Preventing Burnout: A Cautionary Tale

My first in-person meeting with Charlie Hoehn. Zion National Park, 2009.

Charlie Hoehn first reached out to me in 2008 through Ramit Sethi.

Shortly thereafter, I hired him as a part-time intern. Eventually, he became a full-time employee.

For three years, we worked together on a number of projects, most notably the The 4-Hour Body and the Opening the Kimono event. Charlie’s responsibilities ranged from “professional” tasks (planning VIP parties, assembling scandalous guest posts, coordinating logistics for 15,000 orders during the Land Rush campaign, etc.) to productive tomfoolery (epic grocery shopping sprees, editing vajayjay photos, photographing giraffe make outs, persuading me to swallow 25 pills at once).

It was one hell of a ride.  We had a lot of fun, and we had some huge successes.

From day one, Charlie expressed a constant desire to become a hyper-efficient and effective entrepreneur. His role expanded as he requested more responsibilities (“What else can I do to help?” he’d ask me repeatedly), and we often found ourselves juggling several projects at once.

Most of the time, we handled it well. And as Charlie’s comfort zone stretched, his confidence increased, his communication and abilities improved, and our day-to-day operations were generally strife-free. We worked well together.

Then — in the middle of making The 4-Hour Chef – he suddenly quit.   It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Finding work-life balance (or work-life “separation,” as I prefer) in a connected world is challenging.  Speaking personally, I’m either 100% ON (for book launches, creative deadlines, etc.) or 100% OFF (such as my recent excursion to Bali). This ability to hit the shut-off switch helps me remain sane, separate work from pleasure, and it usually prevents me from burning out.

In this post, Charlie will share his story: what it was like to work with me for three years, and what led up to his burnout.

For all Type-A driven readers — especially those who struggle with the shut-off switch — this one is for you…

My brain felt swollen, like it was pushing against my skull. I looked down at my iPhone. Good lord. 60 hours straight. Wide awake, no sleep, for 60 hours straight. Yet I was still lively and sharp, thanks to the magic pill.

For four days, I’d supercharged my energy with a powerful nootropic; a brain drug typically reserved for fighter pilots and narcoleptics. If you’ve seen the movie Limitless, well, that pill actually exists. The drug’s primary function is to silence the body’s pleas for sleep. Lucky for me. Rest was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

I’d secretly taken this brain drug, without my boss knowing, so I could be great at my job. I was in charge of coordinating the Opening the Kimono event — a private conference on next-generation content marketing, hosted by Tim Ferriss.

Most attendees knew Tim for his two mega-bestselling books: The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body. The driving themes of Tim’s work were effectiveness and efficiency — getting better results, in less time, with less effort.

In The 4HWW, Tim gave readers step-by-step blueprints for creating online businesses, generating passive income, outsourcing work, and taking mini-retirements.

In The 4HB, Tim revealed how to lose 20 pounds of fat in one month (without exercise), how to triple fat loss with cold exposure, and how to produce 15-minute female orgasms. Both books sold more than a million copies each, and Tim was a star in the publishing world.

In addition to being a bestselling author, Tim was also a successful angel investor and advisor (his portfolio included Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Evernote, and many others). He was also — and I’m not exaggerating — a Chinese kickboxing champion, a horseback archer, a world record holder in tango, and a polyglot (fluent in five languages).

I’d been working with Tim for nearly three years as his Director of Special Projects. It was a dream job that I’d worked hard to land, and I’d reaped countless benefits. In the time we’d known each other, he’d personally introduced me to a wide array of amazing people: mega-successful CEO’s, brilliant tech entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, world-class athletes, inventors, robotics engineers, pickup artists, jet-setting casino owners, supermodels… The list was endless. My network went from “average” to “insane” simply by being around him.

Dinner party at Tim’s with guests ranging from MDs to tech innnovators. And me! (far left)

Surprise weekend trip to Zion, Utah.

In Napa for Opening the Kimono.

