Overcoming Burnout and Staying Productive

Imagine this, you're juggling 10 different things at once. You're working nonstop, and no matter how fast you go, you feel like you're barely making a debt in the to do list. And the worst part is burnout is knocking on your door. Or worse yet, it's already entered and unpacked its bags. If this feels familiar, know that you are not alone. As business owners, we're told to work harder, push through. And I know that I personally have a tendency to just keep, keep going, but I've got to watch myself because Even low performing CEOs are working hard. It is not about how much we're putting in. And taking breaks can actually get us more momentum and help us have sustainability and more productivity and get better results. So that's what we are going to dig into today. Today we are talking about one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs and business owners face and leaders of organizations. And yes, that is burnout. We're going to talk about mindset and we're going to talk about some very specific strategies and things that you can implement to be proactive and ensure you don't hit that point. Or if you are right on the cusp of it or already there, you can reset using some of these strategies. According to a 2021 study by the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, prolonged stress and lack of recovery time are predictors of burnout. And I gotta confess that I, for seasons of my life was in moments of stress. But I could keep going, I could move through it like, this is fine, this is okay. I'm taking this stress and I'm turning it into something productive. And that is a good thing to do. But you also want to know what the signs of potential burnout are, so you don't get there. So what I do for this is I put regular checkpoints in place. If you know me, you know I have my Monday and my Friday reflection blocks that I call Monday and Friday CEO time. And as a part of that, I am looking at the areas of my life that matter to me and I'm just checking in with myself. Very specifically, I look at my wellness overall, which includes movement and my health and what I'm eating at any given time. I look at wellness, I look at financials, I look at my business. I separately consider how are my clients doing and how do I feel about my connection with my clients in any given moment. I also look at family and relationships. I look at space that I have in my life and on my calendar and do I have enough time to unwind And I look at soul fuel, Do I feel nourished? Does my soul feel nourished? And then I consider how overall am I generally feeling about life and all of the things happening right now? Just doing that check in every week, scaling 1 to 10 or filling out a pie chart is so helpful because I can see trends and I can identify. Amber, you have not been feeling well for weeks. What do you want to do about it? Or Amber, you've been saying for weeks, as you reflect, input in notes, as I scale each of these areas that you want to get more movement in, what are you going to do about it? Right? Or able to assess, you know, what money we're okay or we're not okay. And here's what we need to do about it. So I check in in those areas regularly so I can identify what are my levels of stress, how am I feeling about this? How is this area of my life that matters to me and that is important? How's that going? So I can be proactive to take action if I'm seeing something trend or repeatedly stay in an area or in a space that I am not a fan of. So as you pause to check in regularly and you use what I call this reflect and rise process, you'll be able to catch red flags. Are you feeling tired? Are you irritable? Do you have a loss of motivation about what you're working on? Are you drained? Are you fatigued? Do you have headaches? Can you not sleep? Are these things creeping up for you? And what can we do to offset that in advance? We want to get that self care game going early and often. You got to put your own air mask on first in this game of building your incredible business. I remember a time when I was working at corporate that I wore busyness and working long hours as a badge of honor. In fact, I think of one specific scenario where I have happened to be up very, very, very late working on a project while my entire family was sleeping. And then one of my colleagues popped online and saw that I was working and I knew they were working on the same project. And we started to banter about this project. And I thought, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And it was in that cycle of putting in more and more and more and it was over time draining me. Did I enjoy the work? Yes. Did I enjoy the team I was working with? Absolutely. They were super smart and incredible people. It was great work. It was a fun project. It was always fun projects. But I could only do so much before I was going to hit a wall. And hit a wall I did. Taking care of yourself isn't a nice to have. It is essential. And that's why as you're building your business, I want to invite you to be proactive about this so that you can have the energy that you need to sustain long term and pour into everyone that you pour into as you build. Number two, let's shift the mindset about working 247 and constantly having to be on. Maybe you get text messages from your team or your clients while you're at dinner. Maybe you can't even sneak away to the bathroom without someone needing something from you. So we're not getting pulled into that glorified trap of being busy and always being on and available because you need that time to step away and recharge, to rest, to give back and to perform even better. In fact, research from the American Psychological association highlights that individuals who take regular breaks and prioritize self care have 31% higher productivity and 50% greater satisfaction in the work that they do. Let's hear that again. People who take regular breaks in prioritize self care perform better and have greater satisfaction. There is an ROI on the rest that you take. Getting restricted Taking a vacation isn't just a reward, it is a precursor to you getting the results that you so deserve. So I want to invite you now to consider and reflect on what does success look like for you? What does an ideal day look like for you beyond checking things off the list because I know you're going to do that anyway. You are productive, you are focused, you get it die. And sometimes we get it done together with momentum and accountability and in community that is happening. But what does success on a daily basis look like? And don't necessarily consider only your ideal day, but also consider what is a great ordinary every day look like. And let's start to work towards that. And remember, it doesn't necessarily mean getting a hundred things done, although that also feels great and it's going to move things forward. It also considers the breaks and the moments that you have to enjoy this incredible life and business you are building. Next, practice intentional prioritization. We use a prioritize everything framework to prioritize the activities that we're going to take on in a year, in a quarter, in a month as we build out our strategic priorities. And if you want that prioritize everything framework, you can go to avermake.com/priority Prior prioritize to get that. But I also want to remind you to focus on the most Important things. You're going to have a lot of things that pop up throughout your day that are not the most important thing. We call those most important things on a daily basis, $100 bills. But I've got to guess that some of your time is still being spent on $1 bills, $5 bills, $10 bills. So I want you to consider and look at your to do list with a lens of is this one of the