Almost a decade into my journalism career, I remember driving home from a breaking news story and the digital clock in my car blinked 4:00 a.m.
I stared at the numbers.
I thought to myself, "What am I doing?"
That was the moment I began to question why I was working so hard. What was I trying to achieve, to prove? Inspiration, motivation, and visions of a bright future were no longer driving my path. It was something else.
The internal question got louder. “What am I doing with my life?”
Television news is a highly competitive business. I was approaching 30. I was in a career that I believed had a shelf life. Whether that’s true or not, that’s what I believed. I needed to achieve certain markers by a certain time in order to “make it”.
I should’ve been focused on my next promotion, instead I was thinking, ”I can’t do this anymore.”
I was at burnout. That’s when I knew: Something had to change.
How did I get to this point? How did this happen? How do you go from living a dream to asking yourself out loud, “What am I doing with my life?”
Almost two decades later, I have a deeper understanding of what causes burnout: Getting out of alignment with who you really are, focusing on the wrong things, ignoring the inner signals, and not making time to tend to your basic needs.
When we get to burnout, it’s usually a symptom of a much deeper problem. There’s often a deeper root cause that’s so much bigger than working too much and not getting enough sleep. Those things accelerate the issue but are rarely the cause.
Days before I quit my job, I walked into a therapist's office and she started asking me a lot of questions about my past, my family of origin. Typical intake question stuff. I answered them like a robot. I knew the answers, but quite frankly, it was an onion I didn't want to peel.
She picked up on my tension and said, "Right now we’re in crisis mode. We’re not going there today."
Eventually, I'd have to take a deeper look at what was driving me to succeed. What was feeding the belief that I had to work so hard? I’d need to answer the question, because if I didn’t, the problem would repeat itself again and again.
But when you’re at burnout—if you’re at your breaking point—that moment is not the time to try to answer, solve, or heal the big issues in your life. It's not helpful to spend a lot of time analyzing how you got here. You don’t have to break free from all of your limiting beliefs (we all have them) or make a big, life changing decision today. There’s plenty of time to peel that onion.
You have to start where you are and work the problem in reverse. You can’t step into a life of courageous freedom if you’re at burnout. If you want to live your most authentic life, start by taking a walk. Take a day off. Do the next thing to give yourself some space. When in doubt, move towards wellness. Move towards taking care of you.
Then, when you can finally breathe again, you’ll be able to hear the sound of your own wise voice rising up again, telling you something profound and brand new or reminding you of something you’ve known all along.
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I’m Angie Mizzell, the author of the coming-of-age memoir “Girl in the Spotlight”. Thank you for reading my weekly newsletter “Hello Friday”. I’m glad you’re here.
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