In my last blog, I wrote about wearing my workaholism as a badge of honor, and in this one, I will talk about how I figured out that I was totally and undeniably, burnt out. Mornings are my favorite part of the day. The switch from being a night person to a morning person happened in the lockdown in UK (a story for another time). There were signs and signals that I had been ignoring for a long time, and it only started hitting me when I stopped looking forward to my mornings.
I don’t think mine is a case of not knowing that my path was one of eventual burn out, mine is a case of being unable to accept that of all people, I could burn out. And writing this piece is a way to take one step closer towards acceptance.
Always feeling rushed
Do you always feel rushed? Like time is slipping away and there is so much you have to do? I found myself asking for more time in a day because I used to have so much to do. I either overestimated my capacity and created an almost unachievable to do list, which definitely did not account for a lot of rest, or I genuinely was expected to work as many hours as I was? I think for me, it was a bit of both.
In the book, Rework, the authors talk about what the profile of a dream employee in today’s time looks like: 20 something, no life beyond work, who sleeps under their desk and works 13-14 hours on average. When I read it, it felt like I was being stalked, how did they know! But sadly so, there’s just so many of us, who are burning the midnight oil, sacrificing sleep, not getting enough rest and almost running on empty.
Sleep, but no sleep
I cannot emphasize the important of sleep enough. I know we all know it, we have watched all kinds of TED talks on it, read books and research just like I had done. But that didn’t stop me from having 3-4-5 hour sleep nights which became routine. It started hitting me when despite getting some sleep, I stopped feeling well rested. When I woke up, it felt as if I had never gone to sleep at all. The same buzzing head, the same rush and the sense of time slipping by continued. I slept exhausted, and woke up annoyed because the exhaustion didn’t go away.
No time for family and friends
I was spending every single moment of every single day glued to my laptop and my chair. Truth be told, I was sick of my phone and the laptop and did not want to spend another moment on the devices, and I couldn’t step out and meet my friends, thanks to Covid and my work routine. Even though I wanted to reach out, I just wasn’t able to. I am grateful to those friends who understood where I was coming from and did not cut me off when I got a chance to explain.
Investing in our relationships is important, every step of the way. We cannot expect our dear ones to stand by us as a rock in our lows when we have been absent from their lives for as long as they can remember. That is a recipe for ending up alone.
I am a calm person. Oh really?
I was feeling irritable, and could snap at the smallest of things, things which did not bother me generally. It became difficult to recognise what triggered me and what did not. That thought was stressful. I noticed that even when I wasn’t working, I was either thinking or talking about work. I wasn’t giving myself a break and the irritability continued!
Not looking forward to anything
I needed a breather when nothing seemed exciting anymore. Not even doing my favorite things, all I wanted was to not feel like I was feeling. When I wasn’t waking up ready to embrace the challenges of the new day, I knew that I will lose myself if I didn’t do something about it. I had to take charge of changing how I was feeling and put a full stop to how I didn’t want to feel (yes we can control it).
So what did I do?
Well, in my case, I started saying ‘no’ to:
- Things I didn’t want in my life
- Things which sucked my energy and enthusiasm
- Things which didn’t make me grow
- Toxic people who were thriving on how shitty I felt
I started saying yes to resting, rebuilding and rediscovering myself, on my own terms.
Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash
