Burnout Caller (27:43)
About burnout having a two year old and a four year old and if you can recover from that, I can talk about this for half an hour. So I'm going to try to be as brief as possible, but I feel like I went through exactly what you are going through. I also had kids almost the exact same age and worked a really stressful job for many years in politics and government and after having two kids was just completely at my wit's end and didn't know what to do or if I just felt like I wasn't even cut out from my job anymore. And I was so stressed. And there were a couple things that I did to help come out of burnout. But I will preface this by saying I left my job and came back two years later. I did a different job, and then I came back. But I think you can do it in your job, too. So the first things I would say is, I think it's important to recognize that this is just a really difficult season of life when you have kids at this age. And so part of it is knowing that whatever changes you make right now in your life, or whatever you do to fix this burnout problem for yourself, it's going to look different. Your life will look different, you will feel different in only just like, two or three years when your kids get into grade school. And recognizing that really helped me while I was doing the second thing, which is really realizing that I was at a stage where I was reinventing myself as a mom, as a working mom, and really facing some of the really toxic narratives I had built around what made me worthy or valuable before kids. And it essentially built this narrative that my quality of my work and my output and my dedication to my job and working whatever hours I need to work was what made me worthy and not just my inherent worthiness. And I hadn't really stopped to realize how much of a badass I had become and where I was at my career, which was at a place that I could do the same amount of work, higher quality work than young people, and I could do that within work hours. So why did I get, like, the things I thought were the most helpful for me? Therapy. I started therapy for the first time in my life, and I have continued. It has been so helpful to change those narratives I built around myself. I took a month. I would recommend taking a month off and not like a family vacation month. This is a month for you. Maybe you can do a vacation in there for like a week. But for me, it was about, like, sitting with myself, finding some quiet time to journal, take walks, and figure out where was I spending all my time, what did I actually enjoy doing about my job, and what was I resentful about doing? Because it was taking away time from my family and the things that I really wanted and figuring out what were my principles. After you have some quiet time with yourself, come back with new boundaries. For me, it was, I'm not going to answer emails after hours. I'm not going to worry about all my emails being answered all the time, and I have to say no to more of the work, travel Find a mentor at work that's not your boss that is above you. Maybe someone who's about to retire or someone who can help you really see your own worth and to help keep you honest on your boundaries that you're setting. And then talk to your boss, it sounds like your boss is really supportive. And talk to him about your new boundaries and have him help keep you honest. Because once you set that tenor with him or her, they will be able to say, hey, aren't you supposed to be gone? Aren't you supposed to have left at five if they're a good boss? And that's really supportive because it doesn't feel like every time you have to like ask permission to leave on time and talk about it with others in your office and say, oh, I'm leaving because I gotta go pick up my kid or I'm working in the classroom today because the more you say it out loud, the more people respond to you too and will say, you'll hear people say good for you, like yes, go, go do that. And you're also giving permission to the people next in line under you to see that they can do that. So you can do it. It's a really rough time in life, but it will bring you out the other side so much more powerful and self aware and self loving. So good luck.