The Hidden Key to Conquering Burnout

The most underrated and not talked about aspect of burnout

Nov 27, 2024

It’s been over a month since my last newsletter here on Conquering Burnout. Things have just been … crazy.

The last two months were very busy: a lot of things happening, new projects opening up, and internal things that needed attention, resolving, and healing. I don’t mind it really, I got used to having a relatively busy and fast life pace over the last 2 years. But lately, something felt different.

Even though the last couple of weeks were very busy, they weren’t that much more difficult compared to the past. Yet during this time, I found my pace, busyness, and life in general much more difficult to handle - sometimes even to the point of feeling like I couldn’t handle it all. Recently, I even felt on the edge of burnout and really exhausted, which terrified me since it hadn’t happened in a long time.

So what’s changed?

Anyone who has experienced a slice of burnout probably knows the awful and desperate feelings and emotions that come alongside burnout. It’s a feeling that shakes you to the core of your being, numbs your mind, and paralyzes you with fear, anxiety, and unknowingness of what the future might hold for you.

woman wearing red lipstick — Photo by Chaozzy Lin on Unsplash

When these feelings and emotions connected to burnout arise, it’s a good opportunity to analyze the situation and your life in general.

Am I really exhausted and burnt out or is it just the accumulated tiredness that’s coming out? Am I feeling tired and exhausted because I’m working too hard and because I’m under a lot of stress? Or is it because I’m not taking care of my body, lifestyle, mind, and inner self? Maybe it’s some other aspects of my lifestyle of mental health that I’m not aware of that’s causing me to feel exhausted and burnt out.

Over the last couple of couple of years, I learned a ton about how different aspects of my lifestyle, mind, emotional realm, and mental health impact my energy and well-being, and how to optimize them so I can keep exhaustion and burnout at bay.

But then I forget things and fall into the old patterns. It’s one of the greatest human conditions: we forget the lessons that we learned and we make the same mistakes, until life warns us that we got astray and helps us remember - often through pain and struggle.

The pain and struggle continue and repeat until we learn from them and start acting and living differently.

I spent some time wondering and analyzing, what was going on at the time in my life that I felt so exhausted and got to the point to gaze at the scares of burnout. After some time and introspection figured out that the cause behind was probably one of the most underrated and not talked about aspects of burnout.

Here on Conquering Burnout, I wrote a handful of articles about the importance of Vital Energy for our energy, happiness, general well-being, and even burnout prevention and recovery.

Vital Energy simply encompasses the energy that we have, get, and receive when we do things that we enjoy doing, that we feel passion and purpose for, and things that give our lives meaning.

For me, the difference is very distinctive: when I’m enjoying and loving what I’m doing, I feel a strong sense of passion, purpose, and mission, my energy is almost endless and I feel almost unstoppable. However, when I lack this VItal Energy, that’s when things slowly start to fall apart and collapse.

That’s been the case recently. In the business and productivity of everyday life, I lost myself a bit and got caught up in a mode where I wasn’t operating from myself. Most of the things I was doing, didn't originate and come from me, from my heart and my being. I acted too much based on what others would want from me to get approval, validation, attention, and love from others. Because I wasn’t doing what I really loved doing, I wasn’t getting enough joy, satisfaction, enjoyment, passion, and purpose, resulting in exhaustion and burnout.

I had to take a step back, take time and space to recover, heal my nervous system, and set new intentions and direction for the future. The strategy is obviously to operate from my own unique self and do more things that I love doing and that bring me joy, satisfaction, enjoyment, passion, and purpose.

This I think is a huge piece to fully understand.

To conquer burnout, rest is not enough: we have to include things and activities that doing things that we like, enjoy doing, and feel a strong sense of passion and purpose for.

Joy, enthusiasm, passion, and purpose will create energy in us, fill us up, and help us prevent or recover from burnout.

So I would urge you to take a closer look at your current life. Analyze which things are robbing you of energy and how you could implement more joy, satisfaction, enjoyment, passion, and purpose in your life. When you do that, you’ll conquer burnout once and for all.