The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

49. The Truth About Burnout (with Avery Thatcher)

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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In this episode of the Quiet Warrior podcast, Avery Thatcher and I delve into the topic of burnout, a condition experienced by many due to chronic stress. 

Given the tumultuous times we live in and the increasing pace of life and work, how do we stay alert to the signs that we may be suffering from burnout?

Avery, a former ICU nurse turned burnout recovery specialist for highly sensitive high achievers, shares insights from her personal journey and professional expertise. 

Talking Points:

  • The origins of burnout as a response to constant stress
  • The three stages of burnout
  • Why burnout is not just about stress management 
  • How burnout acts as a safety mechanism of the body
  • How different generations perceive and handle burnout
  • Cultural sensitivity in leadership
  • Why resilience may be an overrated trait
  • The value of small moments of self-care
  • Recognizing and addressing burnout early
  • The three stages of recovering from burnout
  • Looking after our teams and employees 
  • Looking out for ourselves and our co-workers


Resources:

Where to find resources and strategies for individuals and organizations to prevent and recover from burnout:

www.BecomingAvery.com

About Avery Thatcher:

Avery specializes in helping highly sensitive people who have experienced a recent significant setback that has left them questioning who they are and what their purpose is in her one-on-one work and her group coaching experience the Mindset Reboot Program.

Connect with Avery on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/becomingavery/


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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Serena Loh. If you're used to hearing that introverts are shy, anxious, antisocial and lack good communication and leadership skills, then this podcast is for you. You're about to fall in love with the calm, introspective and profound person that you are. Discover what's fun, unique and powerful about being an introvert, and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work anytime you want, in more ways than you imagined possible. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Quiet Warrior podcast. Today's topic is something I think all of us would have encountered at some point, or maybe we know someone who is going through that or has been through it, and I'm talking about burnout. What is burnout? Is burnout on the rise? Is burnout something that's ever happened to you? Is burnout something that you don't even think about, because maybe you think it's just I'm working hard. This is how it should be so to give us some light on this matter, I've invited today Avery Thatcher, who specializes in helping highly sensitive high achievers to recover from burnout.

Speaker 2:

Welcome, Avery. Thank you so much for having me, Serena. I'm very excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Avery, I'm really curious about your story. I saw from your profile that you used to work as a critical care nurse and now you're helping highly sensitive, high achievers. How did that come about?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. So I was an ICU registered nurse for a number of years and really early on in that career I noticed that the majority of the reasons why adults found themselves in a critical care unit was because of illnesses and diseases that could be linked to chronic stress. So I made the decision in 2015 to start building a business to help the people that are most prone to this the highly sensitive high achievers and I realized that really we were all talking about stress management you know the meditation, the mindfulness, yoga, journaling, all of those things that people talk about when they talk about burnout but then, at the end of 2018, I had my very own epic burnout experiences left me with multiple chronic illness diagnoses and a disability, and I was so frustrated because I felt like I was doing everything right in quotation marks but I still burnt out. So, being the super nerd that I am, went back into the research and discovered really the truth about burnout, and that's what I feel like we're going to be talking about today.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you've made me so excited now, and I never thought that that's possible for a topic like burnout. So tell me more. What exactly is burnout?

Speaker 2:

So we can't really just talk about burnout without first talking about stress, because our body's stress response was designed for that initial moment of something dangerous coming at us and us fighting or fighting our way to safety. And then, because of the way that our world is and with all of the traumatic experiences and difficult experiences that we've been through, we've also developed the freeze and the fawn response to our stress. And so when we look at how our body was designed, it was really only meant to have that initial stage of alarm, that moment when you see something dangerous, get you to safety and then turn off. But that's not how life works anymore.

Speaker 2:

Our stresses are nearly constant, and things like financial stress and inflation and all of the things that are encompassed in surviving a global pandemic and what that looks like and how that's changed the way that we see the world. It just never goes away. So that moves us into the next stage of chronic stress, which is the stage of resistance, and this is where most of us are living, when we're able to create or consume enough energy to keep up with the increased energy demand that stress puts on our body, because stress is really trying to make us be successful and that means that we need to have extra energy to keep up with all of those extra hormones that it's pumping around our body. But eventually things pile on too much and it becomes too much to maintain and we can't keep up with that energy demand. That's when you move into the final stage, which is the stage of exhaustion, also known as burnout.

Speaker 1:

Right, so this actually does start with stress. So there is a little bit of the stress management element there, but we can't stop there because it's actually deeper than that and it's actually more serious than we think it is.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and this is where I say that burnout is not a stress management issue.

