Ep. 331: Ting Song - Navigating Burnout: Small Habits and Big Mindset Shifts

In today's episode, Ting and I dive deep into the realities of burnout, what it really means, and how to spot it before it spirals, and why it's not more than just everyday stress. Drawing from her experience in leadership and her own personal journey, Ting shares practical advice on building healthier habits, recognizing the early warning signs, and making room for play and relaxation during the busiest times. So if you're feeling stretched thin at the end of the year or simply want to start 2026 with more energy and renewed focus, this episode is packed with tips and strategies to support yourself and your team. So take a moment and pause with us, and let's wrap up the year by investing in your well-being. Let's get started.

Well, Ting, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm very excited to be talking about burnout. And I think what we could start with is maybe a little bit about your story. What kinda drew you to focus on burnout as a topic?

I'm you know, I had good grades in school, so I never saw it will be something, you know, I would experience in my life. But then later on, you know, after years and years working, I started to realize I can't work the same way I was working when I was younger. You know you know, my energy that was just not there, and, you know, it just I can't do this years and after years. And then that's when I started to realize maybe there's something wrong. So I, you know, I started to ask people.

I go to different retreats. I do yoga personally. So I do different things and just try to try to explore, you know, what's going on because I'm just tired all the time. And then I, you know, when I start to go to a yoga retreat, that's when I start to learn about, you know, that's probably is burnout. And and then I started seeing some therapists, which really helped me to understand, you know, this is something every oh, it's very common these days because people work so much.

And that's when I decided, okay. I need to make a change because I think that the first thing is to be aware what's going on. Once you're aware and then you had to work to make a change. So that's why I think it's very important. And then because I have achieved so much improvements in my own, you know, well-being, so that's why I think I should share this with other people so people people can learn from me or just learn from whatever else that out there.

Then you're gonna you'll be experience a long term burning out period, and it's really, really it will take a lot of work in order for you to reverse. And then that's why I think it's very important for you to discover the signs of stress and then you can, you know, start to manage the stress and before it actually turn into a burnout situation. Yeah. I think some symptoms you can see, from stress, I think it's very important that you're aware of these when they have stars. Symptoms such as have trouble sleeping, I think that's a big one.

You know, if you don't you are the person who are typically very healthy, you don't get sick that often, and all of a sudden, you get sick, you know, every month. And then that's something, you know, you can see is probably because of stress or even burnout. Some other symptom is like, okay. You when there's a scenario, when there's a situation in your face and then you breathe very fast or you have heartbeat, like fast heartbeats, or you just start to forget about things. And people always think, oh, because we're getting old, that's why I start to forget about things.

But, actually, that's not true. A lot of times, it's because of stress, you start to forget about things. So those are those are small signs I think you can manage on a daily basis. And if happens to you, you can just start to, you know, take a pause and think, okay. I need to take a break because I'm stressed. Because you have to know, like, when you are stressed. If you know when you're stressed, you can stop. I think that's very important.

It always takes years and years, and people only start to be aware of that after it turns out to be a burnout. And at that time, you just feel like you can't even go back to work anymore or you take you know, if you take a vacation and you take a week and you come back, you still feel tired. That means you are burned out. Yeah. But then people only realize that, you know, when you are actually burned out.

And I think one thing also I feel like I always tell people is that I feel like everybody needs a therapist. No matter, you know, no matter you feel great or not feeling great, I think it's very important. This is just like a workout. You know? You you go to the gym because you wanna be healthy.

So you go to a therapist so you can stay mentally healthy. So it's almost the same thing. There's nothing to be scared about it or ashamed about it. These days, I think it's very common, especially, you know, in today's world with all these crazy things happening. It's just very common that we have some sort of stress and seeing a therapist and having a therapist that fits your style, it's always very important.

