41. Burnout Recovery for Public Health Staff
It’s 2022 and we’re still in the midst of a pandemic. You’re constantly overworked, unable to get the rest you need, and burnt out. Feelings of overwhelm, stress, and resentment are a daily occurrence, and for so many public health workers, there seems to be no end in sight and no way out.
A core belief that all public health staff hold tight is the value of helping people. It’s what led us to this field in the first place. It’s really no surprise that burnout and exhaustion are such a common experience for us, but this week, I’m showing you how to make burnout a thing of the past.
Join me on the podcast this week to discover my process for recovering from professional burnout. The good news is that my Burnout Recovery course is finally live and free to you all today, so if you’re ready to not only kickstart your burnout recovery, but also get back to dreaming about your life and career, make sure to sign up!
If you’re struggling at work, burnt out, overwhelmed, hate your boss, or at the end of your rope after a year-and-a-half of dealing with a pandemic, you need to sign up for the Burnout Recovery mini-course! It’s packed with simple, direct content that you can easily consume over your lunch break to help you feel better and less stressed in 2022.
What You Will Discover:
The main contributors of your burnout.
What makes the experience of burnout feel so exhausting.
The real reason you are struggling with burnout.
Why burnout is such a common experience for so many public health staff.
2 steps to recovering from professional burnout.
Why prioritizing rest and setting boundaries feels so challenging.
Resources:
Get The Burnout Recovery Resolution mini-course right now by signing up here!
Sign up for a Curiosity Call to find out if individual coaching can help you!
Follow me on Instagram!
Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you! Email me at info@mckoolcoaching.com
Join my weekly mailing list to get bonus free resources and coaching opportunities!
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
Full Episode Transcript:
If you're two to five years out of your MPH degree, love public health, but find yourself secretly unhappy at work and maybe even thinking about quitting your job, then this is the podcast for you. I'm Marissa McKool, host of the Thoughts Are Your Root Cause podcast. Join me each week as I share tips, tools, and resources to help you have the career you've always dreamed of without any of the stress you are experiencing right now. Come along.
Hi everyone, hi folks, how are you? I'm so glad you're here joining me this week for this episode. Before we get into it, I just want to share if you are not on my email list; if you're not on my listserv, you've got to get on it. I give away so many coaching tips and resources to help you throughout the week. So, you can get more than just the podcast insights, which are fabulous, of course.
But around the New Year, I gave away free goal-setting sessions. I also gave away a free one for your friend that you could gift to a friend. I also give away other free resources, free coaching opportunities, free courses, and every week you get an email with a coaching insight, a coaching tip to help your week. So, honestly, if you're not on that listserv, you’re not on my email list, what are you doing? You've got to get on there. Get those great resources to help you with your week.
We'll leave a link in the show notes for you all. So, before we kind of talk about burnout recovery, I just want to share what's been going on with me a little bit. I have been thinking a lot this week about how to give myself permission to do what I need to do for myself, and it's just been really interesting recovering from COVID. And I shared a few weeks ago I had gotten COVID around New Year, and although I am not contagious anymore, don't have COVID, don't have symptoms, I certainly have been experiencing what I would call long, longer-term effects.
So, for me, it feels like, you know, sometimes it's still harder to breathe, and I have a dry cough and it kind of feels like there's something stuck in my throat sometimes. So, I haven't been able to work out, run, or do any cardio or hit workout or anything, and you know, I've just been giving myself permission that that's okay. That I can move my body in other ways, I can stretch and really enjoy the stretching. Not do it out of guilt, resentment, or obligation, but like, really enjoy and appreciate my body as it's stretching, and appreciate my body needs to heal, and that may be running, and cardio isn't what I can do right now, and that's okay.
And what's also been really fascinating is that it has also allowed me to drop this lingering thought I've been having about wanting or needing to lose some weight. I think many of us, myself included, have gained weight through the pandemic because, you know, I'm not working out as much, being more stationary, a lot of other things. And to be honest, it doesn't bother me.
I look in the mirror, and I don't even notice a difference. Like, I think I look exactly the same. The only way I notice is some of my clothes don't fit anymore, and some that used to be looser actually fit, so that's the only way I know. And I was noticing, I had this like lingering thought of like, I should work out more, I should lose the weight, and I didn't really believe that, but part of that is the social conditioning, right?
