750: New Job Won’t Help—The Truth About Burn Out and How to Fix It

A new job won't help. Here's the truth about burnout and how to fix it right first, you're not lazy. You're just overwhelmed. You're overworked, you're overloaded. In fact, you might not even realize that you're burning out or that you already have. When we push ourselves constantly, we normalize a pace that's unsustainable. And we get afraid to quit because, well, bad things could happen if we did. All this is garbagey thinking. Let's tackle your burnout before it takes you down. Today we look at why we successful people are burning out. And we're going to shift our mindset, energy and flow. Here we go.

Flow Dreaming still kind of woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self, love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStradick, your host and welcome to Florida. Slow dreaming still kind of woo woo.

Hi everybody. So we are going to dive deep into the world of burnout because I just been hearing from so many people recently that they are tired, they are done, they are on permanent vacation land in their heads. The economy has just ground them into tiny little smithereens. Their worries about where they're going, their future, their retirement, their everything. Oh, just take a minute and sigh. Relax. Right, we gotta relax here because this is signaling blinking signs of burnout. This is signaling that you may already be burned out. This is signaling the how long can I keep carrying this and sustain this kinds of thinking. We're going to position this in the frame of flow today. Flow, flow and flow, dreaming and energy and what we can do and what we can shift inside of ourselves so that we don't just keep shouldering a burden that's no longer tolerable and developing the trust and the guidance and the assurance and the direction that we will move where we need to move and the burnout will Burn away because we have these long and beautiful lives ahead of us and we deserve to be living in such a way that we are inspired when we wake up, that we are feeling loving when we wake up, that we are feeling rested when we wake up. So let's, let's dive in and see what's going on with this whole, you know, headlong, you know, drive into burnout. I'm going to start by saying that in flow dreaming I have a number of flow dreams. I haven't talked about those in a while, but I do have a library of about 300 plus, 350 plus flow dreams. These are audio recorded, downloadable or just listen on your phone, computer. And they are not meditations exactly. They're energy activations. They help you manifest and change. They shift who you are inside. I really want to recommend one or more than one today. Go ahead and take a look at Find my dream Job. There is a playlist as well called Build my dream business with sales. Another one, a new one. Build my Dream Business with Growth. There's another one called Thriving Wealthy Entrepreneur. And you're like, okay, enough, I'm not building my own business. Okay, then let's shift Lucrative, fulfilling career. How about that playlist? It's got everything you need in it. Start shifting the feelings out of boredom or creatively fired up and finishing projects. Let's get that other side love of yours moving, nurturing and trusting your dream. You see how all of these are kind of angling to detect and divert burnout into something better and different. So there's a ton of resources. I really urge you to look through them and discover if there are any that you can start using today. Because what I'm going to tell you today is going to be good and interesting and kind of shift you on that road, are off that road to burnout. But to really do that, you've got to do the work. Got to do the energetic work, the emotional work, the visioning work, the intentionality of what you really want from your life. And unfortunately, when you're in a state of burnout, it's hard to get any of that energy mustered up. So lean on these, use these as crutches to get you going where you need to go. Okay? That said, let's go back into this world of burnout and first of all, how do you know you have it? I've had to ask myself this several times as a very high performing, constant, driven, constantly innovating, thinking, creating stuff, content creating. I've had to ask myself on more than One occasion, am I burned out? Why did I just take that big break? What was I doing? Why did it take me so long to get my energy back together again? And of course, with ultimate burnout, you just don't get your energy. You just like, nope, I'm done, I'm done. I want to help you not get there. So some signs of burnout you can look at. And by the way, these can be checked against other things that are going on, like depression, perhaps adhd, distractibility, other ways, other things, complex trauma, et cetera. But let's just focus on burnout. Pretty much. It's a state of chronic stress. I mean, even if you've loved what you were doing, but it was stressful and stressful. Like a lot of people who are building businesses, I encountered this with them. They love building their business, but they are so tired. They are so worn to the nub like an old pencil eraser. There's just nothing left up