He couldn't move his thumb anymore, And then he has to go to the hospital, and then it's just hard to diagnose any reasons. Because when you are burned out, you know, some sort of your body like, physically, there's probably some reactions, but you couldn't be diagnosed. And then that's usually caused by either stress or burnout or some other emotional or mental issues. But because you can't have diagnosed, so it's not physical. But but but if you don't treat it, then it become physical from a mental, which you don't you can't diagnose and then become a physical, which you're able to diagnose.

That so that's why things you know, that's how people get sick. Most sickness is coming from something mental and then coming and then transition because we don't treat it. And then they transition into something physical. And if we don't even treat it at that point, it transitions to something even more serious physically. And so that's how it usually works.

Daughters can treat the patient. They can treat the symptoms, and they can treat the physical problems, but they cannot treat the mental problem. And then who can treat the mental problem? It's ourself. Like, we're the only one that can control ourself.

I, you know, I work with so many people. They're trying to control every single thing that's happening. But I think people need to be realized that you can only control yourself. Apart from yourself, you cannot control anything. And then because you are trying to control the things you cannot control, and that's why you're so stressed.

I mean, it's one of the causes of stress. It's not every you know, it it's there's other causes of stress as well. But this is one of the common causes that you're trying to control everything at work or your your life because you think it should happen a certain way. So it's more about changing your mindset, how you perceive, you know, what's going on and, you know, everything has two sides. You know, there's always a positive side as well as a negative side, and they just how you see it.

And then once you can see it in a positive side, you are not feeling any burnout or stress or depression and, you know, always, like, stress, anxiety, depression, burnout. These all come together. It doesn't just come fun. You know? It doesn't just like, oh, it's just stress. No. There's always some other things come together. It's all these negative emotions that you're dealing with.

It could be, oh, because the time is not enough. So your stress is coming from limitation of the time. Or it could be the volume or the volume work is too high, so that's the cause of stress. Or it could be the environment, the people you work with who are not the best people or they're not the most relaxed people or positive people to work with. So I think it's very important to identify what is the cause of the stress.

Once you can identify, you had to practice moment by moment, which means, you know, it's a mental habit, so it comes and goes. And then the more you allow it, it comes more. You know? Probably during the day, you know, some days, you're probably more stressed than other days. Sometimes it's because you didn't sleep well, because you didn't eat well.

Physical and mental health is always go hand in hand. So if you're eating well, you usually have a more clear mind. So certain days, are just more moody and other things happen in your life. So that day, you probably have more stress, and then you need to notify that. Note notice that when it's happening and then identify, like, moment by moment. Once the thoughts come to you, and that's when you start you had to start to tell yourself, okay. This is not right.

But in the real world, it's always in between. It's in the gray area. So when you change your habit, you it always go back and forth beef you know, between good and bad, good and bad. And then you can start to notice. You go if you work hard on your habits, you're changing the habits. You start to notice the frequency of good. It become more and more. So it's actually slowly shifting in a different direction. So that's when you start to notice the change. Mhmm.

But there's always days that are gonna coming back. They're gonna come back to exactly where you start. You need to be not be dis discouraged. You know you're still doing well. Although it seems you go back to the same place, but it is not exactly the same place.

And that takes time because you can't always just change everything that you're doing at work on the drop of a hat. You can't always put boundaries around things that are causing you stress. Those think you have to balance it and and and it looks different for each person. And I think a lot of times people try to fit everything in one cookie cutter thing and every person's journey is different and what works for you may not work for me. And I can find what works for me in order to make that work.

So every day, you had to designate a certain amount of time and energy to work on that habits and day by day. And that's you know, you you're gonna make some progress. It's not going to be okay. I gave you a prescription. I will take it every day. Is it gonna work? It's not like that. You had to make shift. You know? Today, you're working on different things, and tomorrow, you change direction.

You notice the change in yourself, and then you change your strategy according to what you change your in your body. So it change every day. So you put you had to put enough energy in doing this. Like, I would say, like, managing the process. It's not just, like, going through the process.