That women should look a certain way, and no matter your gender you should want to be like slim or want to, you know, have certain body parts look a certain way, and once, with COVID and my recovery and now this kind of long lingering symptoms that are limiting my exercise ability it's all dropped. It's just like, it allowed me to give myself permission to believe what I actually believe, which is that's not a priority for me right now.
I think I look great, and even if my doctor mentions something when I go for my physical which did happen, or I'm marketed to or like losing weight, losing the pandemic weight, I don't have to believe that, and my brain offered me some of those ridiculous thoughts, and that's okay. I also had another kind of experience with this this week as I've been watching Outlander.
Which I know I'm behind on. This always happens, like I don't watch a show that's super hyped up until way later. Like, I didn't watch Game of Thrones until the last season almost aired. This is just, and I don't know, it's the thing I have. So, I started watching Outlander, and I like got really obsessed with the first season, and I'm a binge-watcher. If I like a show, I will just binge it.
But in the second season, I was having so much anxiety watching it, and it was because I won't give anything away. If you've seen it, you already know, but there's a lot more violence in the second season. And I just gave myself permission to fast forward through it. Like, I was like, why do I need to be anxious about this? And I also don't need to quit this show. Let me just fast forward. I'll stop when I think you know I need to to make sure I understand the plot, kind of continuation, and what happened.
But I did fast forward through a lot of it, and I was like, I don't need to put myself through this. And I felt so much relief and so proud of myself for doing that. So, I share all of this to say, whatever you're holding onto that you're not giving yourself permission to do or think, I want to encourage you to just give yourself that permission because it feels so freaking good. So, that's where I'm coming from this week.
Today we're going to talk about burnout recovery, and part of that is I'm so excited today is the day the burnout recovery course is finally public, finally live, free to you all. I am so thrilled because every time I think about what's in the course and people getting those resources and tools, I just feel like we're changing public health, changing the workforce, helping you all not feel so stressed and overwhelmed, and actually kick start, not just recovering from the burnout, but being able to get back to dreaming.
Dreaming about your career and what you want your life to look like and making that happen even if the pandemic is still going on. And I also presented actually this week as I'm recording a burnout recovery webinar to a Colorado School of Public Health's Alumni Group, which went so great. I mean the greatest turnout. They shared they didn't have a turnout like that in quite a while, so I thought it would be a perfect time to talk to you all about burnout recovery for public health staff.
Now, if you've got early access to the burnout recovery course, I gave early access to some people before it came out today. So, if you've got early access and you've already participated, you will still get something out of this episode because I'm going to be talking about some of the components that aren't talked about necessarily in the course. So, I encourage you to still listen. You'll still get something out of it.
If you didn't get that early access, no worries, I'll share at the end if you're interested in how to get that course and what you'll get in it. So, let's talk about burnout. I know I don't have to define or explain what burnout is to all of you. You've been experiencing it during the pandemic and probably well before the pandemic, and we're going to talk about one of the main factors contributing to your burnout and the process for recovering from that.
There are several types of burnout, right? There are several reasons we end up feeling burnt out from emotional burnout, being emotionally spent, to being tired of caring, right, or to feeling powerless, like nothing you do can or will make a difference. I think the one word we can all agree sums up the current burnout in public health many of us are feeling is exhaustion. I love this quote from the book called Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski; they say, "Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion."
When I read that, I like underlined it and put an exclamation point next to it, and circled that. That is so true, that's what's so exhausting being stuck in an emotion, and that emotion just replaying and replaying and defining our whole day and us just living in that emotion. Often we think of burnout as something happening to us, right? Like, it's being caused by my workload, or my boss, or the pandemic, and when we think that, that the cause of the burnout it's happening to us by something else, that adds another layer of overwhelm.
Because that means we can't get out of the burnout until those things change, which we have very limited or no control over. But when we recognize the main feeling of burnout, exhaustion. It's caused, not by things outside of you, and you know, not happening to you in that way is caused by being stuck in an emotion; then that is actually way less overwhelming because you can actually do something about it because emotions are in your control.
We'll talk more about that in a second, but I want you to think about what emotion have you been stuck in recently, the past couple of months, the past year, the whole pandemic? Really think about it, what is it? And I know we've all run the gambit of types of emotions we've felt, but like, what is the main one that you keep finding yourself feeling or saying is happening?
Are you constantly saying I'm so overwhelmed? Do you constantly feel in panic or worried? Are you frustrated all day long? I want you to think and just pick one that you feel has been the most prominent. Before the pandemic, when I was burning out working and before I found coaching, the motion I was stuck in was resentment. I resented every email I got.
