Today is a slightly different episode. I'm turning the interview table around and I'm the subject, and it's all about burnout because last year I hit an all time work low, and I realized I'd hit burnout in a way that
I had never experienced before. To help me unpack what happened, and more importantly, to help dig myself out of it and explain what I did, I've invited my very good friend Sabina read Sabina is a clinical psychologist who you might have heard on her regular weekly slot on three aw or maybe you've heard her on the popular podcast Human Cogs. And you might have also seen her on
the very first season of Married at First Sight. And you'll be hearing a lot more of Sabina over the coming year because I'll be inviting you to send in any questions you might have that you want answered by a couple of psychologists. So if you're going through a challenge at work, drop me a note or a voice memo using the email address in the show notes, and over the coming months, I'll be inviting Sabina back on
to help with your listener questions. But in today's Chat with Sabina, we talk about the signs of incoming burnout that many of us, including myself, might ignore, and also Sabina's tactics for how to avoid burnout in the first place. So, if you or someone you know has felt exhausted, stressed, or burnt out by work in the last few months, I hope that this episode helps in some way. Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and
strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. When I hit burnout last year, I was so lucky to have Sabina to lean on. We often go for regular walks together where we talk about all things life and work. And it was during one of these walks last year that I confessed to Sabina that I was burnt out, and I shared with her quite a worrying
fantasy I found myself having. So one of the most memorable walks that I've had with you this year been was in June, and I don't know if you remember this, but I was at an all time work low and I had realized that I had hit burnout. That thing that I talk about to lots of clients, as do you. Was a fellow psychologist and I remember I told you about these very specific thoughts that I was having, and I thought that I was going a little bit insane. And I feel that I can use that word colloquially
because we're both signs. Yeah, there's no judgment about word choice here. So I was having this fantasy that I would get really, really sick, like hospitalization level sick, and I would be rushed to hospital. I would have no access to any of my devices, and I would just be in hospital for a week. I would get all these flowers and sympathy. I couldn't touch computers or work, no one could contact me, and then I would emerge a week later, unscathed, permanently non permanently injured, and then
I'd be back. And I thought of what is going on in my mind? Can you share how you responded to that.
It's actually taking me back now listening to you say it, and we're sort of chortling away because it was an interesting, fascinating walk. But when I hear you repeat that story, it really hits hard of the aspiration to not be in the situation or sitting with the feelings that you were sitting with at that time. And I think I said to you something, and you'll remember more clearly than me. But I know that I would have validated and said,
this is such a normal experience. And I think I gave it the phrase the hit by a bus fantasy.
You did.
Now this this hit by a bus fantasy. Don't go looking it up because it's not out there. It's just a Sabina radism. But what it speaks to for me is this fantasy that is all too common that if only something bad could happen to me, bad enough that would take me out of the pressure cook crime in, but not so bad that it would cause permanent damage. And I've heard all kinds of different versions of that yours. Why I was just listening so intently was you were
giving some very specifics away. Then. I wanted there to be no access to technology. I wanted people to empathize and sympathize with my plant. I wanted flowers, and I wanted a cocoon in a hospital setting that would allow me a soft place to fall into. Here, I've paraphrased a little bit there, maybe made it slightly more poetic, And yet I think the topic we're talking about, which is burnout, speaks to a lot of what you've just shared. We get so many little messages that become bigger messages.
We get multiple data points telling us something's not okay, and we ignore them.
I think I've been ignoring a lot of data probably in the twelve months leading up to that point. Interestingly, my personal life was really good, and twenty twenty four was like brilliant on so many fronts for my personal life, but my work life. I felt like I spent, you know, certainly the twelve months leading up to that point where it all just culminated in some pretty horrible feelings. I feel like I was trying to run and drag things through quicksand it just felt so hard and like an
unsurmountable challenge. I just I didn't know how I was going to get out of the quicksand in some ways.
And I know you'll have so many listeners resonating with what you're saying, and I'm curious, and of course I've got a little bit of insider knowledge, so I'm can to share it here, not around the park. What did you ignore? What were some of those messages? Because twelve months is quite a long time to ignore, and that's what burnout is it's this slow turning away from physical, emotional, psychological experiences that don't feel good and kind of hoping
them away, wishing them away. And burnout is when things reach the point where the body, I think the body, the mind, the soul, every part of us is saying I can't do it anymore. And I've tried to call you, I've tried to write you messages, I've sent pigeon and a bottle, and you haven't listened. So we're calling in the big guns and we're bringing burnout out. We're going to play the burnout card now because you didn't listen.