Tim: Want to grab lunch? Me: Sure. Tim: Cool. Oh, and the Mythbusters are going to be there.

He’d also given me a world-class education (I’d guess 3-5 MBAs combined), and helped build my portfolio into a showcase of incredible work.

I was 25 years old at the time, living in Russian Hill in San Francisco. Each morning, I’d walk over to my neighborhood café, sit down with my laptop, and work until nightfall on my weekly tasks. Whenever I finished a given job, I’d ask Tim for more work. Things multiplied quickly, and I soon had a plethora of responsibilities: assistant, researcher, editor, marketer, videographer, photographer, customer service, project manager… And then, I was his conference coordinator. Opening The Kimono was my biggest challenge to date.

More than 130 authors and entrepreneurs, from all over the world, paid $10,000 apiece for admission to Tim’s conference. And while I was confident we would successfully make it through this four-day event, I was also completely overwhelmed by the complexity of the task. There were so many moving parts.

I was terrified of screwing up. If something went wrong, I would need to fix it with superhuman speed. Somehow, I had to stay awake for the entire event…

And so, in my desperation, I visited an overseas pharmaceutical website, where I ordered the most powerful brain drug on the market.

The pills arrived just before the event. I took one every morning. Each day, I expected to pass out randomly from exhaustion. But it never happened; I stayed alert and wide-awake the whole time. The pills really, really worked. During the course of the four-day seminar, I slept a grand total of six hours. And just as I’d hoped, I was great at my job.

Discussing details before dinner, at the Kimono event.

Resting at the Kimono event with my co-conspirator, Susan Dupré.

The event was a whirlwind, but we managed to pull it off. On the final day, everyone gave us a standing ovation. Attendees ran up to hug us and said it was the best conference they’d ever been to. Our inboxes were filled with dozens of glowing reviews and thank you notes.

I was in shock. After months of working around the clock, we’d exceeded all expectations, including our own. Tim gave me a hearty congratulations, and said he was amazed how well we’d done.

I was proud, happy, and very tired when I arrived back home. But later that night, my body started sending out emergency signals, warning me that something horribly wrong was happening.

My heart was racing. My vision was blurred. I had a pounding headache that wouldn’t stop. Sounds drifted sluggishly into my ears, and I could barely stand upright.

For the first time in my life, I felt completely and utterly burned out.

# # #

A few days later, I went back to work. We were just getting started on our next big project: The 4-Hour Chef.

Two years prior, I helped Tim edit and launch his second book, The 4-Hour Body. I was immensely proud to have played a part in the book’s success; it was the pinnacle of my career. On the other hand, The 4-Hour Body had been the most stressful undertaking of my life. Tim and I half-joked that the book nearly killed us. I was hesitant to jump in for round two.

Ace Hotel in NYC, where we worked during the lead up to The 4HB launch.

Moments after The 4HB hit #1 on New York Times, with Chris Ashenden and Steve Hanselman.

Celebratory cheat meal: Six-layer chocolate motherlode cake at Claim Jumper.

Hudson’s Booksellers in JFK, during the week of the release.

Tim offered to double my salary if I helped him complete The 4-Hour Chef.

It was a generous offer, and I was immediately interested in taking it. I’d be making more money than I’d know what to do with, and I’d have another cool achievement under my belt. What did I have to lose? After a moment’s pause, we shook on it.

I felt incredibly fortunate to be in that position, especially since so many people I knew were either unemployed or working in jobs they hated. My family and friends all congratulated me. From a distance, things looked great.

But on the inside, I was flailing. I’d completely lost balance, and I couldn’t see that I was destroying myself.

I was addicted to my work. You see, I liked to think of myself as busy and important, so I tethered myself to the Internet seven days a week. I communicated with everyone through screens. I spent all day long sitting indoors. I drank coffee all week, and drank alcohol all weekend. I only stopped working when I was sleeping. And then I stopped sleeping.