I resented people asking me to do things that weren't a part of my job. I resented that I had more work on my plate than it seemed time allowed for. What is it for you? And let's talk about why you're stuck in that emotion which is the reason being stuck in that emotion is the reason that you're exhausted which is that experience of burnout you're having. And one of the reasons I guarantee you, no matter if the emotion you're stuck in is overwhelm or worry or panic or resentment or frustration, one of the reasons is because of your commitment to helping others.
I know that's probably not what you thought I was going to say, but it's true. People who decide to work in public health don't do it for the fame, don't do it for the pay. We do it because we love it. And the reason we love it is because we love helping people, but that is the exact reason why we're all so exhausted and burnt out because we don't know how to turn from helping other people to helping ourselves on a regular, consistent, sustainable basis.
Honestly, I think this, you know, self-care; I think the word has become a buzzword, so I don't love to use it, but I think us learning and practicing how to take care of yourself, how to get more rest, how to you know, some say to fill your cup, all of that is a core component of being successful in your career, of having you know, working in public health. I think it's a skill. I think it's something that should be, of course, promoted and sensitized but actually should be a part of our job.
It's not part of the curriculum when you get an MPH. It's not a formal part of your job; I think it should be. Because it directly contributes to how successful you are in your job, how well you do your job, how well public health does in serving our communities, but we don't know how, and we don't know how to practice it and sustain it and keep it going. And the reason we struggle so much with this beyond the fact that you know we don't focus on it at school or work, and all of that stuff is we have an underlying belief that helping other people, putting other people first makes us good.
And that focusing on yourself and prioritizing yourself makes you bad. And when I say that on the surface, you might say I don't think that at all. I don't believe that at all, but have you ever agreed to work an event even when you were sick because you thought it would make it harder for other people if you didn't show up? I know I've done that. Or have you ever not taken time off because it was a really busy time for your team at work?
Or have you ever volunteered to help with a project you didn't have to, wasn't part of your responsibility, because you felt bad for your colleagues who are overwhelmed? All of those actions seem noble on the surface, right? But underneath, they are all driven by an unconscious belief that helping others is good and helping yourself is bad, or at least should come after helping others.
We have it in our desire to help others, right? If you're in public health, there's a calling in you, a passion in you to help others, and that kind of base desire feels good. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but then what happens is we receive messages from the patriarchy from white supremacy from media from family that we are supposed to help others.
So, we have this desire, and then we hear constantly and get reinforced in this idea that we have to help others. We're supposed to. It's our responsibility. Especially if you're a woman or a child of an immigrant, or the oldest child in your family, or a number of other things, right? This can lead to feeling obligated, and obligation doesn't feel good, and we don't really recognize that.
Partly because we have this internal desire, so we kind of get confused on what's going on, but also because in our society, we are rewarded for putting others first with being recognized for putting others first. So, we're messaged to that we should, and we have to, and we're supposed to put other people first, and then when we do that, that is reinforced by being recognized for that.
Our parents telling us they couldn't do it without us, our colleagues saying how grateful they are, and then we receive messages in our jobs in public health that something bad will happen if we don't help others. Right? So, the organization will suffer, your colleagues will have to work overtime. And then when we think about the work we do, people will die, communities will suffer, they'll continue to be harmed, right?
This then leads to shame and guilt. You shame yourself if you want to or do take action to prioritize yourself. You feel guilty for wanting to put yourself first or setting boundaries to protect your mental health, and that doesn't feel good, but it's all cloaked in this good deed of service. Right?
The core-based part of you that has an inner desire to truly helped others has now become layered with obligation, shame, and guilt. So, whatever emotion you struggle with, you're stuck in resentment, overwhelm, anger, that is causing the exhaustion. And you can't find your way out of it because it's weighed down by this obligation, shame, and guilt.
It's being reinforced by the idea that you helping others is good, and better, and more important than you helping yourself. So, you don't rest. You don't set professional boundaries, or you do and don't keep them. You don't take lunch. You don't say no to more work. You put everyone else before you.
This is one of the main factors, main contributing things that gets us into professional burnout. So, there are two steps as I see it for undoing professional burnout and recovering from it. The first, get unstuck in your current emotion that you're stuck in. The second, learn to help yourself more than you help others.