And I do want to come back to your question, but I think it's worth actually delving into what is burnout because it's a term that I feel, certainly in twenty twenty four, it's just been thrown around so much, and I think some people just are really tired, some people are perhaps what we've defined is clinically burnt out, and some are just kind of having a crappy month.
So when you think about burnout as a clinical sych what are the signs that would suggest that someone that you are working with is perhaps like in that point of burnout.
Well, it's not actually a clinical term, so we're not going to find it in the DSM, which is the
diagnostic manual. But it is a very real experience, and I do think we need to differenterentiate burnout from exhaustion, because everyone gets tired and everyone needs to take a break sometimes, but it's this emotional depletion and psychological and physical depletion that leaves us with very low motivation, high levels of apathy, and really, I don't sit a care if I kind of push through this or not anymore, I've got nothing left in the tank. I think that's
different to being tired. Look, they're cousins. Let's just put them all on the same family. True, we've got anxiety there, we've got depression there, we've got exhaustion, tiredness. So some of these are clinical reference as others are just you know, in the realm of the range of human experience and emotions. But there's something about burnout that's I think it's always a slow burn, Like how slow well yours was? You're
saying a year. I'd like to challenge you on that, because probably maybe that was when you first started to be aware of it. But before that time comes up, there were probably other knocks on the taps on the shoulder that you ignored. And I often say should is one of my biggest swear words, and I think with burnout, there are so many shoulds that we tune out from ourself.
And I tend to think around burnout. I guess there's getting to know what I need to keep on an even keel, so that's the me part, and then there's something more relational in that, what do I need from those around me personally and professionally, And then there's something in the greater world as well of all of the pressures upon us. So we see this at different levels,
I guess, different depths in our lives. And when burnout was first described, I think it was really mostly talked about in a workplace setting or in a caregiving setting, so either people who work in caregiving roles or parents, or if you're looking after aging parents or you're looking up to children. And I think now that it's a lot broader than that. I think we can apply this idea of emotional depletion and nothing left in the tank in all domains of our life.
I think back to like what I did after I hit that point, and I had two weeks of leave pre booked, and it was funny. I remember really clearly the week leading up to taking those two weeks, and literally every morning I would have a little argument in my head that went, could I call in sick today? How would that look to the team? Would that look really bad? I'm about to go on two weeks of leave, but I can't. I don't even feel like I can do this final week. Can I call and sick? Can
I call and sick? And then the voice would go, no, you can't. You know at the time, like I had, you know that there were some role changes. I had some things that I just I couldn't not do before I went on leave, and I decided not. But I remember literally every day I would have this argument in my head, and it was exhausting and I ended up just pushing through. And then I took two weeks of leave. One of those weeks was a beautiful week in Vietnam and the other was a staycation in Melbourne, and I
felt like I pretty quickly recovered. I got back to a point of feeling re energized, feeling destressed, and when I returned to work two weeks later, I felt pretty good and ready to take things back on again, and I felt so different to how i'd felt two weeks prior. Then, after about two months of being back in my role, I was pretty close to where I was in June,
and I think, like, where did I go wrong? Because I made some pretty big changes to my role and other things that were in my control, But yet here I was again like what did I do wrong? Then?
What do you reckon the ingredients? Where the Vietnamese dication ingredients were that helped you.
I think a complete switch off from digital world. I think I was uncontactable.
It's like the fantasy.
Yeah, like the fantasy. I think the only way that like there are a couple of people in the team that I said, look if there's an emergency, stop me a message on WhatsApp, But otherwise I'm not checking any other form of digital communication. And I think I maybe received two messages in two weeks. And I actually remember when I received one of the messages and I saw the name of someone from my work team, just my heart rate started increasing, like I just felt triggered. I'm like,
oh God, what do I have to deal with? And it was nothing like it was probably not an emergency.
There's something there. I'm going to go date now, how can we not there's something there about your I think i'm hearing your responsibility for others in that story, because you said I did all the things that were in my control. I did all the right things. But then when you got that message, you're responsible again, and you don't want that responsibility for other people's choices, behavior's roles.
I don't know how you would describe it. So when you go on leave for two weeks and you said I did everything right and it all felt fine, but you weren't responsible for anyone else? Yeah, is that planned in some way?