I just couldn’t stop myself from working all the time. I wanted to be indispensable, the best in the world at running operations. It didn’t matter what else was going on in my life or if I started feeling sick; work was everything to me. Practically everyone I met in the tech scene behaved the same way.

So many of my friends and colleagues were workaholics.

Several buddies of mine were pulling 16-hour workdays. My friend in medical school was popping Adderall like candy. All of us were destroying ourselves during the week, and punishing our livers on the weekend. We didn’t take vacations. We didn’t take breaks. Work was life.

Checking email at 3:00 AM in Buenos Aires.

Here’s the thing: I was a workaholic long before I met Tim.

I’d always stayed up late. I’d always spent hours at a time staring at screens. The difference now was that my state of mind had changed. Now, the results mattered more than the process. I took everything very seriously because I thought I was so important — there was money and success on the line! And I wanted to be the best at dominating life.

Predictably, life stopped being fun.

Each week, I felt increasingly sick, exhausted, and apathetic. My eyes sunk back and grew dark circles beneath them. My forehead developed thick stress lines.

My hands started shaking. I felt like I was always on the verge of crying. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, so I just tried to work my way through it.

Then the deadline for The 4-Hour Chef got pushed back three months.

Then a family member died.

Then a close friend attempted suicide.

When Tim and I met up for dinner the following week, I told him very meekly:

“I can’t do this anymore. I have to quit.”

# # #

Tim didn’t argue with me.

He understood where I was coming from, and offered his support in whatever I was going to do next. It was a massive relief to part on amicable terms, but I felt weaker than ever. I was already feeling the pressure to get back to work, but what would I do? My identity was gone. I decided to take a couple weeks off. Then another week… And another…

I spent the next three months being unemployed and feeling awful. Every day, I’d go through the motions of my old routine without actually doing anything. I compulsively checked email all day long, stayed up until 4:00AM, and slept a few hours each night. I received a handful of job offers and turned them all down, recoiling at the thought of having to go back to work.

The worst part was the guilt. I felt enormously guilty every second I wasn’t doing something that could advance my career or earn money. I would pace around like a neurotic rat, coming up with random chores to distract myself. When the chores were finished, I’d think, “Okay… Now what?” Any activity that didn’t feel productive – sleeping in, watching TV, taking a trip – filled me with regret. There was this gnawing sense that I was wasting time. I was losing money. And yet, I had no desire to work.

I started wondering if I’d screwed up my life very badly. Hadn’t I been living the dream? Did I just throw away everything I’d worked for? I started feeling very anxious. I wanted to do something big, to reinvent my career, to make a name for myself so I could be successful. What that something would be, I didn’t know.

Then one day, two of my friends, Chad Mureta (whom I’d met at the Kimono event) and Jason Adams, suggested that we start a mobile app company together. They were both sharp entrepreneurs and savvy marketers, and Chad was already making millions from the apps he’d developed.

Finally, I thought, here’s a job that makes sense. I could be one of the founders of a cool tech startup, working on fun projects with my smart friends, in one of the most exciting industries on the planet. The Draw Something app had recently been acquired for $250 million, then Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion. I thought, This gig might make me a millionaire by the end of the year! This is it…

I was so relieved to feel productive again. I strolled into the office each day to work on my laptop until late in the evening. I sat down, stared at my computer screen for several hours, and drank coffee. When I got home, I worked on my laptop until 4:00AM, slept for a few hours, then started all over again.

We spent the first month putting together an online course called App Empire, which walked people through the entire process of starting their own app business. It required many sleepless nights to get it finished on time, but we managed to pull it off.

Chad Mureta and Chris Whitmore (cameraman) during filming of App Empire.

Launch day, filming in a San Diego hotel suite.

Support team on App Empire’s launch day.

The launch of the course was a success, raking in $2 million dollars in revenue over the course of 10 days.

If you said “WTF!” after reading that last sentence, I don’t blame you. But our results were somewhat typical in the high-cost information product world. When you combine a $2,000 course with a huge list of potential customers (and three guys who know a lot about online marketing), you get a multi-million dollar product launch.