So, let's talk about getting unstuck. Getting unstuck in the current emotion, you're stuck in that's creating exhausting that's creating burnout. I'm going to give you some high-level details about how to get unstuck today. This is something we have a whole video dedicated to. Actually, it's the first video in the burnout recovery course if you want to dive in and get more support there.
But the basic premise, your brain has been in survival mode during the pandemic. Responding to stress constantly, and when your brain and body responds to stress when it goes into the stress response cycle, it makes it very difficult to process your emotion unless you do it intentionally. You do it consciously, on purpose. Which most, if not all of you, have not been doing.
Because when it comes to survival, our brains will always choose to kick in and stay into the stress response first. Right? That stress response is programmed to save you. Save you from a lion if you see one in the jungle; keep you moving if you're lost and need to find your way home. So, if you do see a lion, your brain is going to keep you in that stress response cycle to keep you alive.
It's not going to give you time and space to process the anger you feel right now. So, you've been in your stress response cycle for nearly the whole pandemic. Right? You need to take charge and consciously and intentionally process your emotions, and in order to do that, you have to slow or complete your stress response cycle. At least long enough to process some emotions.
The goal isn't to get out of the stress response cycle and then never go into it again. That is unrealistic, right? Our brains are designed; our body is designed to have that response cycle. So, that's not the goal. The goal is to be aware you're in it, take action to slow it or complete it for the moment, so you have space in your mind and body to process your emotion, and then recognize, yeah, you'll have another stress response. That's totally normal.
And this isn't about leaving your stressful job first and then getting yourself a vacation. This is about reminding yourself and your brain you are safe, right? When we're in a stress response cycle, it's because our brain thinks we're not safe. Like, there's a threat. So, you have to actively remind your brain that you're safe; it's okay.
At this moment, you are safe. And so, what I want you to do is use your anchor thoughts. We talked about anchor thoughts before, but anchor thoughts are the thoughts that you repeat to yourself that anchor you down back to reality. Right? Our brain likes to be very dramatic. We have to anchor it back down to reality. Bring it back down to the foundation so we can feel grounded and centered.
So, tell your brain that at this moment, right now, maybe as you're walking your dog, sitting at your home desk, or cooking that there is no threat. You are okay. There's no line to run from. You are not lost. Whatever the other anchor thoughts that can help you, kind of be centered in the moment. This will help your brain to start to slow the response cycle in that moment and then give you space to cry, scream, dance, or whatever approach of processing your emotion you take.
This is a process, you don't do it once, and then you're done. You do it over and over and over and over again, and that's not a problem. That's a great thing. In the burnout recovery course, I go into much greater detail about the strategies to do it. But this is the basics, like, everything I've shared with you, you can totally take this and do it. You can do this right now and start getting unstuck and start processing whatever emotion you're stuck in, and get out of the exhaustion.
Once you do that, the next step is to learn to help yourself more than you help others. You can't learn this; you can't really implement this and believe this if you're stuck in an emotion, right, if you haven't processed your emotions. So, you have to do that first. But learning to help yourself more than you help others is about changing your unconscious underlying beliefs about putting others first.
Those thoughts in your head that prevent you from resting, prioritizing yourself, putting yourself first, and all of this, this all starts with radically undoing a core belief all of us in public health hold, which is helping others is good, is always good. I think probably everyone in public health, especially if you're listening to this podcast, believe this.
So, I'm going to ask you what if that's not true? What if sometimes helping others isn't good? Gasp, shock, how dare I ask? I know. But truly think about it. We're really challenging your underlying belief that helping others not only is good, the most important thing is not always good, right? Because that's why you keep choosing it. That's why you keep taking actions that deprioritize yourself is because of this belief.
So, we have to shake it up and challenge it. So many of us, so many of you, you deeply believe that it's always good to help others, to your detriment. But what if, just go there, just be curious with me for a second. There was a situation where you knew that if you helped one person like you knew for sure. You helped that one person that would actually hurt someone else; if you knew, you had that knowledge guaranteed I help this person, this other person would be hurt. They would be harmed, then what?
What would you do? I bet you would pause at least. I bet when I posed that question, you had a pause in your brain, thinking, huh? You probably think, okay, is it worth it to help this person or not? Right? And you would probably want to know more about how it's hurting someone else, but you would be invested, right, in not hurting that other person.
Now, what if I told you that other person it would hurt if you helped someone else was you. What would you think? Notice how quickly your brain wants to go into the belief that, oh, in that situation, you should help them; it doesn't matter if it's you. You can handle it. You'll be fine.