there. They still love what they're trying to build, but they're, they've been so stressed for money or employees or sales or just getting stuff put together right. So this leads to a state of physical and emotional exhaustion and just tired. The energy is at an all time low. And further on, you can start to become a little cynical and detached. Nobody wants this, Nobody wants me. I'm not getting anywhere with this. I'm so tired of this career. It's always the same, it never changes. I'm never going to get a promotion. This is it, end of the game. That detachment, that why, why am I trying? Why am I still even trying? If you've asked yourself that question, ding ding ding, ring a ding ding. You need to be thinking very carefully here about am I burned out or what stage of burnout am I heading toward? More signs feeling ineffective, right? Lack of accomplishment. Have you been trying to get some changes at work for years now that go nowhere? Are you in yet another spiraling, repetitive confrontation at work? Are you feeling ineffective? Are you feeling like, I really just can't get my job done? Have you felt blocked in every direction you've tried to go? If it's not at work, are you feeling a lack of accomplishment because you are a caretaker and every day is the same and every day, mom or dad or whoever it is is not really doing much better for your child? It's the same. It's just, it's just maintenance. It's just constant maintenance. There's no prize at the end of this game. You're not going anywhere. Getting anything build Anything from it, you're just following through. Following through, doing the right thing. Following throughout too. How about you're just kind of telling work to fluff off, right? They call it quiet quitting. Just like, yeah, I will do what I have to do to not get fired, but that's what I'm gonna do. I'm burned out. And maybe, maybe you can't even be present or concentrate anymore. Maybe it's 3 o' clock and you're done for the day. You're like, okay, I'm done. Maybe it's two o', clock, maybe it's noon, maybe you got three or four good hours in and you're like checking your phone, checking your email, checking your text, playing a game, doing some online shopping. You just, you just can't get your brain back where it is, quote, quote, supposed to be, can't be present, can't be doing what you're supposed to be doing. And then finally, maybe it's translated into your body. I'm just going to sleep in until noon on Saturday and Sunday. Frankly, any other day, I can get away with it. I have a headache, my stomach hurts, I'm waking up at night, I can't sleep, can't fall asleep. Your body is also going to hold the energy of burnout in any way it can figure out how. And our bodies are all kind of these unique organisms that figure out their own way of holding it. So it's not the same for everybody. Somebody else can't sleep and you feel like, my guts are always upset. Burnout. Did I, did I, did I nail it for any of you? Anybody's like, yeah, maybe there's a little bit. Okay, look, you don't have to be totally burned out to enjoy this episode. If you are, you're going to love this episode, I hope. But even if you're just starting to feel these twinges, oh my God. Catch it early, right? Just catch it early. These twinges are giant red flags. They're huge signs and you can energetically and emotionally shift out of them. And I want to help you do that. So, burnout. Just to go back to the beginning, I mentioned depression, adhd, et cetera. Burnout is often more specific to a certain context. Like, I'm burned out at work, I'm burned out caretaking, I'm burned out with the high drama and constant pull from me in this relationship. If you're able to have rest and you can change the environment, change the responsibilities, like, no, I'm not the full time caregiver anymore. No, I. I got two more people hired in my department. Yes, I was able to shift into something else that was interesting to me again instead of the same old same old that I've been doing for 15 years. If you can do that, then it's probably burnout. But depression, on the other hand, it's all across your life. It's in your work, it's in your relationships. You might need therapy, you might need medication, you might be systemically imbalanced inside your body. It's possible, of course, to have both. Mind you, I'm not giving you any kind of diagnosis here or prescription or therapeutic intervention. These are my thoughts and theories only, okay? But having worked with many, many people energetically and in other ways to help them reach their absolute, utter best place, collected a lot of little gems of wisdom along the way. So you may have burnout and depression, or maybe just depression, not burnout. Keep that in mind. Burnout also has like a decline in your functioning. Right? There's a. You had a previous baseline. If you think back, there was a time when I got a lot done, when I was always there, when it wasn't a burden, when I could handle it, when I could fall asleep at night, when I wasn't totally exhausted to the core. There was a time when. But that time has passed. So this burnout is a declining situation. A few years back, you could do anything. Today, nothing again. Could