We spent the next two months doing weekly webinars, walking customers through each lesson and answering their questions. In our spare time, we worked on our app ideas.

At some point in the third month, I realized: I didn’t care about apps. I knew how to make them, and I knew how to succeed in the app market, but I just didn’t care. I didn’t really use apps and I never got excited about them.

I asked myself, Why am I really doing this work? Well, the job gave me an excuse to hang out with my friends during the day, rather than being holed up alone in my apartment. But that was only a small part of it. The honest answer was:

Status. Money. Guilt.

I wanted to impress other people with my “success” of founding a company. I wanted to be rich. And I wanted to avoid feeling bad for not working.

The problem was… I didn’t really care about what I was doing. There was this weird disconnect, like apps should have been the natural progression in my career. But it just never felt right. It felt forced.

I quit my job that week.

Once again, I experienced “success” and walked away from it. Only this time, I was riddled with anxiety.

I started to think I was going to be punished for not being productive, for not making money, for not having my life figured out. I didn’t know how or when, but I was certain it was going to happen. Everything was coming to a head. It was only a matter of time before something terrible happened…

# # #

I was in a bad place for a long time after I quit those jobs.

I was too ashamed and proud to reach out to anyone for help, so I bottled my feelings up and stumbled around for the next year. It was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.

It’d be very easy for me to manufacture a villain in this story. I could tell you that I was pushed too hard, or that no one cared about how I felt. But that’s not the truth. I was the one who chose to stay up until 4:00AM. I was the one pouring caffeine down my throat four times a day. I was the one who secretly ordered brain pills. I was the one who isolated myself from friends and kept my feelings hidden. Everything I did that fueled my anxiety was my choice.

The truth is that all of my emotional issues would have unfolded for me at some point in my life, regardless of whom I was working with. I was the creator of my own anxiety, and I was the one who broke myself with my workaholic habits. I just didn’t recognize how destructive my behavior was because I thought it was normal.

I wish someone had held up a mirror to show me I was the problem, but that never happened. No one knew the full extent of my situation but me, and I was in denial. It’s worth taking a moment to ask yourself:

—  Do I feel guilty or anxious when I’m not working?

—  Have I stopped playing with my friends?

—  Do all of my daily activities revolve around building a more successful career?

—  Am I always sleeping fewer than eight hours per night?

—  Am I consuming stimulants multiple times per day to hide my exhaustion?

—  Am I sitting still and staring at screens for most of my waking hours?

—  Do I interact with people primarily through screens?

—  Am I indoors all day long, depriving myself of fresh air and sunlight?

—  Do I depend on alcohol or drugs to cope with social situations outside of work?

If you said ‘yes’ to most of those questions, you are not alone. When I was at my worst, I was doing all of these things on a daily basis. I was fueling my own anxiety and I couldn’t even see it.

My perceived lack of productivity, lack of money, and the unknown future kept me in a constant state of panic. Every day was a haze of fear and exhaustion. For more than a year, I tried everything to pull myself out of this state of living death. Nothing seemed to help, and I nearly lost hope.

Then one night, I had my first major breakthrough, which laid the foundation to cure my anxiety. This breakthrough happened in a flash. The emotional burden of non-stop worry was lifted, and I could finally breathe again.

It wasn’t hard. It didn’t cost me anything. It was only a choice.

###

TIM:  To be continued in Part 2, where Charlie will describe the step-by-step process he used to reverse his descent into darkness (and we’ve all been there, including me).  

I also learned a lot from Charlie’s struggles.  First and foremost: As a boss, you cannot assume that someone is resting and recovering properly. You must ensure it. Employees out of sight does not equal employees out of the inbox.

Don’t want to wait for Part 2?  Take a look at Charlie’s new book, Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety, which includes all the techniques he used to get his life back on track.

