How to Deal with Physical, Mental and Emotional Burnout

The world's largest study of productivity that's ever been done found out the most productive people in the world who also reported high levels of happiness. They took a break, on average every 52 minutes. Largest study ever done. Every 52 minutes they took a break. Did they need a break? No, they're recharging. If you're crashing at 2 and 3 o' clock in the afternoon every day, it's time to take a hint.

This has been so powerful. When you've shared this on our morning show, and I just want to share it with everyone here. A lot of people are showing up here going, okay, like, it's been a hard 14 months and you know, struggling with self doubt, struggling all the things. And some people have goals that they're trying to figure out with their career and all the other stuff. But then there's also a thing called feelings. Goals. Yes, feelings. Goals. Right. So many of you guys, this is going to be new for a lot of people. This is newer for me in my own life, frankly. Right. Because, you know, all my years of working as a Denny's waitress, trying to all the jobs and then all the years of rejection with my business, when I finally got, you know, when we were finally getting momentum, I didn't feel the day. I just drove as hard as I could. And one of the things Brendan has shared so much about and I would love for you to share with everyone live right now is, yeah, you can have goals in your fitness journey and in your career and all these things, but what about goals for your feelings, for how you feel and how you feel the day? Can you share?

Yes.

This is so powerful.

I remember the first time I said this to her, feel the day. And she's like, right. And we just, we have this huge great talk about, because what happens is sometimes you're taking care of the kids, you're going through your life, you're doing the projects, you have the to do lists, and you're just going, going, going. And you finished the day. You didn't even feel the day. There's no reverence for life. There's no love, there's no heart, there's no spirit, no flow, no connection, no creative pop. And it's not because it wasn't there. It was. You just, you just like blew through the day. You bullied the hours, I call it. And there was no moment of a pit stop to give prayer or meditation or gratitude or a second to go, like, how am I feeling? Am I experiencing the energy that I want to experience in life? And that's again, we generate that. But feeling the day I found the most successful people in the world. I remember we drew this out. I went to Jamie's house almost two years ago, I think now.

Yeah.

And we were talking about successful people, and they're drawing this little triangle and what everybody wants after they've gotten everything. After you hit your goals, you made the money, you feel like your family needs. What you want is you want to feel the day more. You want greater depth in your relationships, like, deeper relationships, deeper commitment, deeper meaning. Right. We all want those things. And then we also want to know that we're leaving some kind of legacy or contribution, what I call meaningful pursuits. And I think feeling the day should be in your top one or two priorities every day. The whole mindfulness movement is really architected to. I want to feel the day. I want to feel presence. Right. I want to feel the energy, I want to feel the spirit. I want self awareness or consciousness. It's a different feeling of the day versus just like powering through or caffeinating through it all and just blunting it out. We want you to have those sensations of beauty and honor and respect and depth every day. We want you to feel joy and reverence every day. She knows. I probably say reverence every morning show because I'm so happy. Who feels so happy to be alive? I'm so happy to be alive. I'm so happy to be with this woman. I'm so happy with this team and you all guys. It's amazing. It's a gift.

Yeah. You know, I love that so much. And even Ed Mylett was sharing a little bit about that idea of, you know, setting goals also for feeling the day and then also, like, how do. What are feelings we want in our life? And I think you just named a big one, too, which is presence. I think that it's been so easy, especially last 14 months, to, like, disconnect and just try to numb out and try to surf Instagram or watch the news or all the things. Right. And so many people are saying that's really taken a toll on them, that they feel their own light dimming when they do that. And, you know, I started the morning off by talking about how that light is still inside of you. That light in every single one of us. Right. A lot of people nodding. It's still inside of you right now. And I think part of igniting it is learning to feel the day. Right. So what are just a few just simple tips people can do who are like, Brendan, how do I feel the day.