Speaker 2:

It's an energy management issue, because when we look at those three stages of stress, in the stage of resistance we're able to balance the energy enough, but when we move into that stage of exhaustion, we can't keep up anymore.

Speaker 2:

And so my favorite way to explain this is with an analogy. So if you imagine that you're sitting in a boat and that boat is full of holes and water is slowly pouring into your boat, but it's okay because you have a bucket and a life jacket, so you're using your bucket to bail out the water and you're keeping up with it, but then it starts to flow in a little bit faster and then you start to get tired and then you can't really keep up with bailing out your boat, so then your life jacket catches you, and so in this scenario, the boat is your life, the water pouring into it are all of your sources of stress, and energy drains, responsibilities, the world is on fire. All of those things are contributing to water pouring into your boat. Your bucket are your stress management strategies, but you have to have the energy to use them, consistently use them, and so it's when we run out of energy, that our burnout life jacket catches us, because burnout is really a safety mechanism of our body protecting itself from failure.

Speaker 1:

Would it also be helpful to think of it as the boat being a leaky kind of boat, because it's letting in all these stresses and we are sort of applying band-aid solutions, aren't we? All of the techniques are great and I've tried all of them. You know the meditation, the yoga, the walks, the journaling, the prayer, everything. But at the same time, if we're not plugging those leaks, the boat still is leaky, isn't?

Speaker 2:

it Exactly, and so that's where it really becomes an energy balance, because you know how quickly you can use your coping mechanisms to manage all the stress that's pouring in. But we have to look at which holes in our boat we can plug by eliminating them, eliminating those sources of stress, or which ones we need to manage, which ones we are able to slow down their impact impact for us, because there are some things that we can't change. We can't change the current state of the world. We can't change the societies that we live in. We can't change that modern day capitalism values, humans, worth with their productivity. So all of these components are creating holes in our boat and some, some of them, we can't fix. So we have to learn how to work with them.

Speaker 1:

And it's ironic, then, that we need also a clear headspace in order to be able to assess what is within our control and what isn't. But by the time we get to that state of chronic exhaustion, we would not be in a place to make those decisions, would we?

Speaker 2:

No, and it actually we lose that access a little bit earlier.

Speaker 2:

So when you come back into the stress response, it's really a switch. And so when our switch gets turned on and we're stressed, our body is prioritizing the fight and the flight mechanisms, so it's making sure that the strong muscles of our legs are getting extra blood and oxygen. It's focusing on instinct and those survival mechanisms and that means that it shunts blood away from our prefrontal cortex, our higher level thinking, problem-solving brain that's able to look at things from a broader view and more like objectively. And so when we're in this stressed out space, we don't have access to that part. So it's really hard for us to step back and say, okay, so like I've overcommitted myself, I need to back off on a couple of things or set different deadlines, or I am a perfectionist and I've set too high realistic expectations for myself. So there's a number of different things that we can step back for, but we have to train that into us because in those moments of heightened stress our body is not prioritizing that part of our brain.

Speaker 1:

That makes so much sense. So you're actually saying that we need to go back a further few steps to even reempt or to start noticing those red flags before they become bigger red flags?

Speaker 2:

Definitely, and I saw this in a video years ago and I don't know who it was because I just scrolled on by. But if you do, if you're listening right now, you know who said this first, please tell me, because I would love to credit them. But they said that sometimes we can't see our red flags because they're pointed at us and it's only the skinny edge of the flag that we can see, and so this is where we need to talk to other people, get support, learn from other people's stories so that we can change the wind, so we can see more of those red flags, because hindsight's a jerk and, looking back at it, we can sometimes see those red flags in hindsight, but in the moment it was too small for us to see.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that perspective. Hindsight is 20-20, isn't it? We're always wiser after the fact, so we are looking for the pointy end of the red flag red flag.

Speaker 2:

We can't see all of it blowing in the breeze. So this is where again, listening to other people's stories setting up a red flag warning system for yourself once you know your patterns, or getting some help talking to someone, having them help shift the wind so you can see more of that red flag. It's such an important part of burnout prevention.

Speaker 1:

It's such an important part of burnout prevention. I realize we're going to come up against one of those well, perhaps you call it firm KPIs to keep to and are very, perhaps, unyielding in their pursuit of a certain kind of a standard expected from employees, and they may not take so kindly to being told that someone is experiencing burnout, or they may say that person is weak or they're not trying hard enough. You need to be more resilient. How do you respond to that?

