How NOT to deal with burnout

I’ll be frank, I had always heard about people suffering from burnout in their lives, whether it be from a job, sport, or family, but I don’t think I truly experienced it until this year. Have I become overwhelmed in the past? Plenty of times. But this, this was different. I hesitate to even talk about it because I never want to come off as ungrateful. I have an amazing life, absolutely no denying that. I have SO MANY people, things and opportunities to be grateful for, which I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to shit happening. (Which is does, as some point or another, for every single person out there).

And sometimes shit happening isn’t even shit happening. For me it was mental and emotional overload for so many months straight that led to my burnout. I reached a point where I didn’t have any energy or effs left to give, and I did not handle it like I now know I should’ve, which is what I want to chat about today.

I traveled a good amount this summer, which was equal parts awesome and amazing, and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it is leaving all work, family and other stresses behind when I go away. I can check out from reality no problemo. In my mind I kept thinking, “oh, these 4 days away will be a little breather and it will be more manageable when I return.” Well my friends, as I realized, that only works if you make changes to reality.

I don’t know why in my mind I thought that I could just escape the burnout and come back and things would be better without making actual changes to my reality. I was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, which we all know is the definition of insanity.

Making necessary changes:

I spent majority of the summer escaping; I’d work for 4 days, long weekend for 3 then repeat. Once I finally stopped moving a million miles a minute, I realized I couldn’t keep escaping, and that meant things had to change on my end. Like I spoke about in my “27” post, I say yes and yes and yes until my plate is too full, so in order to recover from the burnout, I had to start saying no. Saying no for me meant staying in town for Labor Day weekend to regroup, cutting down my coaching hours at Impact, and having people visit GR instead of me traveling. (It also means batching work for my side hustles but that’s another tangent haha). Along with this, I also lowered my expectations I set for myself and went back to focusing on the top few things I wanted to accomplish.

With these changes I can say it’s going better, but I still have a lot of work to do with saying no + setting realistic expectations. But, next time you’re starting to feel burnt out, I’d recommend you don’t spend an entire summer trying to escape it. Get real with yourself, and look at what you can remove, or begin to remove from you responsibilities. It won’t be easy, but you will feel so much better afterward.

I’m curious to hear from any of you – is this something you’ve experienced? If so, how did you handle it?

xo, Maddy

PS. On a style note – this gorgeous midi dress is from Boden. I watched it for months before it went on sale, but am so happy with it. The dress is fully lined and fits so well. It is not sold out, but here is a similar midi shirt dress from Boden + I have linked a few other shirt dresses below.

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