be you've had a change of life circumstances. Could be menopause, could be a chronic illness that's come up, could be adhd. It's making you feel less and less able to stay focused on the things you wanted because you're kind of letting that part of yourself out more. You're unmasking it. So you want to look around and figure out, is this something that's been declining or has this been kind of a constant, like just kind of who I am. And I've, I've. I've been in and out of the state before. Check that. Likewise, I can't go forward without failing to mention anxiety. Anxiety and burnout can also be happy little, you know, friends together inside of you or unhappy friends inside of you. Anxiety is. I'm worried, I'm restless, I'm hyper alert. I can't fall asleep, I can't stay asleep. I'm afraid something bad is going to happen. Similar to burnout. Burnout, though, is often. I'm non functional. I am going to start my first beer at noon today. I am going to say no to my friends asking me out to do stuff because I'm exhausted and I have no mental or emotional capacity. Can you see how the lines between depression, anxiety, other things, burnout, get a little bit blurry? But let's just focus on burnout. Let's pretend today, because I can't obviously tell you what you are, but I can suggest that if you think about burnout, it's sort of like you've done it, you've maxed out. You hit the end and you're like, there's no more to give. There's nowhere to go from here. What I've been doing maybe has been sort of tragically unsuccessful and more unsuccessful as time wore on. And you kept trying and trying, hitting your head against a wall until you reach that point of, I'm done, just done, turned out okay. Now that I took you all the way down the rabbit hole of despair, I want to open you back up to what you do. Because a new job won't help. Right? That's what I titled this. A new job won't help. A new job would help, but not a new job. That was the same as the old job. Okay, a little bit of a distinction. If you were an accountant and now you're becoming a beekeeper, you're probably going to feel some revival. If you were a private accountant by yourself and then you got a job at a firm as an accountant, you may still struggle. Sometimes we just think that getting a new job or getting a new situation is going to take care of everything. Right? Maybe getting more help taking care of your parents. So it's not just on you. Your burnout will start to lighten, but it's hard to say how many days you're going to spend in that no man's land of in between. Well, I'm not still feeling the excessive output from myself, but I'm not really regaining the energy and the enthusiasm and where I want. This is where the intervention that I use I espouse, Flow dreaming, comes in. Yes, you can definitely go to therapy and figure this out. You can also start practicing some new emotional spaces inside yourself. Flow dreaming is going to teach you that the feelings you have are valid and real, but you can always play with and experience different feelings than those that are just there. It teaches you that feelings aren't things that just happen in response to the world around you continuously. Feelings are there to be self generated, to be created on your own. Feelings are there to create templates for life and energy in the world and the universe around you. To say, oh, they're feeling like this. Huh? That's weird. They've got no reason for that. I don't like being out of balance. Maybe we should line something up kind of, you know, match this feeling that this person is giving out right now, I'm trying to, like, make this very simple to understand. Maybe a little too simple about going into deeper waters around manifesting and quantum science and the nature of consciousness itself. But, for instance, let's just say you're really burned out. And every day is, I've got to get through this. I've got to get through this. I have to. I have no other options. I have no other choices. That's it. Everything else is extremely unlikely. No one's going to step in and help me. No one's going to hire me in some random new position. I'm stuck, right? That's burnout thinking. What is? Instead, you spend 10, 15 minutes in flow. I recommended my ideal job, right? My perfect job. What if you go into a state in your mind where you say, I feel myself working in something that is just so extraordinary for me. God. It utilizes every great skill that I have and leads me in new directions and gives me new information to pursue. I'm excited. Like, I'm excited in that very old way, maybe when I was much younger. I'm like, I'm going to learn this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get my pilot's license. I'm going to learn how to oil paint. I'm going to. Oh, my gosh. What if you start feeling that inside yourself now, you don't have to attach it to any specific thing like flying planes or painting. It's the feeling that you want to remind yourself still exists. You just haven't had reasons to feel it. But it still exists, still possible. Still out there. It's still a feeling. Still. It's a feeling you can have that you will have, that you're making right now. So you're not saying, I'm not burned