Speaker 2:

So, number one I hate the word resilient. I think that it celebrates the wrong thing. It's like patting you on the back for being able to survive the unsurvivable. It's really not a celebrative thing. And then the next piece is we need to start looking at interpersonal dynamics, because everybody shows up in a different way and different generations will also experience burnout and express it in a different way.

Speaker 2:

So baby boomers, for example, grew up in a time of a lot of stability and they often stayed in their job for 20 years, so they valued loyalty, they valued getting things done and they didn't know how to ask for help or voice that they were struggling.

Speaker 2:

So then in turn, if they haven't worked on understanding different perspectives, that's how they'll also expect other people to be, because that's how they were raised. But when we look at Gen X or millennials, they grew up in economic instability and it just gets worse as you get into the Gen Z generation, because this is where those terms are like everyone's replaceable has come from and there's a lot of more of the gig economy and contract work and things like that. So it just shows up differently in all those scenarios. So I think one of the things that leaders really need to do is educate themselves on how burnout presents in different generations, because there's a lot of people in the Gen X and boomer generation that'll say I'm not stressed, everything's fine, I've got everything under control, I'm totally fine, everything's great. But they have that panic in their voice and they just don't know how to label it as burnout yet. So I think that's a really important piece of this puzzle.

Speaker 1:

That is so good. So you were saying, Avery, that managers and leaders need to become more culturally aware, more culturally sensitive to the way burnout presents itself in different generations. And how does one go about that?

Speaker 2:

I don't think there's any curriculum or something like that but looking to people that offer support for leadership teams as well as the frontline staff.

Speaker 2:

So I do have a program where I come in and talk to the leadership team, present a bunch of strategies, we pick a couple to focus on, and then I meet with their frontline staff to also talk to them about burnout and how it could be showing up for them.

Speaker 2:

But then we attack it from both sides, because when we're looking at how to recover from burnout, especially as an organization and especially with a lot of introverts that might not share enough for you to realize that they're burnt out, we need to know what we're looking for in the first place, and so when you have somebody that can help guide you through that process, it's a really big help.

Speaker 2:

However, there are a number of books, there's other podcasts and things that you can get into to learn about some of those other things, but really you're looking for both the obvious signs of burnout but then also some of those more subtle signs. So for an organization, for example, that would look like increased turnover and absenteeism people being a little bit more withdrawn, culture being a little bit more challenging is a symptom of burnout, it's not a cause. So we need to look at some of those warning signs first, because that'll at least give you starting points for your conversations. And then you can look at the generation that you're talking with and then the attachment style of that person that you're working with and the belief systems that they come from and the cultural backgrounds that they have, because it all really informs the conversation and is so powerful when you're looking to really recover from and prevent burnout.

Speaker 1:

I really appreciate how you mentioned that. It has to come from both ends. So there is that element that leadership needs to take an active role in recognizing burnout and doing something about it. That is practical, that is empathetic, that is compassionate, without that element of making someone feel judged and not good enough as an employee. But at the same time, at the employee level, I think we also need to be advocating for ourselves and for our fellow workers, whom we notice may be struggling a little bit and having those conversations.

Speaker 2:

Agreed and some of the strategies that maybe the leadership team would pick to start implementing. They're going to be new skills for them, so if we could have their team help support the learning of that skill, everybody benefits, but we all have to just be on the same page about that. So this is where that top-down, bottom-up communication can be so helpful.

Speaker 1:

And I'm curious to know specific industries. Are there some industries and professions where burnout is much more likely?

Speaker 2:

yes, definitely so. There's a lot of research into this and how stress impacts us and our body, depending on our work. So a lot of service industries so restaurant industries, caring industries, healthcare industries all of those do experience higher levels of burnout, mainly because it impacts more than just the physical energy. Nonprofits also experience higher than typical levels of burnout because they often try and move forward and they're also in that serving space, but also moving forward with less because their budgets are more restrictive. They have people doing two people's jobs, three people's jobs, just because that's what's needed to keep their mission moving forward. And then, from an individual group, entrepreneurs are some of the highest experiencers of burnout and I think it's because of the emotional and mental investment in the success and also valuing their worth with the external success of their business. So I think, yes, there are some groups that experience it more likely than others. But, that being said, indeedcom did a survey. So Indeedcom is a job board for North America and they did a survey in 2019 of people that were experiencing burnout and there was about 9% to 11% of the people were reporting that they felt burnout at that time. They did it after the pandemic, they did it in 2022 and again in 2023. We're now at 67% to 73% of people experiencing burnout. So, even if you don't identify as being one of those industries that I just mentioned, if you're feeling burnt out, it's valid, it's something which you need to get support for and you need to start looking at, because there are some very real health consequences when we don't follow it.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that I think is a really big misconception about burnout is people think that it's like a circle, that you start up at the top, you're feeling really good and then life starts to get a little bit too busy and you start to run out of energy.