How quickly your brain gives up on you, and I know your brain frames it in a way where it sounds like your brain is believing in you like you're so strong you can handle it, and you have to save someone else. No. Your brain is giving up on you. You helping others and putting others first is hurting you.
So, if helping others is hurting another person even if that person is you or could be you and is helping others always the right choice? Always a good thing. If you knew helping your coworker would harm your mother, I bet you wouldn't do it. Or if you knew helping your neighbor would harm your significant other, your partner, I bet you wouldn't do it. So, why are you doing it to yourself?
Seriously y'all, I want you to think about this, and I know this is challenging so many of you and your brains, and that's good, that's what we want. Wrestle with it, think about it, marinate on it. That's what I want you to do this week. I want you to think about this this week. Not to shame yourself, but to get curious. Why are you so willing to hurt yourself? Why are you so willing to put yourself last, to deprioritize yourself?
Why don't you have your own back? Why aren't you fighting for yourself? And your brain is going to want to flip it and frame it on the other person, right? They need my help. They would benefit. It wants to focus on that other person. Don't do that; focus on yourself. Focus on why you're giving up on yourself, why you're deprioritizing yourself? Why you're not putting yourself first?
Why get curious? What's the answer? So, do that this week, and if you want to dive deeper into this, if you want to get more concrete strategies and a list of them and how to endure or complete your stress response cycle, you have to come check out the burnout recovery course that's live today. I'm so excited. So many of you got the early access and have been loving it.
In the course, you will learn the specific details and steps to get unstuck out of your exhaustion. You can absolutely take the basics and the foundation I gave you today and do it. For sure, but we have more details, more steps, more options, more creative things, in the course if you want to learn those. How to process your two years of pandemic stress and emotion in less time than your lunch break, right?
You can watch this video, it takes less time than your lunch break, and you get the tools and skills that you can then use to start processing two years of the pandemic stress. And not just the premise of why you need to process it, but how. And not just the overview of how but the specific ways to do it. Ways to process your stress that don't involve you quitting your job and dealing with the stress of a job search. No one wants to do that right now.
The course also takes it a step further and teaches you how to deal with two of the most common stressors that you're facing that probably contribute to you being stuck in whatever emotion you're stuck in, which is unhelpful bosses in leadership and a high workload. So, sign up for the course, and you'll learn exactly what to do about your boss, so they'll never create stress for you again.
Maybe my favorite part of the course is you'll learn how to cut your workload in half. You're going to learn the one tip that I guarantee you is keeping you from being able to reduce your workload. Nothing in this course was taught to you in your degree program. I can guarantee you that. And it absolutely is not being presented at conferences, although if I have it my way, maybe in the next couple of years, I will be the one doing it because it's needed everywhere.
And it's for sure not talked about at your staff meetings, right? Not being implemented as like learning policy, professional development, in your organization. It's going to give you everything you need to in this moment to feel like you can be in control of your workload. That you don't have to spend more time being overworked and unhappy that you can actually learn how to spend more time being less stressed and being fulfilled, and to learn how you can put strategies in place that will help you not think about work on nights and weekends that you're off.
So, the course, I know your time is precious y'all. That's why I so appreciate you being here with me every week. I love it. Course is delivered to you over three days to make it easy to consume and not overwhelming, and each mini-lesson is less than 30 minutes. I actually think it's around 20 minutes.
So, it takes very little time to watch. And even though it's short, I made sure it's packed with concrete, actionable tools to cut your stress in half and create more time for you. And it's completely free! It's available today, right now. Get off this podcast, go sign up. McKoolCoaching.com/courses. We'll also leave a link in the show notes. Okay, y'all? I love you all so so much; make sure to give yourself permission this week to let go of something or do something you've been holding back on. Bye, everyone.
Are you ready to make a change? Whether that's learning to love your job, making a career move, or anything in between, I can help. I'd be honored to coach you through figuring out what's next and navigating the steps to get there. So, head on over to mckoolcoaching.com/consult that's mckoolcoaching.com/consult to set up a time to chat and talk about how you can achieve the career of your dreams.
Hi everyone, hi folks, how are you? I'm so glad you're here joining me this week for this episode. Before we get into it, I just want to share if you are not on my email list; if you're not on my listserv, you've got to get on it. I give away so many coaching tips and resources to help you throughout the week. So, you can get more than just the podcast insights, which are fabulous, of course.
