Hustle failed me.

And I bet if we compare our stories of burnout, hustle either has or is about to fail you too.

I recently read that stress occurs in the gap between obligation and resource.  If that’s true, then burnout is what happens when you continue to straddle that gap until you fall full-splits into the ravine–bruised from the fall while sustaining a groin injury.

There’s good news about burnout recovery: it’s possible. 

There’s challenging news about burnout recovery: it’s hard.

It is so easy to slip back into the very habits that burned you, especially when the culture around you rewards them. For me, it was the myth of hustle.  I used hard work, longer hours, faster productivity, and relentless focus as both armor and salve.  Any time I felt the slightest need to impress someone or twinge of fear that I wasn’t totally safe, I threw myself into my work.  Harder, stronger, more relentless.  

The opposite of hope is not despair, it’s cynicism.  And my own research just offered a breakthrough understanding–this dangerous distraction begins sometime around age nine.

During a conversation with my 3rd-grade son, I learned something crucial about the destructive and distracting nature of cynicism: it's not the enemy unless we make it that way.

Sometimes we romanticize the change as an invitation to get completely out of whatever loop you’re stuck in. But what happens when quitting the job, ending the relationship, or unbecoming responsible isn’t an option? What happens to your strengths when the challenge must be met for real?

Your association with feedback says a little about you and a lot about your environment. Workplaces that carefully avoid feedback or offer it irregularly perpetuate the pit-of-stomach stress response to the idea. But communities of curiosity do it differently.

You are hard-wired to survive intense, difficult experiences. But far too often, we persevere through intensity, speeding up our gears and pouring ourselves out toward a solution. And then we stay there. Without a mindful shift, we fail to return to our normal operating state. Instead, we adopt habits that helped us succeed in extremes.

Our highest capacity–the experience that reserves of energy and intellect are there for–creeps into our everyday pace. If they’re not careful, workplaces and schools reward only extreme performance, and calculate their expected outputs based on it. Unless you are in the throes of emergency response, here’s a hard truth: your burnout problem likely began due to conditions outside of you. But you are contributing to the pain.

My client knew what she needed. Most of us do. With some gentle reminding from me, she even realized she had been teetering on the edge of this change for months. She was dancing around it and then shying away. But the shift kept making itself known, especially when she got out of her own head and into her intuition.

We got closer and closer to describing the action she was designing in her mind. We had a timeline, a clear picture of the steps she would take, and a focused reason she wanted to make this change.

I interrupted the flow and changed the entire rhythm of our conversation with, “Can I ask a potentially snarky question?” The irony escaped me in the moment, but I smile about it in hindsight.

“Sure,” she said, a bit jarred by my shift in energy, “As long as I can give you a snarky answer.”

“Mom is with a client, and it’s her job to give them her full attention.” What began as a way to describe why I couldn’t play with cars and dolls while also taking a phone call is today a reminder for both myself and those around me of the highest form of value I can offer–my focused attention. It’s what I give when I’m at my very best, and what you should be giving your people on a regular, predictable basis.

So, are you?

Yes, it might be Mercury Retrograde.

It might also be something much closer to home.

If you find yourself lacking motivation, losing interest in things that typically light you up, or worrying about realities that used to seem easy, you just might be in what is informally known as “a funk.” Nothing is damaging or dangerous, nothing is clinical, but nothing is awesome.

The work of strengths-based development is made to help you perform at your best. But it’s also steeped in the self-awareness necessary to name what’s troubling you and play with possibilities that are tailor-made to your natural pathways of curiosity and imagination.

Can you strengths your way out of a funk? It’s worth a try.

No one trusts a salesperson who claims their product is for everyone. No one markets a movie to every demographic. But far too often, a leader’s introduction into strengths ends at the initial dopamine hit of the feel-good descriptors of their talent. Ideally, naming and claiming who you are comes with the courage to discard labels or expectations where you will not excel. But that takes patience and permission, and far too often, we don’t go all the way through the exercise of self-awareness.

“What are the skills of a great leader?”

I promise, someone you know is asking this. Maybe it’s disguised as self-doubt (Do I have what it takes?). Maybe it’s showing up as a deliverable in your development department (How do we teach competencies?). Maybe it’s living in the career planning conversations (What do I even want out of this life?).

Sales is support. Leadership is context. If you get lost in how much you love your product or your process, you miss the opportunity for either.

The office used to help build trust for you. Now and into the future, you must cultivate and care for human connection, or lose it forever. And no matter your industry, the trust created through connection is truly all you have to offer your customer.

Half of workers (42%-65% depending on which survey you trust) are actively job-searching. Most are in search of better pay, and why wouldn’t they be?

Especially in leadership positions and knowledge industries, ambiguity is the norm. I regularly challenge myself and my clients to describe their workplace responsibilities in a way both they and a young child could clearly agree on what is being said. And I’ve yet to come up with something better than what our oldest told his preschool class years ago, “Dad flies planes. Mom talks to people.”

If your life is an orchestra, the loudest section is your career. And by “career,” I don’t mean where you get paid. It’s how you spend your time on a typical day.

Feeling a bit off? The answer is likely not to drink more water, wake up earlier for that workout, or start volunteering in your neighborhood. According to research, making even a small change in your career experience has an outsized effect on your overall lived experience.

Wendy was convinced she needed better boundaries. But first, we had to care for her margins.

How would you are for Beyonce if she came to visit? Why knowing your preferences, your pace, and your best place matters to others.

Most great leaders can recall a few specific moments of meaningful growth, typically marked by letting go of long-held beliefs in exchange for a rocket-boost of discovery. Spoiler alert: what follows is the executive equivalent of learning the truth about the tooth fairy. (She exists, but once you’ve seen that collection of teeth she builds her empire on, you cannot unsee it.)

Too many of us see strengths-based development as purely productivity-driven. We stop after we’ve named, claimed, and aimed our strengths at more dollars, less waste, or one extra hour of output. But the scientific genius behind CliftonStrengths offers so much more. You are more than your potential to perform. Your strengths also inform the most critical awareness you can have–what specific care you need in order to survive the lows and thrive in the highs.

The crisp blank planner. The vision board. The office shuffle. There is a magic to a brand new year, and a hope of promise. Let’s cut that crap out right away.

:) Kidding. Sort of.

Do yourself a favor and stop believing so much in your own future self. Sure, you can hope that future self will be just as motivated as you are today. Or, you could plan to outsmart them.

No, but they could…