Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 7 | BURNOUT

Transcript

SEASON 7 | BURNOUT · SECOND CLOCK™

• 0:01
  What's your true nature? Your essence?
• 0:03
  What makes you tick? This journey to find out is what
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  I refer to as your second clock. It's a chance to discover,
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  experience, challenge, and reconnect with what you value
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  most. Through clarity, love,
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  acceptance and reflection, you'll find your answers.
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  And what happens when you do? Well, You'll find you join me.
• 0:26
  Click follow, like and subscribe.
• 0:28
  And let's see where this leads. In Alice in Wonderland, there's
• 0:36
  a notable White Rabbit that's always going.
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  That's actually how Alice ended up in Wonderland.
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  She was following this White Rabbit that was saying I'm late.
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  I'm late for a very important date.
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  When I think about that rabbit, I think about me.
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  My whole life, I felt like I had to get somewhere and I had to
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  get there fast. I was pushing and trying and to
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  be honest, I don't know where that destination was.
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  I don't know if I got there, surpassed it, or I'm still
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  trying to figure that out. But I've met many destinations
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  along the way. Life's destinations, that is,
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  until one day I reached what I thought was burnout.
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  I was in my old job, I was a designer, and I had a company
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  with my childhood friend. We had been going, going, going
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  for so long that I just forgot to say, do I want to be doing
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  this at this pace and forever? Because I kind of felt like I
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  had committed to forever. I didn't know what was going to
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  slow me down or get me to change course until I reached what I
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  thought was burnout. I say what I thought was burnout
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  because I later would come to find what true burnout was.
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  Life burnout. But I'll get there in a little
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  bit. So here I was, a business owner,
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  a mother of two, and I was tired.
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  Tired. And always I was tired of doing
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  the same thing day in, day out, going to work, pushing a ball
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  forward and not sure if I wanted to push that ball forward
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  anymore, but just feeling like I had to.
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  I had no choice. People depended on me, my
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  business partner depended on me. My clients were expecting things
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  from me. Our employees look to us for
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  getting paid. There was rent and a whole other
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  list of things that needed to be taken care of, and I felt like
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  that was my job, the responsible thing to do.
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  And I don't dispute that it is the responsible thing to do when
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  you have a company and you have people that depend on you.
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  But I guess I just felt like if I didn't press stop, I didn't
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  know what was going to happen. That's what I thought burnout
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  was. So when I reached that point, I
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  pulled the ripcord. It was 2019 and I told my
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  business partner at the time, I don't think I can do 2020 the
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  same. Something needs to change.
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  I need my life to change. Little did I know that the
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  entire world was going to change with the pandemic and all the
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  things that it put on us and kept us from.
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  For one, it shut down my industry.
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  There was no more events happening, and in a way, I felt
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  like I could take a sigh of relief.
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  I could breathe. I didn't need to worry about how
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  I was going to tell my clients and my employees that I couldn't
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  keep up because if I did, I didn't know if I was going to
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  like the life that I had. What do you do in that
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  situation? But I wasn't going to have to
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  find out because the next thing I know, LA goes into lockdown.
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  We all have to stay in our houses, and the only time you
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  could really get out was to go to the grocery store.
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  There wasn't much going on. It's like the world pressed
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  pause and now I had to figure out what to do in that pause.
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  It didn't take long before I realized I couldn't stay like
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  that. I was so used to go, go, go that
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  staying put was complicated. It was even madding at times.
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  That's when I met my neighbor. He had lived next to me for
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  about 10 years. I think we had spoken one or two
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  times before, but now, given the fact that nobody could socialize
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  with anybody really, I was ready to chat.
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  So when the opportunity to work for my neighbor came up, that
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  was interesting. At first, I didn't welcome that
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  idea. I wanted to go into business
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  consulting. That was what I was thinking to
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  do if I did leave my job that I was at.
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  But I didn't want to work for my neighbor.
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  I wanted to just have an experience of having a neighbor.
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  But he pressed and he pressed and eventually I relented.
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  I went to work for him and at first everything was fine, even
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  more than fine. It was fun.
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  I was getting to leave my house when everyone for the most part
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  was still stuck at home. But then came the reality.