It does land. Yeah. I think as an employer, as a small business owner, I place a lot of weight and responsibility on the experience, the environment, and the relationships that I have with my team members. But there's only so much that is in my control. And so one of the sort of earlier contributors in that twelve month period leading up to that moment in June was that in in late twenty twenty three, I had three team
members resigned within about three months of each other. And I think when that happened, it put me into a really fear driven state, And I think about the decisions that I made across the course of twenty twenty four and certainly before I came to this realization. I think I came to this realization in the few months that were ending twenty twenty four, and I decided to do something about it. But I'd made a lot of fear driven decisions, and that's never a good thing as a leader.
That never gets you into a good place. It's never good for business. But I think for.
Life, awful life unless you're being chased by the so called sabertooth target. So in those short term moments, I really admire your vulnerability and honesty in this space to be able to share some of the hard things about running a business and being a leader and being a business owner. It makes sense to me that feeling responsible for other people as a leader, as a manager, as a business owner is kind of a burden to carry.
And I think there's a lot of people in who have experienced burnout who will feel it very much attached not always to people who work for them, but as I said, could be the elderly parent, or the young child, or the sick neighbor, or a group of people they feel they need to help support, rescue, guide, whatever the verb is, and it's sometimes too much for us. And I think you and I have probably talked about this, but if not, I don't have grand desires to run
a business, to have a big team. In the vein of true honesty, sometimes I listen to what you talk about and inventium, and I think it's so wonderful to have that growth and that scaling and the reach that is harder for me to access as a solo operator, I guess, and there's something in the greater world, not just in our world of psychology where we're expected to
always want more. I remember when I was I worked in communications before I was a psychologist, and I was working in a comms job, and I remember someone in this corporate that I worked in said she worked in a churn. She said, there's a job going for the head of a churn. She said, but I don't I'm not interested. And I was twenty five or something, and I said, why not, Like, why wouldn't you want that?
There's a bigger job going in your lane? And she said, I have no desire to be the head of the department. And it was the first time, and this probably speaks to our cultural norms or perhaps family norms as well. Not perhaps definitely family norms. Where I heard someone owning with full ease and a plum and pride that she didn't want to climb any ladder. She was happy in the role she was doing. Not everyone wants bigger and more and greater and teams and growth, And I think
there's an invitation there for all of us. You know, there are others that want that more than anything. Perhaps the question is what's the driving where we're going to go? Psycho Babbel now? But what are the values? What are the learned lessons? What are the unmet needs? Who are we perhaps trying to please? What are the fears as you talked about that might lead us to feel we need to honor these shoulds? And they're not all shoulds
around having a team, but everyone's got shoulds. And if we don't understand where those shoulds come from, we'll keep repeating them. And the person that will really miss out is us.
We will be back with Sabina soon, and when we return, we'll discuss the key factor that helped me recover. Sabina's top burnout prevention tactics and the deep fear that ultimately drove me to burnout. If you're looking for more tips to improve the way you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally. You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com.
You mentioned something then before around a lot of your decisions being fear based. What do you think the greatest fear was.
It's a good question. I mean, I think the greatest fear was what if Inventium blows up and it is no more and I have no business and therefore part of my self identity is gone. And it's a weird fear to have because the inventing and brand is so wrapped up in me and I have completed and utter confidence in my ability to work and to find work and to attract clients that want help in the ways that I can help. So it was irrational, but it also felt very real. It's like, what if this is
the end? Like what if something happens that means this is the end? I don't know, what if everyone leaves.
Or let's go there? So is what I just called drilling down, you know, spiraling down, spiling down with our thoughts. So if you drill down on these don't have to be factual. We're in an exploration mode here, so we're not making plans for this. It's hypothetical at this point. Anyway, If we drill down, so there is no more inventium, what now? News flash to the listeners, there is certainly still inventium and they kick goals everywhere everyone they touch
and all the work they do. But for the purposes of this conversation, what now.
I think I just thought, like in my lowest, darkest moments of going what if the worst happens? And that felt like it would be the worst thing. So what then? I just thought, Well, I will just continue to do the work that I love, and I will fly solo and I would relish that that would be like a new chapter.
And I think one of the things that's coming up for me now is that burnout. As we said, it's not a clinical diagnosis, and there's often quite or possibly an existential connection to it. What am I doing, Who am I doing it with? Why am I doing it? Am I'm making the right choices for me at this stage in my life, those that are bigger questions, and again, when we don't listen to those, the body starts to
speak louder. We often talk about physical exhaustion and physical depletion, but for me, the physicality comes when the emotional has spain ignored, and the emotional is often we don't want to look at the parts that are so raw, and so we kind of skirt around the edges. And that's where I think this existential lens is probably quite related to burnout because I'm doing too many shoulds for other people and ignoring what I know, whatever you want to
call it myself, I don't know. You know, my intuition is speaking and I'm ignoring it to help others because I should.
There was definitely a lot of that, and I remember something on another one of our walks that really stuck with me. And this was towards the end of last year, and I was just, you know, grappling with some various decisions and you talked about walking those different paths. Can you share that advice you gave me, because it was very powerful.
And you were remembering some things in detail that I probably I off and just you know, riff as I'm just present. I'm just present whatever's kind, so that they're not things I've said a hundred times. I'd never really talked about the hit by a bus fantasy and those terms are that. But just reflecting on what you were saying. But I think what you and I were talking about then was some fear based things about what if, what
if this happens, what if that happens? And I find a really useful response or a strategy to that is to not just in your mind and not just in a journal, and not just talking and not just therapy, but to act, actually take some physical steps thinking about what would happen if that came to fruition or if I took that path, and then physically to walk back to your starting point and physically to walk down a separate path in a different direction, I mean, physically move
your body in a different direction. I think I said to you. There's something called chair work in psychology which kind of uses similar principles, where you're inviting one part of a person. We're all made up of parts, and these parts are conflicting, and these parts need to talk to each other. And in chair work, in the therapeutic setting,
you're inviting one part of a person. So perhaps a part that wants to leave, let's say, leave a job, leave a marriage, change something, and then another part wants to stay and wants a status quote. So we can all relate to those even outside of the work domain. And there's something about actually inviting a person to sit in chair A and talk for part A, and then sit in the second chair and talk for part B. And the physical movement from chair. Now as I'm saying this,
there'll be people listening to this sounds bonkers. Why would you ask someone to get up and say a few sentences in one chair and then move themselves to the next chair. But it's a way to shake off some of the preconceved ideas, the faulty thinking, the expectations, the shoulds, and just be clear with that part and let that part have a voice. So the physicality matters. It shifts something in our physiology. And what I think you and I were talking about in the park was physically taking
yourself down that path and imagining. And I'm closing my eyes as I'm saying it, but what would it feel like, who would be there, what would it smell like? What would I do? With my time, how would I be as a partner, what would be like as a parent, where would I live? Whatever all the questions are, and then going back down starting point and going you know, down path B and asking the same questions and something around the physical, walking through us to really imagine it before we shut it down.
I found that strategy very very helpful, you know, and I think as like as I contemplated, you know, just different scenarios, with the different decision points that I had throughout twenty twenty four, I think it helped me make better, clearer decisions using that strategy. It's funny in my twenties when I studied Gastalt therapy, I did so much empty chair work.
Okay, so you're well familiar.
I've spoken to many an empty chair.
Ah, they're great company, aren't They.
Love an empty chair? Although I think after doing about three or four years of Costalt therapy.
This is you as a client, this is me as a client.
So I studied as a therapist, but I saw a Gastalt therapist as a client, and I think after about four years of talking to empty chairs, you were ready for a human enough, you know, we were just talking off air briefly been around what are.
The tactics, what are the strategies? And I think we need to understand this is not something you wrap in a bow and take forward and see you never burn out. This is about actually knowing who we are at our very core. We need to know what I need. I need to know what I need, and I need to understand when I ignore that at what cost it comes to me. I also need to understand and feel and appreciate the dynamics between me and others in my life at this
relational piece, professionally and personally. And again, now, we can't always honor our own needs in a relationship because there's other people at play. So let's just give an example. When you are in the company of someone that you find exhausting and depleting, that can be a factor towards burnout. It's not the only factor, but can be accumulative factor.
The only person who can change that is you. You can either have a conversation with the person or multiple conversations to talk about what happens in their orbit, or you can just depending on the relationship and how high stakes a relationship is, you can just say I'm not going to spend time in this person's company anymore, because
it is emptying my tank. Knowing what I need, knowing what we need, and then also knowing some of the external contextual pressures that happened to all of us as workers, as parents, as partners, as humans, and in the context also of a world that's spinning out of control. And then we couple that with all of these shoulds, and so we ignore, and we put our blinkers back on, and we think, well, everyone else seems fine, so I'll escape marching along. Or you said, I'll take a holiday.