Posted on February 13th, 2014

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How to Avoid Burnout and Keep Going

This is a guest post by Andrew Dumont via andrewdumont.me.

It was my first startup. I was 18 and we had just raised our first realfinancing round – $250,000 from a local angel group. A lot was riding on us, even though the scale seems minuscule in hindsight.

We had just upgraded from a basement to an actual office, and we were on top of the world. Numbers were rising and the team was growing, it felt like we were invincible. We were pushing hard, but it didn’t feel that way. We were fueled by constant adrenaline from the latest press hit and the signing of a big new customer. We didn’t need a break, we felt great. Better than great.

After the highest highs, the good times started to fade. We began burning a lot of cash and couldn’t stay on the path we were headed. The days got longer and the adrenaline bumps were few and far between. A fresh Red Bull only got us so far. The only way out was to push even harder, so we did. We were all topping 80 hour weeks. It just wasn’t sustainable.

Eventually, I burnt out. Hard.

I remember coming home and curling up into a ball. I was so emotionally and physically exhausted, I couldn’t even move. My productivity was cut to nothing. The next day at the office, I found myself just staring into my computer, for hours. No movement, just staring.

I was shot.

It was a terrible feeling that took me months to shake out of. I guess I was a victim of my own immaturity. In the startup world, we push hard. It’s part of “the hustle” that we so commonly refer to. Thousands of people burn out each week, and I can assure you that number is very highly concentrated in the startup industry. So, how do we avoid it?

Each person has their own limit, and I was completely oblivious to mine. I love to work, so spending countless hours in an office wasn’t crazy, it was normal. But burnout crept up on me, so I had to find a way to avoid it from happening again.

After much trial and error, I did, and here’s how I did it.

I start out each day with a workout. It doesn’t have to be long, and it doesn’t matter what kind of workout it is. Some days I run, other days I lift weights. The method is irrelevant, but doing something active each morning clears my mind and provides a fresh dose of endorphins that puts me in the right physical state for the rest of the day.

Evenings were tough for me, I wasn’t sure how to turn it off. Hence, the “Always On” blog title. I would come home and hop on my computer, right after leaving the office. It wasn’t that I needed to, it was habit. I didn’t have closure to my day, so I simply extended it. To help with this, I started going for walks each evening before heading home after work. Not long, just enough to digest the day and clear my mind.

I was never a big fan of fiction. But there’s something about it that helps in avoiding burnout. Allowing your mind to think creatively and wander outside of your everyday routine can be extremely valuable. Each night before bed, I try to read a bit of fiction to remove myself from my traditional business mindset.

The past few weeks, I felt myself getting close to burnout again, so I instituted a rule for myself. One day a week, work is off limits – answering email, writing a blog post – anything. For one day a week, it’s off limits. I tend to rotate between Saturdays and Sundays, but it’s completely up to your schedule. To ensure that I stick to it, I tend to save errands and personal obligations for the weekend, forcing myself into a schedule without work.

I recently bought an espresso machine because I needed to nerd out on something other than work. Roasting coffee beans, playing with the granularity of the grind, steaming the milk, it’s all part of my new intellectual hobby. Whether it’s discovering the science of taking the perfect picture, mastering your golf-swing, or studying the art of roasting an espresso bean, we need intellectual hobbies outside of work to cleanse and stretch the mind.

So much of burnout is mental. In order to avoid physical burnout, you need to show your mind progression for all of the effort that you’re exerting. I’ve found that one way to do this is to set small and easily attainable goals that you can reach each day. This can be parsing down larger goals into smaller chunks or just going though the motion of checking-off completed operational tasks. Anything to show your mind progression towards a finish line can do wonders.

We all know that we’re supposed to eat well, but it’s especially true when you’re pushing yourself hard. Eating the right food can help extend your runway and give you the needed nutritional energy to stay strong.