But it varies. Everybody is different. So I can't really say, okay. You had to sleep how many hours a day. But you feel if you ever feel like you have trouble falling asleep, and it become more consistent, like, you know, it's not just one day or it's always always, then that's the early sign. One of the biggest cause of loss of sleep is actually mental. It's not yeah. A lot of people think, you know, it's because of other things, but it's actually because you think too much.

Yeah. It it it happens. You know, if you lost interest on the things you always interested in, I think it is a sign you need to look at it, why it happened.

And before, it wasn't like that because I start to be stressed and burning out. I start to forget about things. I think that's a very big sign as well. I think other signs, it just stress gonna impact your personal life. If you start to think, you start to realize the people around you probably is all stressed, or you start to be, you know, be more connected with people that experience, you know, like, burnout or stress, that's because you're actually burned out and stressed.

Sometimes you have to put yourself in the environment of people who are happy or positive because energy pass on. Stress pass on the other way around. You know? Positive energy pass around as well. I always I actually took a workshop, I think a while ago. They talk about play. Kids like to play. That's why they're so happy. Adults Yeah. Us.

We don't play. That's why, you know, we're always stressed, and we're not happy about our life. But if you get if we treat every single thing in our life as play a game, even if you've been through exactly the same thing, you might be much happier than, you know, just just treating it as a task or something you have to finish.

Okay. Yeah. So we talked we talked a bit about some actionable strategies, some things that people can do to kinda get out of burnout to to kinda help reduce some of the stresses that take hold that cause the burnout. But from your experience, what are some of the biggest challenges that people face when trying to recover from burnout or even admit that they're burned out? Because I'm that's a problem too that people don't want to admit, hey. I actually have a problem.

You don't realize there's a shift than, you know, mental shift. So I think the most important thing at first is to be aware that this is happening, and this is common. You have to admit it, and then you can start to allocate time and energy to manage it. Yeah. And it's not easy.

I mean, because everybody, you know, is burning out. Everybody's stressed, and then working in the environment of everybody's burned out and stressed is not easy if you wanna recover from that. So you do have to have a game plan, a game plan that, you know, requires time, energy. And I always tell people, have a therapist or coach just to be able to help you through the process. You need to get a need to get one that fits your style.

Not every professional, not every therapist works. You know, you can face your style. So you had to find somebody that fits your style. And then you have the tool. You have to have the tool, the time and energy, and the determination.

Mhmm. But I think it's really important that you have the time because if you work eighty hours a week, a hundred hours a week, it's really hard. The rest of the time you have, I'm pretty sure you'll just sleep or eat or do whatever is needed to do. Then so the first thing you need to look at if you have enough time it doesn't have to be a long period of time, but it has to be often, like, the frequency. Mhmm.

Set alarm to yourself, for example, like, a couple time a day. Every time you have a five minutes break is not a long time, but you can step outside. You know? Just five minutes if you can, or just go to the bathroom or take drink some water, just walk around a little bit. And I think that's very helpful.

So you do have to set aside a time and change the habit. I always feel like in order to combat combat combat, In order to fight with what's the best word? In order to manage the negative energy, like, negative negative styles, like stress and depression, anxiety, you would do something totally opposite, such as play, have fun, you know, have a hobby, you know, see just talk spend time with somebody that you like. You know, you have to really play and have fun. I think that's very important.

Relax is good, but the best thing is having fun.

It's okay to kind of get out of our heads. And so in that vein, are there like, when we think about organizations and leaders, and I'm sure there's people listening to this thinking, you know, are people in my team burnt out? You know, are there ways that we can better support our team, our team members, and our teams to help reduce burnout risk? And sometimes we're in high pressure environments, and there's a lot of stress in high pressure environments. And we all know we've established that high stress and long term stress leads to burnout.

So how can organizations help support their teams better?

So it's not like they don't wanna do it. It's more about they might not know how to do it. So once you can show them as example and then you can slowly impact them and maybe even teach them about it, and they can start to learn and do themselves. It's like the energy pass around. If you have two people, you might be able to impact four people.