I'm going to go to Vietnam and a staycation in Melbourne. And then when I got back, I felt fine. Band aid good good, I mean a powerful band aid, but it's not a permanent fix. And then you describe, well, after a couple of weeks, some of the same experiences start to set in again, and you think, damn, I was doing so fine, and that's why I said, what were the ingredients? How do we unpack that? How do
we define that? And we didn't even finish that, but you said very clearly I wasn't contactable or responsible for other people. Then you go back to the world, the job the life you were living. And now, of course we all have some responsibility to other people, but with what magnitude and to how many is probably in our control.
That's very true. One thing I reflected on in terms of something when I started to think about it it started to help, is that I had spent an inordinate amount of time in twenty twenty four worrying about things that I had no control over. And it does relate to the responsibility because while I felt deeply responsible for this team of people that I employed part of, well, you know, I'm responsible for everything. But again flowed thinking
because I can't be responsible for everything. I can't be responsible for their emotions, their actions, their behaviors, their thoughts, their feelings. None of that is within my control. And again it sounds really obvious, but when I tried to unpack when things were causing me a lot of stress and what it was that was causing me stress more often than not, it was worrying about things that I
had zero control over. And starting to have that awareness and trying to just let go of those worries, I found incredibly free, sort of once I got to that point, and it's hard to let them go. Even when you become aware.
Of course, awareness is not action.
No, no, but at least it's the first step. And I think because I started to practice that, and I started to build that muscle of going, Okay, what can I influence here? What can I control? Okay, great, will take actions here, but what can I not control or influence. I'm going to stop thinking about that because I've wasted so much thinking time on all that stuff.
And the toll that takes on your body. You know, we're talking about the physical depletion. You probably we didn't really list, but you know, some of the common symptoms of burner are getting sick often because your immune system's
taken such a hit. And then there's a lot of quite serious diseases that often show themselves again and again with autoimmune And I'm not saying there or there's not direct causation in a lot of those stories, but I know in the years that I worked in the clinical space, I would see repeatedly a lot of the same presentations, not psychological, but what they would mention in passing would be that they had a lot of gut issues or that they got sick very often. I am this is
an odd reflection. But I've heard physically with my own ears back in my therapy days, a lot of guts churning. I mean that literally, I've heard the sound of the gut when you're sitting quietly in a therapy room and someone's just talking, and I can hear physical distress almost. So there's you know a lot of people who have gut issues. Well, we know the brain and the gut were intertwined way back when, so I think we need to be in tune to those physical messages as well.
I'm sitting with you, knowing you personally and professionally. If I was just sitting with you professionally, I would still be asking these same questions. I don't sort of turn my psychological curiosity and expertise and knowledge off because I'm speaking to someone in a different role. I would be seeing the leader in front of me, thinking, at what costs to you? It's taking a toll? Now, how much of this do you want to share with your team? What kind of changes do you want to make in
your life? How much longer do you want to continue with this status quo that's coming at a cost. Because, of course, I think a leader is partially not responsible but impactful in the well bang of their people, but you're not solely responsible for their well bang. And one of the things I talk about a lot in corporates is the importance of agency and accountability to each and every person, regardless of the role, or the tenure or the seniority of the income.
I love that as advice, and I've loved this discussion unpacking what is burnout and for me personally, how do I try to not end up where I was last year again in twenty twenty five, And I'm feeling very optimistic and hopeful that this year will be a very different year. So thank you for your insights and sharing it and obviously all the walks around the part helping me unpack things last year.
Well, I take my hat off to you in this forum to share, you know, because we're not just in the park and other people are listening, and that's the gift, and that's why we choose to create content in spaces outside the metaphoric park, because we know that other people will have walked in your shoes and my shoes before too, So I think it's cutos to you for sharing and a lot easier when we're in an air conditioning studio without two dogs as well.
I hope you like this chat with Sabina as much as I enjoyed having it, and I really hope that it helped you with whatever might be going on in your work life. And maybe you're wondering how am I doing now? Well, I am doing a million and one percent better, is the absolute honest truth. And in a future episode, I'll be unpacking a little bit more around exactly how I managed that recovery. I'll also be getting Sabina back throughout the year to help me answer your questions.
So if you've got something that you would like a couple of psychologists perspectives on, please send me a message via the email in the show notes, or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Instagram with anything you'd like to ask. If you like today's show, make sure you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the Warringery people, part of the Kolhan nation.