Speaker 2:

Then you crash into burnout at the bottom, but then you slow down, rest enough, feel better and you're back up to the top, but it's actually like a wave, like a ball bouncing down a hill. So you start up at the top and then you crash into burnout and then you recover a little bit, but you're not where the top was, and then you crash again into burnout and you recover a little bit more and then you kind of just oscillate around this space between burnout and just feeling like you're getting your head above water before life kicks you down again. So when we're looking at that experience, the recovery process isn't as quick as just like oh, I'm going to rest for a couple of days or go on vacation and everything's going to be better. But there still is a really easy framework to follow that's going to get you back up that hill, back up to where you feel like yourself again.

Speaker 1:

I find that very fascinating that you described it as waves instead of a full circle, because I had that misconception as well that burnout is something you can recover from. But also, having studied mental health, where we talk about recovery-oriented approach and the idea being that one doesn't recover in your mental health, it's more like a journey and there isn't actually a fixed destination, you don't arrive. It's a matter of taking it one good day at a time. So is that a similar sort of concept, then, to how one responds to burnout? Does it mean that once you've experienced burnout, you're more likely to go through it again?

Speaker 2:

Well, that depends. So when we look at burnout recovery, it actually comes in three phases. So the first one is to recover enough energy that you have the ability to step back and maybe do some things different, because we all know that we need to eat well and sleep better and have boundaries and say no and all of the things. But if you're really burnt out, you don't want to. You barely have enough energy to decide what to have for dinner, that you don't even can't even think about what to cook, you know, like it's all of these things that piled up. So we first need to recover our energy and then, once we've got that, then we can start to optimize some of our external habits, making our lives flow a little bit easier, plug some of those holes in our boat, look at ways that we can bring a little bit more ease into our life. And then finally, we have to elevate and that's where we look at the conditioning, the patterns, the belief systems that we follow, the things that we were told, how those are serving us versus sabotaging us. And when we start to look at those, that's where the true healing from burnout happens.

Speaker 2:

Because when we have these patterns that are leading perpetuating burnout, then it's very possible that we're never actually going to fully recover. We're going to have to keep working on coming back up that mountain. But when we start to readjust some of those patterns, those beliefs and those actions of how we live out, our perspectives, then we can actually truly prevent burnout from coming back Because we're working with the different traits that we have, we're learning how to get them into the serving side rather than the sabotaging side. So, for example, being a high achiever can absolutely serve you. It can push you to learn and grow and try new things and be curious and experiment with different ways to preserve your energy. But of course it can also sabotage us by taking on too much overcommitting, getting into all or nothing thinking, perfectionism. So we're looking at where does it exist on this continuum and how can I bring it more into the serving side.

Speaker 1:

So once we've kind of worked through those recover and optimize levels and we get through the elevate and really work on some of those beliefs, absolutely you can recover from burnout and never burn out again this sounds to me like a very long journey, because you're getting someone to their almost, like their neutral point, where they can survive first, where there's a little bit of leeway, and then you're getting them to their optimal level and then you're getting them to elevate beyond that.

Speaker 1:

So perhaps the advice is not to allow ourselves to get into that state of chronic exhaustion to start with, to start noticing those red flags, but then again it's not easy to notice the flags when they are pointing at us. So that's where we need our support network and we need awareness from other people and other sources. What is your advice for people who are going through a challenging situation right now? Perhaps their, you know, maybe their job is on the line, you know the family that there are many aspects of life that are very stressful right now, and they probably can see some red flags emerging, but it's almost like they feel they don't have any choice in it, they don't have much control over the situation. It's like things are happening too fast. What would you say to someone like that?

Speaker 2:

Two things. One always do your best doesn't mean always be perfect, so your best is going to look different moment to moment, day to day. So start to bring in a little bit more compassion for yourself which is something that we have to train back into us because it's been trained out of us but looking for ways to really just be gentle with how well you can show up on a given day, Because if you have 40% to give and you give 40%, you've given 100% of what you had that day. So looking at it from that perspective, for sure. But the next thing is really looking for pockets of time to help lower your stress.