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  Being a consultant has a shelf life, and I knew that going in.
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  Usually if somebody needs a consultant, it's because
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  something's going wrong in their business.
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  Usually they don't know what they're doing or they've created
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  the problem that they need to fix, but they don't know that
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  they're part of the problem. So when that happens, well,
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  let's just say you're out. And I expected it by then.
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  I'd also realized that that dynamic between him and I had
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  kind of waned. Things were fun, but the highs
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  and the lows were just too much for me.
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  I went back to my design work, and when I did it was with a new
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  perspective. It was with appreciation and
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  gratitude. By then, the pandemic had gone
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  on for so long that we had let go of our two employees and our
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  rental spaces and my business partner and I, we dissolved our
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  partnership, but we kept designing just on our own with
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  our own clients. Things were working out really
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  well. And then my neighbor came
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  knocking again, this time with a more enticing offer.
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  And I should have said no, but my curiosity got in the way and
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  the idea of having something new and something different was
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  exciting. I went back to work for him, but
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  in a different capacity. It was a bigger role.
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  It was more suitable for me, actually.
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  Everything was more fun, more interesting, more things to
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  learn, more things to ask questions about, more people to
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  meet, more places to go. It was just more, more, more.
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  And by then I had realized that I liked a lot of distractions in
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  my life. I grew up with a father that's a
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  workaholic. He worked to distract himself
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  from his life, from the monotony of it.
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  He would work late and go to work early.
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  And I had modeled what I thought was a good work ethic after him.
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  But by now, when I had had that time off from working for my
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  neighbor the first time and before I went back the second
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  time, my life had slowed down a little bit and I started to
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  welcome in new things. But then I was back in, but this
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  time twice as much. I again didn't want to say
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  goodbye to my clients. And at this point things were
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  going really well with that job. I was really happy.
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  But now I had this new opportunity and I was all in on
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  both. And that's when burnout came
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  knocking. But it didn't just happen with
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  work. It affected all aspects of my
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  life and I could tell something was off.
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  I couldn't think clearly. I was making decisions that were
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  not aligned with my values. I was starting to see a new me
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  emerging. I welcomed it, but I also was
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  confused by it. For so long, I had told myself
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  one narrative about who I was, and now that was changing.
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  What I had access to was changing, and everything was
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  happening a little too fast. Next thing you know, I hit a
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  wall. My sleep was disrupted to the
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  point where I was barely sleeping.
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  I had lost a lot of weight. I was very stressed, and I
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  didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to say enough,
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  but the problem I faced was me. No matter how many times I would
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  hit a wall and say this is it, I can't do any more.
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  There's no more left to give. I would then see it as a
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  challenge and say dig deeper and I would push myself.
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  But this time that wasn't happening, and I was looking to
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  people to help me, looking for them to say I see what you see,
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  you need to stop, you need to quit.
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  It's OK. But they weren't saying that.
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  They knew the person that always pushes a little further tries
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  one more time. But the impact wasn't just on
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  work or my values or my sleep. It had now trickled out into
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  thoughts about my marriage, about where I lived, what my
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  life was going to look like if I kept up, keeping up.
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  And that's when I experienced full life burnout.
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  I couldn't go back and I couldn't go forward.
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  Not the same way at least. So when everything came to a
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  screeching halt, a part of me was scared and a part of me
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  welcomed it. It's like I knowingly walked in
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  to a trap. I got let go from my job, which
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  was a great thing because I wanted to quit so bad.
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  But again, old habits, I didn't know how to let go, even when it
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  was wrong for me. And then I decided, let's just
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  go all in. Let's end your marriage, a
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  marriage that's not bad, but that's just not exciting
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  anymore, where there's no learning left to be done.
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  So I did that too. Then I did something I didn't
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  expect. I got my own place close by so I
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  could see my kids every day and every night, but just have a
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  place to go to during the day. But I could just be.
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  That was foreign for so many of us.
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  Being alone. It's lonely, so I wanted to get
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  uncomfortable. I figured so much of my life had
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  become uncomfortable. Why not go all in, deconstruct
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  all the norms that I had accepted that now were not so
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  normal for me, Remove all the labels that I thought mattered,
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  like being a wife, being a hard worker, being an entrepreneur,
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  being successful and so on. Essentially wiping the slate
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  clean. When I did sit in my new space
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  and I had hours ahead of me, I found things that I liked about
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  it and things that made me really uncomfortable.
