Why You’re Burnt Out (Even When You’re Crushing It) #638

I've coached high-performing men for the past seven years and for a long time I was sprinting on a treadmill , moving fast , burning energy and getting nowhere . I couldn't hit the stop button because everyone around me kept saying keep going . Lucky , this is what success looks like .

My environment was supporting something that didn't align with me , but I was exhausted and disconnected from what I actually wanted . One of the biggest wake-up calls came back in 2019 , when I was exhausted and disconnected from what I actually wanted .

One of the biggest wake-up calls came back in 2019 , when I was launching the Strongman of Value Academy , which was an online program for men . I was also coaching one-to-one trying to train for fitness and events building another program that , I guess , wasn't having me as involved in it . It was an automated one and I hadn't chunked all my time .

I was switching between tasks constantly , so for those of you who aren't , I guess , aware of what chunking time means and how I reference it is . If I have specific tasks that are very similar , for example sales calls , I would try and batch all of them in maybe a two-hour window or a three-hour window . Or if I had emails or computer work same thing .

So rather than having to go from email to phone call to a different task , I could just sit down and really focus and then I could know that that's done for the day and then I would move on to the next task . That's what chunking time was for me , but I wasn't doing that at the time , so I was constantly tired .

I was anxious that I wouldn't meet the deadline to achieve this goal that I was building towards . I also remember thinking , and very well knowing , that Amy , who is my wife , wanted to go on a date , but I felt too stressed to be present . The voice in my head said once I do this , then I can rest , or when I achieve that , I'll be able to afford this .

That line ruled my life , but all it did was push me deeper into burnout and further from the man that I wanted to be . That shifted when I moved to Nashville One of the greatest surprises that I needed and I didn't even recognize

it . It's something that I think I speak a lot about is how important the environment is . It , and it's something that I think I speak a lot about is like how important the environment is .

I gave the example a moment ago that the environment I was in for a while was , you know , championing me just being on this hamster wheel of chasing more , chasing , more , chasing more , which can be a good thing , and it was a great thing for a while .

But what happened was I needed to realign with what was important to me in that current stage in my life . So when I moved to Nashville , it was a changing environment and as I was , I guess , rebuilding , I had more time to think about what was next . I finally had space . I had quiet because of the time zones .

I guess with Australia I really only needed to work and could work from sort of 1 pm , which was generally around 6 or 5 am in Australia , 2 through to about 6 or7 , because obviously I wanted to have dinner and go to bed . So because I had all the mornings free , I could wake up when I wanted . I had time to think .

I was only working those hours that I mentioned , which meant I was not as stressed or overwhelmed , and I realized that I was starting every day for me , not for anyone else . You may be thinking it's easy for you , lockie , you don't have children , or I'm dealing with mortgages and all of these things .

Well , one working on children thing for those who are following the journey on Instagram . Secondly , I have a mortgage , too , and there's things that you know . Everyone's life's different , so I don't want to say that what works for me will work for you , because it won't .

What is most important , and what I'm trying to get across in this video , is the importance of gaining clarity , how that clarity can help you make the decisions moving forward , because you're not looking to me necessarily for the answers .

I feel like you're here because you're curious around how you create clarity , which I'll give you shortly , but you need to do that for you . You need to give the definitions , which means the decisions that you make .

You need to stand behind them , because they're not always going to be right , and that's why a lot of men struggle to make decisions , because it's like what if I make the wrong decision ? Well , own it , you can change , you can use that as feedback , which I'll speak about in a moment . But back to it .

I would wake up , I'd make my coffee , I'd sit on the balcony with my book and a notepad and watch the sunrise most of the time , and I'd get to write and invest in my own mind , like learning , writing out what was important to me , and then I'd get to train , I'd spend time with my wife , and only after that did I shift into work mode .

That's an awesome way for me to live . I really enjoyed the fact that I was in control and , as you're listening to this , I'd love to know what is coming up for you , like if you move to a different place and you knew you could set up the day that you wanted . What would that look like ?

Because it's a really , I guess , empowering feeling , even experiencing that . So , for the first time in years , I was in control of my day , and it made me ask the one question that changed everything what do I actually want my life to

look like ? Quick side note I asked myself this question in 2014 , when I went from not knowing what I wanted to do with my life and stepping into entrepreneurship , and when I did that , I wrote out a vision , which is one thing that I'd recommend you doing . But with that vision , I wrote out from various different areas what I wanted that to look like .