After reading this article in Vanity Fair on Obama, there was one piece that stuck out to me. As the author interviewed the president, he said “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” Making too many decisions about mundane details is a waste of a limited resource: your mental energy. Operationalizing decisions in your life that are less impactful (like the clothes you wear and the fruit you pair with your cereal) allows you to invest that energy elsewhere.

Finally, a yearly unplug is a must. Especially when you work in technology. Having a set time each year where you can turn off the cell phone and go off the grid is a way for you to hit the ‘reset’ button on your body. I’m still working on extending my yearly unplug to more than four days, but even with that, I feel refreshed when I return.

You’re going to have to read your body to sense when you get close to burnout. Just like driving a car, using these maintenance techniques can help, but it’s up to you to know when to ease off the gas.

My immaturity got the best of me, but I’m hoping this will help you avoid the same fate. I used to feel guilty for pacing myself. I felt that if I wasn’t sprinting all day every day, I was doing myself and my team a disservice. Hitting rock bottom burnout was the only way to make me believe otherwise. Hustle is good, but it can’t be blind.

It’s taken me years to realize that overnight success is fictional. Overnight success comes after years of hard, sustainable work.

Here are 11 ways you can start safeguarding your life against burnout: 11 Simple Ways To Avoid Burnout

Featured photo credit: Business people with stress and worries in office via Shutterstock

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Warning: You Have Entered the Burnout Zone

Living and working in a state of burnout has become the norm in our society. Sadly it’s so common that we fail to recognize the signs. We barely even notice anything is wrong. Stress and exhaustion are now a way of life. Yet, we are making a serious mistake than can have severe consequences.

Burnout is a state of overwhelming exhaustion; mental, emotional and physical. It can be caused by work pressures, lifestyle factors, even certain personality traits. It’s more than everyday stress. Burnout is characterized by overpowering, unrelenting stress over a long period. The mind and body are so beaten down that simple daily functioning seems like an overwhelming burden.

Being burned out has a tremendous impact on both your physical health and mental well-being. As the extreme stress continues, the result is often life altering illness, depression, and a pervasive sense of extreme failure. Essentially, there is nothing left to give and the body starts shutting down.

The first step is being aware of the warning signs that signal burnout. We frequently dismiss or rationalize them away. We are just dedicated to our jobs, honoring our commitments, or being a good parent, child, or friend. Those are merely our justifications so that we can go on doing what we’ve been doing.
We need to pay attention to the signs.

Mental signs:

• A pervasive sense of failure and self-doubt

• Feeling helpless, incompetent and defeated

• Loss of motivation and interest in your job, hobbies or family

• A very negative, irritable and impatient attitude

• Lack of a sense of satisfaction and any feelings of accomplishment

• Feeling detachment and distant from the rest of the world

• Experiencing a vicious cycle of overwhelm while the world is crashing around you

• Frequent distraction and an inability to focus or be engaged in a conversation.

• A feeling of pushing yourself harder with no results

• A pattern of memory loss, forgetting where you put things or what you are doing

Physical signs:

• Extreme exhaustion and lack of energy, feeling completely drained

• Loss of appetite, interest in intimacy or insomnia

• An increase in sickness or a general feeling of unexplained illness

• Frequent headaches, back and neck pain, muscle and joint aches

Behavioral signs:

• Calling in sick for work, being late, even quitting or getting fired from your job

• Increase in conflicts both in the workplace and at home

• A general lack of self-care, skipping meals, poor eating habits, sometimes even a change in personal hygiene

• Self-imposed isolation and diminished quality of relationships

• Extreme procrastination and lack of responsibility

• Abusing alcohol, drugs, or food as a way to cope with life

• When you see the warning signs; pay attention. Realize that is necessary to make some changes, possibly drastic ones, depending on the causes and severity of burnout. If you don’t take steps to recover, the damage will only continue to get worse and it will be harder to avoid burnout.

• Allow more time for rest and relaxation. This may be anything from an extended vacation to a commitment to at least one day of rest each week, to negotiating less work hours.

• Adopt a more balanced lifestyle. Spend more time with people you love. Allow more time to have fun, express your creative side, and engage in activities you enjoy.