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  I found books upon books upon books, and I listened and I
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  listened and I listened. I deepen relationships with
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  people that I knew, people that were going through similar
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  things, and I made relationships with other people.
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  I welcomed in routines to give me structure so my day didn't
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  just seem like it dragged or had no value.
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  And when all those distractions were gone and it was just the
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  four walls in me, I found it. I found what lives past
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  loneliness. It's solitude.
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  It's reframing what it is to be alone and realizing it's not so
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  scary after all. It's kind of amazing.
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  And I welcomed it into my life, not just during that period of
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  time, but during my days, every day.
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  This idea of taking time and sitting in solitude was foreign.
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  Something about it made me feel like it was so self indulgent or
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  like I was being lazy. During this time.
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  I wasn't helping anybody. I wasn't looking after
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  something, I wasn't answering to someone.
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  I was just being. And it was so peaceful.
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  I find that to be a privilege because before then I had
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  everything coming at me. So many words, so many people
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  asking questions, asking things of me, needing things, wanting
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  things. I needed to deliver things.
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  And I guess that's how the digital age is.
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  People have so much access to us that it's hard to say no.
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  In the past, you could go on an airplane and find that solitude,
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  whether you liked it or not, you were going to be on that plane
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  without distraction except for the movie in front of you or the
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  person you were traveling with. But now you can go on a plane
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  any day and get Wi-Fi. Sometimes it's even free, and
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  that means access is granted again.
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  And the excuse of I was on a plane doesn't hold up like it
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  used to. What I learned from reaching
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  full burnout was how to be grateful.
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  Because now my life is so different.
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  I am so different. The way I process things is
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  easier, lighter even. And I realize now when I think
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  of that little white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, all his
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  haste to get wherever he needed to get to dragged Alice along,
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  dragged her into Wonderland, into places she never expected
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  to be or places she was never meant to go to.
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  What a mess that was made, all from going so fast and from not
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  stopping to ask. Why am I doing all this?
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  Do I enjoy it? What is the purpose?
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  And if things stayed this way, is that OK?
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  Maybe I wasn't just the white rabbit feeling like I was
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  rushing. Maybe I was Alice too, being
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  pulled by time, feeling a sense of urgency when maybe there
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  never was. Maybe it was more about feeling
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  like being a part of something. And I realize now, things don't
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  have to be so fast-paced. We don't need to find ways to
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  distract ourselves from everything by being around
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  everyone or by filling our day with conversations, meetings,
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  appointments. That's what I learned when I let
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  go of my first company, that need to show up, be there for
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  everyone. It wasn't necessary.
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  All my actions created the burnout.
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  And then when I had the new job opportunity, I knew from the
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  beginning that something wasn't right.
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  It wasn't aligned with what I wanted for my life.
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  But I also knew I didn't know how to say no.
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  Saying no is a challenge for most because somehow we think
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  that we're letting someone down or disappointing somebody or
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  even ourselves. Our idea of ourself, our idea of
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  who we are and how we should be versus what we feel.
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  So my life looks very different now.
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  I guess you could say I finally designed my life.
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  It has everything that I ever wanted.
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  It has space, It is structure, it has opportunity, experiences,
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  it is joy. And now I see things don't need
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  to be strained. The way I work is lighter.
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  What I do I not only enjoy now, but I'm grateful for it.
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  My relationships are easier. There's no more guessing games,
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  there's no more wanting things to be different.
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  Your life can have whatever you want in it if you identify what
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  it is that you don't want to remain the same, and then just
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  take steps to figure out how you can unwind or unravel or undo or
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  do differently the things you've done.
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  But you don't do it all at once like I did.
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  Maybe for some, you do it little by little, you do it at your own
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  pace, and you do it for you. Thanks for listening.
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  These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
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  as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
• 18:24
  I've learned, would like to do better, and what's next.
• 18:28
  Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
• 18:31
  episodes. Click Follow, Like and subscribe
• 18:34
  and let's see where this leads.