out, right? Because that's. That's going to go nowhere. That's denying a reality for yourself. And there will be a part of you that pushes back and says, that's the stupidest thing I've heard you say in a long time. But if you say to yourself, I'm really eager to get up. I'm really eager to go in and do whatever I'm going to do all day long. I'm eager and excited about the challenges and the joys and the insights that are. That are going to come from it. I'm so happy about what I'm getting back from it. The validation, the money, the support. Like this is working for me. This is actually really working. This thing I'm doing and trying is really, really, really, really working. And again, I'm kind of focusing on career. But this could be caretaking, this could be burnout in other means. Burnout with your position in a, in a, in a family dynamic. Like I'm just done being that person in this family. I'm done. Okay, so you're feeling in the morning, you wake up is they're solving it on their own. I am free and it's okay. And I'm waking up new spaces and places and desires inside myself and I'm letting myself explore. And I'm not telling myself no. And I'm no longer telling myself, you can't because. Or it's too late for that. Or you don't have enough money for that, or you don't have enough time for that. All the stuff, all the stuff I was saying that was keeping me in burnout, I'm not saying, saying the opposite. You've got plenty of time for that. You've got enough money for that. You've got all the access that you need for that. What are you waiting for? Go for it, do it, be it, what is it? And even if you don't know what it is, I just feel great. Just go back to basic emotional endpoints, right? That's a key phrase in the world of flow dreaming. Emotional endpoints, what are those? Let's feel them. So what happens is day after day after day, you're doing this. You're creating what I call a counterweight to the burnout. The burnout is heavy and deep and it's like a scale, an old fashioned metal scale. And the burnout side is very heavy and full. And the other side of the scale, the excitement, the looking forward, optimistic is empty. It's light, nothing in it, not even a feather. It's just empty. We're gotta create something on the other side of the scale. If we keep waiting for stuff to just happen to fill that side, it's gonna be a harder road because we are going every single day expecting more burnout, expecting more of the same. Expecting and receiving go together, go together, go together. So you're going to be practicing an emotional, energetic technique that's going to say great stuff is happening. I am no longer burned out. Actually, you won't say I'm no longer burned out. I already already caught myself on that one earlier. I don't want you to bring burnout into the discussion at all. I want you to say instead, I am filled with a new fresh wind. I'm being given resources, I'm being given opportunities. I'm being seen or validated. I'm being helped. I finally found the right resources around me. Whatever it is I need, I got. I have it. I have it. Got it. And that, that weight that's inside me, that lethargy, that tiredness, that, that sense of hopelessness or go knowing, not going anywhereness, I recognize it. That's it. That's burnout. It's going to leave its little mark. But every day I'm putting a new energy in right next to it. One day that new energy is a little bit higher, a little bit higher than the burnout energy. And I wake up and I think, still really tired. I'm never going to do that again. Maybe I'm even still a little angry about it or holding it or having some emotional response to it. But another part of me says, you know what I'm doing today? I'm going to teach a whole bunch of kids how to ski in Tahoe. Because that is where I decided to go after I did. Blah, blah, blah, that I'm so burned out in. We're going to go do it and see what happens. It feels good. Feels good. This is a path through burnout for sure. It's not the only path through burnout, but it's a path that I know all of us can do at any time. There is no restriction on this. It's not like it's for some people and not for other people. You may have to do more and additional things depending on your circumstance. But everyone can do this. Everyone can go in and feel for 15 minutes. Do your flow. Dreaming. Hey, I feel lit up. I feel the right stuff happening. I feel like I can let go of the stuff that no longer works for me and I'll be okay. That could be better than okay. In fact, that stuff has been waiting for me to get rid of it for a long time. And I'm finally at the most burned out point where I'm willing to let it go. Oh, now look. You're in a new space. That's a new energy in you that wasn't there before. Where is that heading? You know, it's the scent of smoke in the air of a campfire. Just a little bit around the bend, something nice cooking. And you, you want to follow that. You want more of that. That's my path again. You can add More things to it. Maybe you need a career coach, maybe you need job retraining. Maybe you need to fix some things in your family dynamic that will allow more help and support for whatever you need, parents or whoever you care for. You can