• Protect your boundaries. Say no to demands on your time by others, decrease outside commitments, and regularly disconnect from technology; phone computer, etc. The world will survive without you.

• Make it a priority to get more sleep, eat a healthier diet, and engage in regular exercise.

• Time alone is a must. Whether it’s journaling, meditation, reading, taking a walk or simply sitting quietly for a short period of time each day, you need to slow the mind and calm the body.

Learning how to manage stress is critical when you’re on the path to burnout. It is much easier to avoid burnout, than to recover from it.

(Photo credit: Low-key portrait of desperate office manager via Shutterstock)

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Burnout is Beautiful

Everyone experiences burnout.

Maybe you feel overworked, sick of your marriage or stressed about money. Maybe you’re living a daily cliché: one step forward, two steps back. Life can be tricky like that.

Believe it or not, burnout can be a beautiful thing. Instead of surrendering to burnout, what if you could use it to transform your life? Just like the story of the Phoenix, what if burnout was a chance for rebirth?

Four years ago I was overworked, stressed and a bit burned out. Now, I’m in a much different place. Here’s what I’ve done since 2007 to help redefine my life.

Quit smoking for good (after failing more than eight times)Eliminated over $42,000 in debt.Convinced my employer to let me work from home two days a week.Stuck to a budget so we could live on one income which allowed me to …Quit my day job.Started to eat right and exercise.Ended my relationship with stuff.Wrote a novel in a month.Defined myself as a hybrid homemaker. Now, I am home when my step kids return from school. I’ve also kept my professional identity through freelance writing.Showed others how to live the same way in my first ebook, The Hybrid Homemaker.

None of this would have been possible without burnout. If I hadn’t reached a point where I felt exhausted, beaten down, burned out … I never would have come up from the ashes.

I’m here to show you how you can rise from the ashes, too. If your path in life feels crooked, you can turn around and take one step forward. That’s the beauty of this story. If I can do it, so can you.

Burnout is beautiful. It gives you the chance to:

I never thought we could live on one income until I imagined a life without debt. Really? People lived on one income? “What if,” I thought and the rest is history. Burnout led me to imagine a life where I didn’t have to work to support the family. That changed everything. What could your life look like? If you’re unhappy at work, there is another way to make money. Start imagining it. Even a simple internet search can help. If you are crushed by debt, there is a way to change that. Imagine your life without limits. Someone else is already living your dream life – start wondering, “How did they do that?”

The desire to change starts with you. Once you feel it, use that passion to experiment and try new things. Become the artist – life is the masterpiece. To get healthy, you might challenge yourself to 10 minutes of exercise each morning. Looking to transform your diet? Eat like Leo. Take a stand against debt by cutting up your credit cards. Burnout brings strong emotions like anger, fear, jealousy and sadness. Use those feelings to light your creativity on fire. Keep mixing it up with new ideas and projects.

Don’t expect your employer to relieve stress at work. Don’t expect your lover to make you happy. Your burnout is not their responsibility. Give yourself permission to do all the work. Setting people free from your expectations will put you back in control. You can be burnout’s victim or victor. Find one reason to do something, not a million reasons to quit. Now, no one stands in your way.

That’s all it takes to change your life. If you want to quit smoking, you can stop putting a cigarette in your mouth and lighting the end. Once you master the way you move, you can do anything. You can decide to write instead of go out to lunch. You can put away the beer and go to bed early. You can feel your feet on the ground for a run. Movements, no matter how small, shape your entire life. How you go through the motions is up to you. Ask yourself today: Is the way I move beautiful? Or destructive?

Change can be slow, but it has to start somewhere. For me, burnout became beautiful when I fed new ideas to my broken spirit. Inspiration was everywhere once I wanted to look. Sites like The Happiness Project and Zen Habits gave me courage to begin a new life.

