On Burnout

“I can’t keep doing this! I have too much to do and I don’t want to do any of it. I’m a victim of my circumstances and I’m too deep in this hole. I don’t have time for good sleep and I can’t keep my eyes open after lunch. This. is. impossible!”

Does any of that sound familiar?

Our culture is full of people who feel burnt out and overwhelmed. In fact, between a Gallup and a Deloitte poll, US citizens feel burnt out between 77% and 23% of the time—that’s the spectrum between “sometimes” and “constantly.” Between an American Psychological Association Poll and a National Alliance on Mental Illness, US citizens feel overwhelmed anywhere between “can’t function” (27%) and “because of their job in the past year” (52%). And that’s just the people who had time to take a survey after being asked!

Imagine if you could see that burnout evaporate in ninety minutes. Or, better yet, imagine that burnout turning into excitement and motivation for what is to come. If you are like most people, you would like to hear what could possibly be done about it.

Now, think about the first time you felt burnt out. From personal experience, I can tell you that I was a perfectionist from a young age. The first time I remember being burnt out was in second grade, eight years old, wondering how I could do all the homework and still hang out with friends. Then, I took this relationship to life into the rest of my schooling for the next fourteen years—all the way through college. You probably didn’t experience burn out this young, but it had probably been relatively constant in your life from a working age or when you got into a school that demanded everything from you.

Think about that first experience and imagine if you could re-experience that with a different perspective and grow yourself up to this moment right now without having to go anywhere. Now, imagine that elusive fitness goal that you have achieved and not kept or almost achieved before something went wrong, in your busy, overwhelmed schedule. This happened that first time and then it just continued to happen—like getting injured and re-aggravating the same injury again and again.

I want you to know that you are not alone. Everyone experiences this patterning to some degree. That is because our reptilian brain likes to keep us safe from predators. It also likes to find out what doesn’t kill us so that we can repeat that experience. As you can probably guess, this brain function can become faulty and unworkable. This happens when it thinks that the event that didn’t kill you should be repeated. That’s when it becomes locked in your subconscious!

Another place this shows up is in your life where you think “That’s just my life!” or “Why does that always happen to me?” The event you experienced that you didn’t die from became a protective subconscious choice! And so, for example, people have a tough time keeping weight off or seeing those pecs finally get big like Arnold. And in a burnt out and overwhelmed state, people compensate for this by either giving up or doubling down and just being obsessed about something that never really seems to materialize.

There is a cure for this. Now, remember that in your formative years when this started, there were a lot of different ways this happened so the cure isn’t always one-and-done. Sometimes, however, it is. That happens in my work when I am doing what I call Subconscious Optimization for thirty minutes before the hour-long fitness section of my unique fitness coaching.

So, what I can do is often about peeling back the layers. It can even hit that perfect moment where the burnout, overwhelm or unsustainable experience actually took hold and, un-knotted, can open up to never happen again! Remembering that our lives are a product of a plethora of subconscious choices, we can accept that we now actually and truly want this new experience and then can sustain it. This happens instead of the past experience where it was blocked by the weight of so many other rigid, contradicting choices.

Ultimately: we can be relieved of our burnout and overwhelm—no longer including it as our identity, but rather a passing wave of experience. Or you can get that fitness goal to finally land and stick. And then, in my work, we head to my private gym to embody your goal. This makes the world a whole lot more manageable and lovely. You get to work towards what you want, feel good getting it, look great and choose again!