The challenge that I faced , I guess nearly 11 years later , was I hadn't realigned with what my life actually looked like and the man that I'd become , because the man that I'd become , just like the person who you will become , prioritizes different things based on the season of life . I was really chasing money and career at that point .

Now I'm in a more flexible position . Family is really important to me . Experiences are really important to me . I would ask you , what does that look like for you ? What do you actually want your life to look like ? Because it might be different to what you wanted five years ago .

It might be different to what you wanted a decade ago , but getting clear on what matters gave me a filter , and I know it would give you one too . I knew that I wanted to be a great husband . I wanted to earn enough to live well , to train hard , to travel and to do meaningful work . That's what is most important to me .

So when we're you know we've come back to Australia at the moment , for those who are tuning we've been living in the US and we're back in Australia at the moment . We've been living out of a suitcase .

We're currently going through IVF and my wife and I are talking a lot about that as well , but we sat down and we had a conversation and it was based around what's important to us Are we going to go back to the US and continue chasing the dream over there , or do we want to slow down for a moment and really prioritize the family , and that's what we

decided to do . So when we've come back to like , are we going back to the US ? Right now , it's no , because starting a family is our priority . So what is your priority ? That one decision which would have given me FOMO in the past . You know , I think about man . I'm missing out on all these opportunities , the growth , all of that back home .

It felt empowering to say no to that because , rather than having the fear of missing out , I have the fit or , I guess , the excitement of leaning in to the decision that I've made . It's now like that's what I've committed to , because I believe it's important in my life , it's something that I'm excited about .

So therefore , I'm going to give it everything to squeeze the juice out of it and really enjoy this chapter and this experience . So for yourself , if you're struggling to make decisions because of FOMO , fear of missing out , what about if you made a decision you really leaned in ? What could that give you ? What would that feel like ?

That's one thing I'd really challenge you to think about , because it is empowering and I realized in that moment that clarity doesn't make your life easier . It just makes the decision simpler . You're still going to be faced with challenges , right ? Do I have enough time ? Do I have enough finances ? What if I make the wrong decisions ? I'm not too sure .

All of those things will come up . That's normal and that's common . But what are the upsides if you lean into the things that you want ?

Most of us are scared to commit because we're afraid of getting it wrong , but I have learned that feedback is more important than failure , and I touched on this a moment ago . I once launched a program this was a couple of years ago and I didn't test it .

I just assumed that the audience of blokes who were following me and who had been working with me would want something like that , but let me tell you it was a mega flop . I did not have one sale . When you think about it for those who've ever launched a program or anything like that .

In business , you might launch something and you're like , okay , if this works , this is the impact that it's going to have , this is going to be my profit . How great . And so I put a lot of hours into creating it , filming content , doing the worksheets , all of that . I hadn't tested the market .

I hadn't tested if the languaging was correct , and when it flopped I realized it wasn't . No one wanted it . But I invested probably 50 , 60 hours into it and if you work out the value of your time , it's a bit of money coming out there Instead of spiraling like I normally would have . I actually asked myself for feedback .

I realized once again the messaging was off , the offer wasn't aligned and I needed to stay in my lane . For those who are tuning in for the first time , you may be thinking like what is Blocky coached men in ? I'm not a business coach .

I'm very fortunate that I get to work with a lot of men who run their own businesses , but what I'm helping them do is prove to themselves that they're capable of more and become the best version of themselves , so that when they put their head on the pillow at night .

They are proud of the effort that they've put in and they recognize that there is more to life than their career . Their career is one or an extension of themselves . They still have other roles that they want to thrive in and be able to manage and really enjoy .

And that's one of the cool things that I get to help people do and I guess , as a byproduct , some of the things we do does help with their business .

But I'm not going into all the business stuff , that's just conversations that we have and I just get clear on why they're doing things , how they can delegate , if that's important to get their time back for their health , for their family and the things that are important to them .

But the feedback that I got from people that I've been , I guess , putting ads to or telling about this program helped me rebuild something better . The old me would have changed everything and wasted more time . Now I guess I refine instead of retreating . So what I'm starting to do now and look , I wouldn't say do this weekly .

I would do this when you feel lost , you maybe feel overwhelmed , you maybe feel a little bit anxious , but these four questions really help me realign or even just align and focus on what's important in the season of life and there's no real timeline around what a season is .

But if you feel like you've gone through a bit of change , I would imagine that would be you going into a different season , right ? So you would need to reassess like , where am I at in these areas ? What's important to me , where do I want to go ? And

these questions will help you do that . So if you're listening to this , wherever you're listening to this , I want to let you know I've created a free 15-day man that Can starter kit . Now you could get everything you need from this starter kit .