do all those things, though. But you will still have that deep sense of inner depletion. And that's what I'm talking about, fixing the inner depletion. Time away from the thing. I don't know how long it's going to take. I wish my burnouts have ended in like four weeks or two weeks. Sometimes they've taken four months or six months. I don't know. We're all so unique on our timelines for how long it takes to kind of revive again. Like a wilted flower that you've given water. Is it going to come back? Yeah, it might take an hour, might take five minutes. That's you. So I'm going to leave you with that idea and I'm going to leave you with these words of hope and direction. You can come back from burnout. You have to recognize, is that what I'm facing? And if so, there's a kind of agreement with it. Like we want to fight it and not acknowledge it because we feel trapped. And we're like, I can't acknowledge it because then I'm making it real and then it's really real. But if you acknowledge it, that's your first step. You're like, I'm gonna do something about this now because I'm going to recognize that ultimately it will be unsustainable. You might handle your burnout for three, four, five, six more years. I don't know, I don't want to see you go through that. Or you might say, I see it. And guess what, we're going to change. And the lack thoughts will come up and say, it's going to be hard, it's going to be rough, it's going to be terrible. I'll go through scarcity, I won't have enough. And shush, hush, shush. That's a whole other thing. Get rid of the lack thoughts, right? We're going to tackle this. A double headed hydra here. No lack thoughts on the one side. And I'm refreshed, renewed and on track and on purpose. And I release the burnout and I pivot and I go where I need to go and I get what I need to get. That's the other side of things. Practicing, practicing, practicing these feelings. Practicing, practicing becoming more and more of these feelings and letting the burnout frankly Burn off. If you want to hear more about this, if this is kind of making sense, but you're like, tell me how, how do I do it? I encourage you have a session with me, right? I do. I do single sessions and I do deep dives and I would be happy to look into you, show you where you're at, show you where I think open doors are that you presently cannot see. I'd be happy to share with you the things that I and the people that I feel are impacting this and creating this and kind of give you an external gauge of the degree of tiredness that's going on inside you and what you can replace that with. So I'm, I'm here for you. I will do a session with you. Reach out to me. Summer Flow dreaming.com I've always got a rotating, you know, list of different offers and things that are going on out there right now. I have born empath going on where I'm teaching people how to become empathic and really deeply connected to their knowing and to other people's knowings, right? How to read other people and how they think and what they feel and places and really trying to skill up some people and to become really strong in that. But I often have other things going on as well. This is a summer of prosperity and abundance and I'm also doing some things around that for everyone. So be on my mailing list, you'll find out. Just go to flow dreaming.com, put your email in there for a free. Two free flow dreams. One is on financial abundance, the other is alignment and you should start getting it again now. Caveat. If you've ever unsubscribed from my email, I just learned this. If you've ever unsubscribed and you resubscribe to it because you're like, yeah, yeah, I didn't want to hear it for a while. I was overwhelmed. But then I want to hear it again. Resubscribing will not get you any emails from me, as it turns out, because once you unsubscribe, you are locked in as opt out pretty much forever. Which is something I'm. I'm not really happy about. So what you would need to do in that case is just again send me an email saying, summer, can you get me back on your list? And then over here on our side, we'll go in and manually re opt you in. But you can't just resubscribe. You will still show up as nope, can never talk to you again. And my email people are very serious about that. Nope, never again. And I have people who've tried to resubscribe three or four times and nope, never again because they unsubscribed in like 2012. Okay, so with that, you know what to do. You guys, you guys have this. Love to you all. Thank you again for your podcast reviews of this show. It goes a long way. If you felt this was helpful, drop a note wherever you listen to your podcasts. All right, lots of love to you guys. I'll see you next time for another episode of Flow Dreaming.

A quick note for newcomers, Flow Dreaming is both an energy practice and a way of seeing the world. It teaches you how to manifest, heal, and use your emotions to create a sublime life. You'll find over 3, 300 recorded flow dreams which are similar to but not the same as meditations and a free short training@flowdreaming.com this show dives into Flow Dreaming and other concepts to help you live a more powerful and fulfilling life. Now let's get to the show.