And then you have four people, you can might be impact more. But it is not easy. You know? There's always organization culture. So if you're not in the position of changing the culture, you might not be able to change, you know, everything, but you can at least change yourself. And I think it's very important. The more you change yourself, you can show other people as example. It's also a boundary setting settings. You need to set a boundary for to protect your energy. Right?

So sometimes maybe you're the only person that you're happy, but not everybody else is happy, but you you have to really stay in that environment because it's your work or something. So you do need to set your boundaries somehow so that you don't get impact by them either. So it is, like, a process you might need to work on yourself and slowly impact other people. But, meanwhile, you should not be impacted by other people if they have a negative energy. And that's why it always take time, energy to manage and monitor.

And trust me, good things happen when you're happy. Or good things happen, you know, when you're really working on yourself and trying to impact other people. The universe, they have an energy they can pass around. You always notice I don't know. People always there's a saying like, oh, when something going wrong, there's always something else going around.

Right? It's always channel reaction. It's the same same theory when you're having something good happen. It's another good thing that always happen at the same time. It's always a channel reaction. So sometimes you don't know how you can change it, but at least you can start from yourself. And Mhmm. And then you can slowly impact other people, and then maybe good things will happen. There are gonna be more people impacted. Yeah.

So it is a process. And that's why I think it's always about, you know, understand yourself, understand your boundaries, understand what make you stressed, what make you relax, you know, what is more important for you. If this is not a right environment, for example, if you're working under a toxic environment, then you might need to leave. So you have to make the best judgment what is what is right, what is wrong. Right?

People, if this is not a good environment, everybody knows about it. There is gonna be something happening soon. Trust me. Yeah. Because yeah. Because that's just how things usually work. Think I think there's always I was in this workshop, and it's talk about when you have a high high in your life, you might next experience a low low. And then when you have a low low, the next moment you might experience a high high. So it's always going up and down. Mhmm. Just how you experience

Or you wanna have a fab happy life? It's a I think it's a personal choice. I always feel you can achieve a lot in a short period of time. If you work really, really hard, which means my it might be sacrifice your time to do any other things or your personal health or well-being, but it's not sustainable. At least it's not sustainable for most people. It might be happening for some people, but for most people, it's not sustainable.

It's a marathon. So you always wanna, you know, look at the full picture to see what is you wanna do, your choice, how you wanna live your life. And then, you know, you might also make adjustment. You know? Sometimes when you're in your twenties, you make a choice different than what you're doing in your thirties.

In your forties, it's different again. So you make adjustment. You know? But I think the most important thing is that you have to understand. You you're you have to understand yourself, and everybody is so different.

If you you know, the work the way you work, some people, they are just good at working long hours, and that's how they can produce results. Whereas other people, they might have short you know, they can only focus a short period of time, but they generate even better results within a short period of time. So you have to understand what is your style. I think most time, burnout and stress is because you're trying to make your body to do something your body doesn't wanna do because you don't understand your body very well.

And that's why it's burnout. You get burnout. You got stressed because you're forcing yourself to do something you're not naturally able to do. Whereas, you know, some people, they their body are built different than us. They are able to do, you know, long hours.

Or when they're working, they might actually taking breaks in the middle, but you don't see that. You only see what they presented to you. You don't really see what's actually happening to them. Mhmm. Because of that, you know, you think, oh, they work long hours. Yeah. Success. You know, they work hard. They get success. No.

It's not always the truth because you don't know the details. Yes. So I think it's because yeah. We all see, you know, what's happening from the surface, and then we think that's what's gonna happen, but that might not be.

And so you can't make assumptions that, oh, I have to work eighty hours a week to to be successful. You know, a lot of times with everything that's happening and all the, different advances in technology, you know, we should be working smarter and and finding ways to cut down the amount of hours that we need to work to still be successful.

Maybe we can maybe you can we can kinda end the conversation by, like, what's one small small step that they could start by, like, kind of, I wanna reclaim my energy. I wanna reclaim my well-being. I wanna take a step in the right direction.