I know now: Burnout is just the beginning. It might feel awful at times. If it didn’t, how would you know when to try something new? Let your imagination fly. Learn what lights up your world before burnout defines it. Ask yourself for help first. Then, start with tiny movements. Tiny actions. Like building a new foundation, brick by brick, you can create something strong and beautiful.

Read more from Melissa at her blog, Peace & Projects, or follow her on Twitter.

View the original article here

Burnout is Beautiful

Everyone experiences burnout.

Maybe you feel overworked, sick of your marriage or stressed about money. Maybe you’re living a daily cliché: one step forward, two steps back. Life can be tricky like that.

Believe it or not, burnout can be a beautiful thing. Instead of surrendering to burnout, what if you could use it to transform your life? Just like the story of the Phoenix, what if burnout was a chance for rebirth?

Four years ago I was overworked, stressed and a bit burned out. Now, I’m in a much different place. Here’s what I’ve done since 2007 to help redefine my life.

Quit smoking for good (after failing more than eight times)Eliminated over $42,000 in debt.Convinced my employer to let me work from home two days a week.Stuck to a budget so we could live on one income which allowed me to …Quit my day job.Started to eat right and exercise.Ended my relationship with stuff.Wrote a novel in a month.Defined myself as a hybrid homemaker. Now, I am home when my step kids return from school. I’ve also kept my professional identity through freelance writing.Showed others how to live the same way in my first ebook, The Hybrid Homemaker.

None of this would have been possible without burnout. If I hadn’t reached a point where I felt exhausted, beaten down, burned out … I never would have come up from the ashes.

I’m here to show you how you can rise from the ashes, too. If your path in life feels crooked, you can turn around and take one step forward. That’s the beauty of this story. If I can do it, so can you.

Burnout is beautiful. It gives you the chance to:

I never thought we could live on one income until I imagined a life without debt. Really? People lived on one income? “What if,” I thought and the rest is history. Burnout led me to imagine a life where I didn’t have to work to support the family. That changed everything. What could your life look like? If you’re unhappy at work, there is another way to make money. Start imagining it. Even a simple internet search can help. If you are crushed by debt, there is a way to change that. Imagine your life without limits. Someone else is already living your dream life – start wondering, “How did they do that?”

The desire to change starts with you. Once you feel it, use that passion to experiment and try new things. Become the artist – life is the masterpiece. To get healthy, you might challenge yourself to 10 minutes of exercise each morning. Looking to transform your diet? Eat like Leo. Take a stand against debt by cutting up your credit cards. Burnout brings strong emotions like anger, fear, jealousy and sadness. Use those feelings to light your creativity on fire. Keep mixing it up with new ideas and projects.

Don’t expect your employer to relieve stress at work. Don’t expect your lover to make you happy. Your burnout is not their responsibility. Give yourself permission to do all the work. Setting people free from your expectations will put you back in control. You can be burnout’s victim or victor. Find one reason to do something, not a million reasons to quit. Now, no one stands in your way.

That’s all it takes to change your life. If you want to quit smoking, you can stop putting a cigarette in your mouth and lighting the end. Once you master the way you move, you can do anything. You can decide to write instead of go out to lunch. You can put away the beer and go to bed early. You can feel your feet on the ground for a run. Movements, no matter how small, shape your entire life. How you go through the motions is up to you. Ask yourself today: Is the way I move beautiful? Or destructive?

Change can be slow, but it has to start somewhere. For me, burnout became beautiful when I fed new ideas to my broken spirit. Inspiration was everywhere once I wanted to look. Sites like The Happiness Project and Zen Habits gave me courage to begin a new life.

I know now: Burnout is just the beginning. It might feel awful at times. If it didn’t, how would you know when to try something new? Let your imagination fly. Learn what lights up your world before burnout defines it. Ask yourself for help first. Then, start with tiny movements. Tiny actions. Like building a new foundation, brick by brick, you can create something strong and beautiful.

Read more from Melissa at her blog, Peace & Projects, or follow her on Twitter.

View the original article here