Speaker 2:

I really wish I could meet the person that said you needed 30 minutes of self-care a day and I wanted to shake them just to say like, why? Why did you set that completely unachievable standard? Because most of us don't have a solid block of 30 minutes every day to commit to taking care of ourselves. But you probably do have 60 seconds before you run from the car into the grocery store and two minutes before you move into your next task. These little pockets of time are so valuable and there's a ton of research coming out that's showing that those little moments of stress relief are far more effective than the rare 30-minute chunk. So we're looking at how can I bring in little moments of a couple of deep breaths, just sitting and being and not expecting myself to do anything, listening to quiet music, calming down some of the external stimuli. What can you do to just find a little pocket of time? It is so effective.

Speaker 1:

I love that because it's so much more manageable. It's also much more human and achievable. I think it's when we set ourselves that bar that's too high. 30 minutes sounds really good. It sounds manageable, but you're right, it's more likely that we'll find 60 seconds here and two minutes in the car between the time we park and the time we walk into the house. To recalibrate, reset our minds, you know, take a couple of deep breaths and then prepare ourselves, you know, for the next interaction or the next. You know the fact that it's a different setting and it requires different energy from us. So I really love that. You know looking for those pockets, looking for what's available and making the most of that. So how do we support a friend or a loved one whom we think might be experiencing burnout?

Speaker 2:

So the first question I'd always ask is am I experiencing burnout first? Where is my energy level? Because if we go into trying to help support somebody with burnout but we're really low on emotional energy, then when they kind of resist and fight us back, we're going to be like I'm getting all frustrated and then we're going to walk away. So we need to make sure that our energy is okay first before we go in and try and help somebody. It's that whole saying that's going around so common put on your own oxygen mask first before you put it on for somebody else.

Speaker 2:

So first checking in with yourself to make sure that you have the capacity, the time, energy and mental white space to help, but then also asking questions for them To be like hey, I've noticed that you're really busy right now. How are you feeling? How's your sleep? When was the last time you did something fun? And just helping them realize what they're standing in. Because often when we're in that mode of pushing through, keep going, we're burnt out and can't see it. We often can't name it yet. So helping them look around and see the current life that they're living is a really helpful way to open the conversation. It's a lot less jarring than saying, hey, I think you're burnt out, you need to do better. It just allows them to feel safe to have that conversation.

Speaker 1:

That's a good word safe. I think that psychological safety is so important, even when our intentions are good and we are trying to be helpful. I can just imagine that someone else who's already feeling vulnerable might feel actually quite judged or feel some feelings of shame coming up because someone has perceived that they need help or that they need some encouragement.

Speaker 2:

Exactly and remember, like we talked about before, when you're in this chronic state of stress which is what burnout is, it's the end game of our chronic stress response you don't have access to that objective, higher level thinking brain. So you're running on instinct, which means that you're in fight or flight. So that means that you might get defensive and say things that you didn't mean or walk away from the conversation, and that's a totally normal response. That's what your body's trying to do. So when we're trying to help someone with that, we have to understand that that's their gut reaction is going to be fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

Speaker 1:

And how do people find you to ask you more about the work that you do?

Speaker 2:

well, thank you for asking. So I have a couple of podcasts myself and you can find both of those on my website, becoming averycom. I also have buckets of free resources, including a burnout risk assessment quiz. So if you're not sure if you're burnt out or not, you can go ahead and take that and it'll let you know your level of risk for burning out and, of course, I give you strategies. So yeah, those are all at becomingaverycom.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. I love quizzes and I'm sure our listeners will as well. That's certainly a very empowering tool to start, you know, sort of looking in the mirror and just checking in on ourselves. Not that we think necessarily that we are in trouble, but it's good to see those red flags before they really become red flags, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and that's what this quiz is all about. It's just to really help with that piece.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, Avery. It's such a joy to have you on the podcast today and I've learned so much from you, and I'm sure our listeners have as well. Thank you for the work that you do.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you again. Thanks for holding space for something like this. I just think it's such an important conversation to have and I'm so grateful to have it here.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thanks for joining us today and look out for Avery's social media links so you can learn more about her work in the show notes below. Also, I want to let you know, give you a heads up, that I've been working on something for the last couple of months and I'm very excited to be sharing it with you soon. I will be posting more information in the next episode and I can't wait to share more details with you. See you next time. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together, we can help more introverts thrive. To receive more uplifting content like this, connect with me on Instagram at Serena Lo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.