I feel nothing. Part of it. Recognize your. Your overall emotional feeling. Every day is usually a 72 hour after effect of how you moved, breathed, slept and ate in the last 72 hours. It really is like. It's a cumulative effect, especially of the last. Last 72 hours have a lot to do with your emotional world. So that's why having good habits on a consistent basis, like you might, you might listen, if you want to have a cheat day, that's okay. But that's why they call it a cheat day. You eat bad for one day, but then look number two and number three, if you get back on the train, you start feeling good again, right? So it's okay to have one day off. But I think the most important thing for feeling the day is you need to have pit stops throughout the day. You need to have moments that you purposely take every day throughout the day to reconnect with spirit, soul, energy, or even just to breathe. Mom. Like, just to take a beat. Close your eyes like I do. I'll stand. I do this every hour. Okay, I'll stand up. Sorry for the camera, guys. I'll stand. Every hour. I stand up. You've been asking me to demonstrate.

Yes, demonstrate.

I will stand up. I will close my eyes. Because a lot of your fatigue is visual fatigue, and that visual fatigue is causing a lot of neurological fatigue. So closing your eyes, especially because we're all these devices, Close your eyes. I. I stand, I bounce in place, I swing my arms, I take 10 deep breaths like this, 10 deep breaths like that every hour. And it re. Energizes my body and my brain, and it's a little pit stop. And now my mental focus is back. When I open my eyes, I go, what's my intention for this next hour? And that little pit stop makes me go longer. Just like a race car, it can go around the whole race, but it doesn't. It takes the pit stops to tune it up so it can go longer and faster and win the race. You need a little more pit stops to tune your mind up, amp up your emotions, reconnect with the heart or the spirit or the soul. And if you are just grinding all day, that is not. There's no pit stops. That's the equation for burnout.

Yeah, well, so many people feeling burnt out, right? People that aren't leaving their home because of the pandemic, but just so burnt out and so overwhelmed. And one thing you shared that I want to make sure everyone caught is the idea of visual fatigue, because that was a Huge aha moment that I had with you on the morning show just in the past few weeks. I thought you guys, we implemented this at IT Cosmetics. We grew to over a thousand employees and we would start ending meetings like five minutes before the hour instead of just back to back to back meetings. Right. Because the idea that you can get up and just walk around and move your body, but one of the things you brought brought up is I learned I was doing them wrong because I was like walking and moving, but still engaged. I would take meetings in the hallway walking or I would check my email on that five minute break. Right. And can you just quickly share the idea that when you do take a pit stop, when you do take that five minutes. Right. And this is hard for a lot of people, but the idea is when you take that five minutes, the other 55. Right. Or you take the 10 minutes, the other 50 are so much more alive. Yes, they're so much more alive. So people that say, oh, I can't afford to do that. No, no, no, you're so much more alive than those other 50. But I was doing it wrong because I wasn't actually resting my mind. And you talk about the power of like visual fatigue. If you take a break and you're scrolling Instagram or emails, that's not a break, that's exhaustion.

Right. Scrolling is just exhausting your brain even more and more and more and more. It's engaging it, but it's exhausting it more and more and more. And so it's like this. You cannot possibly hope the burnout will end if you don't more consistently recharge. But we grew up on a century old model that, oh, we'll get to recharge when we retire. We'll get to recharge two weeks out of the year when we have vacation. It's why people are miserable, because the burnout is real, because they don't recharge. One day I'll recharge the spa day or a year from no, no, no. The world's largest study of productivity that's ever been done found out the most productive people in the world who also reported high levels of happiness. They took a break on average every 52 minutes. Largest study ever done. Every 52 minutes. They took a break. Did they need a break? No, they're recharging. If you're crashing at 2 and 3 o' clock in the afternoon every day, it's time to take a hint. You need to recharge at, at like 10:30, 11:30 or 1:30 to prevent the crash. That happens two or three. The crashes happen because the recharges are not happening and so the burnout will always be there. And I always say make sure you don't blame the burnout on anybody. Please. Don't blame your burnout on your kids, that's not fair to them. Don't blame your burnout on the team. Blame the burnout on either ambition that is unmet with planning or just not taking care of and prioritizing your self care or your well being. Take care of you so you have the energy to serve at your highest levels. I think that is something we call alignment.