The Rule of Thirds: Your Roadmap to Beating Burnout

How To Look At Fatigue Objectively?

The following is an extract from an online course about fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout that I’m currently working on. I’ll share more about it in the following weeks and months, so stay tuned for that!

Also, if you’d like to be one of the first to get the course and a special limited offer, join the course waitlist below:

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The thing that makes fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout hard to deal with, is the mental and emotional aspect. 

When we’re caught up in emotional states of feeling tired, fatigued, empty, exhausted, or burnt out, it’s hard to think and act with a clear head. 

Emotions and emotional states play a huge part in our lives. They influence our biology and physiology and can make things either better or worse.

Experiencing fatigue, exhaustion or burnout can create a lot of anxiety and fear. We might be anxious about what’s going on, anxious about whether or not what we’re experiencing is normal or not, we’re wondering how long will this last, whether or not we’ll be okay, etc. 

Anxiety and fear trigger the amygdala, which is the center of the brain responsible for our evolutionary survival mechanism and the so-called “Fight or Flight” (ForF) system response. Experiencing anxiety and fear for extended periods of time will cause additional stress, which will then cause even more tiredness, exhaustion, and feelings of burnout, which will then produce even more anxiety and fear and consequently stress.

When dealing with fatigue, exhaustion, or burnout, it’s important that we take a step back, step out of and move away from that emotional charge that fatigue, exhaustion, or burnout created, look at them objectively and analyze them.

A ton of problems can be solved by simply looking at them objectively and by removing the emotional charge associated with them.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

~ Victor Frankl

By removing ourselves from emotional states and looking at fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout objectively, we escape and break the victorious cycle of anxiety and stress, and make the first step in mastering our fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout.

One strategy that we can use to look at feelings and symptoms of fatigue, exhaustion and burnout is The Rule of Thirds.

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The Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a principle that Olympians use to access the process.

The rule implies that when you're chasing a dream, or doing anything hard, you're meant to feel good a third of the time, okay a third of the time, and crappy a third of the time.

If the ratio is roughly in that range, then you're doing fine. If the ratio's off, if you feel too good all the time or too bad, then you have to look at if you're fatiguing or not trying hard enough or pushing yourself.

The Rule of Thirds can be found and used elsewhere. 

In Major League Baseball league, the best teams lose about 1/3 of their games while the worst teams win about 1/3 of their games. What separates the "good" teams from the "bad" teams, is what they do in the remaining 1/3 of their games. What happens in those remaining 50 games determines the success (or failure) of their seasons.

Ryan Munsey, author, high-performance coach, and consultant, writes about how we can apply the analogy to our life and human experience: 

“We can (roughly) expect to have about 1/3 of our days go our way while another 1/3 will be struggles (emotionally, physically, etc etc), that's just life. We're going to have some wins and we're going to have some losses. The remaining third of our days could go either way. What we do with those days determines the level of success and enjoyment we derive from this life.” (source)

We can also use The Rule of Thirds when we’re dealing with fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout. 

When determining and figuring out whether or not fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout are a problem worth looking at and examining, we can use the principle of The Rule of Thirds.

How often we experience problems associated with fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout will determine if we have a “problem” or not. If we experience fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout too often - meaning more than a third of the time - it’s time for us to look and dig deeper: analyze our life and figure out where are fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout coming from and what are some of the potential underlying problems that are causing them.

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If you’ve been dealing with some tiredness, fatigue, symptoms or problems associated with burnout, start by asking yourself the following question:

• “Do I know where my energy boundaries are and I’m not pushing past them?”

• “Do I lead a generally “healthy lifestyle? Am I exercising enough but not too much? Am I sleeping enough? Am I eating good and quality food?”

• “Am I taking care of my mind, mental and emotional health and well-being?

• “Do I enjoy what I do and feel a sense of joy and purpose for it?

• “Am I taking care of my spiritual health and fitness?”

If the answer to most of these questions is “No” and you experience fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout more than a third of the time, then you need to work on the basic stuff: improve your physical health, lifestyle and relationship with your body, mind, emotional body and soul.  

If however the answers to the questions above are mostly “Yes” and you still experience fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout too often - more than a third of the time - it’s time to dig deeper and explore some of the underlying causes that might be causing you fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout without you realizing it. 

You will learn everything about both the basic and the underlying causes of fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout and how to deal with deal in this course Master Fatigue, Exhaustion & Burnout.

If you’re interested in learning about what directly or indirectly causes fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout, how to deal with them, master them, and achieve a state of well-being, subscribe to Conquering Burnout or join the waitlist to get updates on its progress and when it’s about to launch.