most important things that I can do for my company? Is this one of the most important things that I can do to serve my vision for my company and my life? Or is this $100 bill for someone else? Your ones, your fives, your 20s, your 50s may not be things that you need to do. They may be things that you can hand off to somewhere else and start to get more leverage so that you can get your focus back to the $100 bills, the revenue generating activities, the leadership, moving the vision forward versus administrative activities or building out a funnel. There may be some high priority activities that are just not in your zone of genius. They're not the thing that you do best and you're gravitating to maybe the things that you procrastinate, but they are essential to running the business. Consider sharing that word with someone else on your team so you can keep bringing yourself back to those $100 bills on a regular basis. This is going to get you leverage. This is going to get you focused on high impact activities where you need to be to move this company forward. And it's going to help everyone. You're going to set an example for everyone on your team, in your company that hey, we're all going to focus in our hundred dollar bill space. We're all going to focus on the areas where we can have the most impact. This is about getting the right people focused on the right activities and ultimately in the right roles on the team. But it can start with you looking at your action list and evaluate are these $100 bills? If not, bye bye, but bye. And it might not happen all at once. You might see 30 things on your list. You're like not $100 bill and the other 60, okay, $100 bills, but hopefully you do not have 90 things that you're to do list right now. Oh my gosh. I would say those numbers that I had a little bit of a. Oh my, I lost my breath for a second there. Whatever it is, you might slowly start to transition things off your play over time, but start to look at things with this lens and when you start to look, you'll start to see things different and ultimately you'll start to show up differently for your company. So the first step is just to start evaluate and ask yourself, am I spending my time on my 100 bills? The things that really matter in my business and in my life. Now we just heard and we know that when you proactively practice self care and build in breasts, you will be more productive and you will be more satisfied in the work that you do. So how do we build in self care practices? Because it's not a luxury, it is essential. Self care is not something extra. Self care is also a productivity tool. When you prioritize well being, you're going to show up better for yourself, for the people you love, and for your clients and your customers. So my situation here is a little bit unique, but I'm going to tell you what I do in case it sparks some ideas for you. As you may know from a prior episode, I time lock in a different way now. And my work is compressed into a very specific block of time because I realized I was spending time here and spending time there and context swishing was causing me to lose time that I could have been spending on something like self care. So now I live in Abidjan Cotevar at the point of this recording and this conversation that we are now having. And my day starts with movement. My day starts with volunteer work. My day starts with medication. My day starts with reflection and strategizing. My day starts with laps. So my day starts with with self care. Because the vast majority of my team and many of my clients are not awake when I wake up and start my day. So I take that time of quiet to make sure I'm setting myself up for success and that I am taking care of myself so that I can better take care of the people I care about and those things that matter. So I redesign my day. So then instead of me waking up and working or me waking up doing a little bit of self care and then working and then getting like I was dilly dally and a tie was just disappearing into the ether without me being intentional about it. So I want to invite you to consider what are those things that you are committed to or that you would like to soon be committed to that you need to weave into your routine somewhere? Then I want to invite you to consider when are those things going to get done? What are they and when are they going to get done? In another case, when I was living back in the States in Chicago, I would have to do Extensive self care on the weekends because that winter weather really made my body ache a little bit more. And so I would spend time in my sauna sleeping bag. Have you seen those things? The sauna sleeping bags? I had that to warm my body up. I might have to take power naps, but I would definitely make sure to get outside and walk around on my lunch break. So this can look like a lot of different things for us depending on what your actual schedule is. But I want to invite you to carve out the time and schedule your self care as if it is one of your most important meetings of the day. Could be getting your hair done, it could be getting your dentist appointments in, it could be those walks and movement. Or it could be just making sure you get nutritious fuel by having a lunch break and making sure you get breakfast in there. But identify what your non negotiables are and work them into the way you schedule. Because self care is one of the most important appointments that you have with yourself on any given day. And then protect those boundaries when you schedule that appointment with yourself. That is an appointment. So I have absolutely shifted from saying, ah, you want to have a meeting? I guess I can cancel my movement Session two. Oh, I would love to meet with you also, but I actually let me check my calendar. Yeah, I have an appointment at that time. Can you meet an hour later? Now that is an appointment that I hold with myself. It is non negotiable. It is something that sticks on my calendar when people ask, hey, are you free for this meeting? Are you free for this coffee date? Are you, are you free for X, Y, Z? Yeah, I am, but not at that time because I already have an appointment. I am free at this time. This has skyrocketed my energy, it has skyrocketed my focus and it's helped me, I know 100% is increased my productivity because it's one of the $100 bills I have prioritized. And I have so much more energy, focus and momentum when I sit down to do the the $100 bill because I'm not thinking about when am I going to get that in? Now, when am I going to get that in? Now, when am I going to get. I got it in? It is on my calendar. I know exactly when I'm going to get it in and it's a non negotiable 98% of the time. So here's my invitation to you start to take action on one of these strategies that you heard today. Whether it is pausing to reflect right now on your to do list and identifying how many are $100 bills versus the $1 bills. It's okay, no shame. We've all been there and sometimes continue to be there even though I'm always looking for the $100 bills and sharing so everybody gets their $100 bills. But take a look at your to do list. Maybe identify what self care is going to start to become non negotiable for you and get it in your calendar right now. Maybe you're going to grab the prioritize everything matrix@ambermceh.com to start to consider and parse through what do I need to be focused on right now and prioritize for productivity so that I'm not worrying about things all of the time. I hope you've got some clarity and some inspiration to protect your energy so that you can thrive in what you're doing. Because rest and self care are not a luxury, they are an essential tool in your toolbox to get where you want to be going and to bring your company's vision to life.