the more quickly and effectively you will become at modulating and regulating emotional reactivity.