All you need to do is go to the link on wherever you're listening to this or consuming this , and you just need to put your email address . So the reason it's free is I will email you every day . I'll give you , I guess , a personal story , an example , but a prompt that you can use . The prompt you can use in your diary .

Or , if you use AI or ChatGPT , copy the prompt , put it into ChatGPT and use that to coach you . I'm not asking for anything else from that Full transparency . If you get value from that and you feel you're going to get value from my other programs , then it'll invite you towards the end of it , day 13 and day 15 , I think it is .

So there's a ton of free value . I literally spent hours going through what questions did I need to think about ? In what order ? What were , I guess , the most powerful questions that would help me go through that and dig up stuff about myself , and that's what this daily prompt is .

So it's 15 emails over 15 days and I reckon you'll probably need about 15 minutes to go through those thoroughly and I guarantee you , once you've done it , you'll be in a lot better position . But I'll tell you more about that at the end .

So the four questions you could ask yourself , whether it's weekly or monthly or just every season , are these One , what do you truly want right now ? Not what you want in 10 years time , like , what do you want right now to get that realignment . Number two is what area of life feels out of alignment ? Could it be your health ?

You're not feeling comfortable in your skin . You don't feel energized . Is it your relationship ? You're having marital stress at home . What is it ? Because , when you identify it and you accept that that is an area that's out of alignment , you've now given yourself permission to move forward and to improve and to grow .

Number three is what am I doing that's pulling me away from the life that I want ? The example before I moved to Nashville was like people always want to go for coffees .

They want to pick my brain , and I would always do that because there was a point where I had this scarce mindset that if I stopped meeting new people and if I stopped helping people and giving them my time , maybe I would never grow a business or I would lose business .

But what actually ended up happening was I was pulling myself away from the life that I want because I had great clients who were paying me , I had a great business that was paying me and I felt fulfilled .

But the time that I guess I was allowed or free to train to spend with my wife to do the things that I wanted to , I was then going oh , I need to go for these coffees , I need to do this extra work , and it was pulling me away from the life that I want because I'd allocated time to work , as I'm sure you have , but I

also wanted to spend time doing those other things and by continuing to fill it up with work , I was sacrificing and removing time to do the other things that I wanted , which led me to becoming burnt out and miserable , and maybe you can relate to that .

So , after I finished the 58 marathons I ran for those who are tuning in ran 58 marathons in 58 days just recently across all 50 US states and all eight states and territories of Australia . It was a really cool experience and you can watch more on my channel .

But I used that filter and I realized the Strongman of Value Academy , which is the program I started six years ago filter and I realized the Strongman of Value Academy , which is the program I started six years ago , wasn't serving me anymore . It was hard to shut down after six years , but I gave myself permission to evolve .

I had plenty of time to think about what purpose it served in my life .

Was I feeling drawn to continue doing it or could I learn to serve in a different way that would allow me to evolve and allow me to help people on a better level and , I guess , a level that aligned with where I was at at that point and when I closed it up , just only a couple of weeks ago . Actually , it freed me up , man .

I had this sigh of relief because I've been holding on to or tossing up do I shut it down or do I not ? And the moment that I did , I just gave myself permission to breathe again and I was like , okay , I don't have to think about that anymore . I don't have to manage weekly calls or content anymore .

I could focus on where I was going , not where I'd been for the last six years . It's a really hard thing that us men experience you maybe are experiencing it too where you feel like quitting is sacrificing everything that you've done . But the truth is it's not .

It's allowing you to let go so that you can continue to grow into the next version of yourself , which is only going to be better and it's pretty exciting .

So if you're feeling stuck , burnt out , or like you're sprinting through life but not making progress , spinning the wheels on a motorbike on an ice lake which we saw a lot of those while running around America Clarity is going to change that for you .

And if you want help with that , as I mentioned , I created that 15-day free man that Can Start a Kit to walk you through it day by day . It will help you reset your mindset , refocus your time and reclaim your energy .

So all you need to do is hit the link in the description to grab it now and , if this resonated with you , drop a comment and let me know what is one area of your life that looks good outside but feels misaligned on the inside . Let's stop sprinting blind and let's get you leading with clarity .

If you like this video , make sure you hit the subscribe button . I look forward to dropping another weekly video and I look forward to you enjoying and engaging in the 15-day man that Can Starter Kit . My name is Lachlan Stewart . Thank you for listening .