But around the New Year, I gave away free goal-setting sessions. I also gave away a free one for your friend that you could gift to a friend. I also give away other free resources, free coaching opportunities, free courses, and every week you get an email with a coaching insight, a coaching tip to help your week. So, honestly, if you're not on that listserv, you’re not on my email list, what are you doing? You've got to get on there. Get those great resources to help you with your week.
We'll leave a link in the show notes for you all. So, before we kind of talk about burnout recovery, I just want to share what's been going on with me a little bit. I have been thinking a lot this week about how to give myself permission to do what I need to do for myself, and it's just been really interesting recovering from COVID. And I shared a few weeks ago I had gotten COVID around New Year, and although I am not contagious anymore, don't have COVID, don't have symptoms, I certainly have been experiencing what I would call long, longer-term effects.
So, for me, it feels like, you know, sometimes it's still harder to breathe, and I have a dry cough and it kind of feels like there's something stuck in my throat sometimes. So, I haven't been able to work out, run, or do any cardio or hit workout or anything, and you know, I've just been giving myself permission that that's okay. That I can move my body in other ways, I can stretch and really enjoy the stretching. Not do it out of guilt, resentment, or obligation, but like, really enjoy and appreciate my body as it's stretching, and appreciate my body needs to heal, and that may be running, and cardio isn't what I can do right now, and that's okay.
And what's also been really fascinating is that it has also allowed me to drop this lingering thought I've been having about wanting or needing to lose some weight. I think many of us, myself included, have gained weight through the pandemic because, you know, I'm not working out as much, being more stationary, a lot of other things. And to be honest, it doesn't bother me.
I look in the mirror, and I don't even notice a difference. Like, I think I look exactly the same. The only way I notice is some of my clothes don't fit anymore, and some that used to be looser actually fit, so that's the only way I know. And I was noticing, I had this like lingering thought of like, I should work out more, I should lose the weight, and I didn't really believe that, but part of that is the social conditioning, right?
That women should look a certain way, and no matter your gender you should want to be like slim or want to, you know, have certain body parts look a certain way, and once, with COVID and my recovery and now this kind of long lingering symptoms that are limiting my exercise ability it's all dropped. It's just like, it allowed me to give myself permission to believe what I actually believe, which is that's not a priority for me right now.
I think I look great, and even if my doctor mentions something when I go for my physical which did happen, or I'm marketed to or like losing weight, losing the pandemic weight, I don't have to believe that, and my brain offered me some of those ridiculous thoughts, and that's okay. I also had another kind of experience with this this week as I've been watching Outlander.
Which I know I'm behind on. This always happens, like I don't watch a show that's super hyped up until way later. Like, I didn't watch Game of Thrones until the last season almost aired. This is just, and I don't know, it's the thing I have. So, I started watching Outlander, and I like got really obsessed with the first season, and I'm a binge-watcher. If I like a show, I will just binge it.
But in the second season, I was having so much anxiety watching it, and it was because I won't give anything away. If you've seen it, you already know, but there's a lot more violence in the second season. And I just gave myself permission to fast forward through it. Like, I was like, why do I need to be anxious about this? And I also don't need to quit this show. Let me just fast forward. I'll stop when I think you know I need to to make sure I understand the plot, kind of continuation, and what happened.
But I did fast forward through a lot of it, and I was like, I don't need to put myself through this. And I felt so much relief and so proud of myself for doing that. So, I share all of this to say, whatever you're holding onto that you're not giving yourself permission to do or think, I want to encourage you to just give yourself that permission because it feels so freaking good. So, that's where I'm coming from this week.
Today we're going to talk about burnout recovery, and part of that is I'm so excited today is the day the burnout recovery course is finally public, finally live, free to you all. I am so thrilled because every time I think about what's in the course and people getting those resources and tools, I just feel like we're changing public health, changing the workforce, helping you all not feel so stressed and overwhelmed, and actually kick start, not just recovering from the burnout, but being able to get back to dreaming.
Dreaming about your career and what you want your life to look like and making that happen even if the pandemic is still going on. And I also presented actually this week as I'm recording a burnout recovery webinar to a Colorado School of Public Health's Alumni Group, which went so great. I mean the greatest turnout. They shared they didn't have a turnout like that in quite a while, so I thought it would be a perfect time to talk to you all about burnout recovery for public health staff.
Now, if you've got early access to the burnout recovery course, I gave early access to some people before it came out today. So, if you've got early access and you've already participated, you will still get something out of this episode because I'm going to be talking about some of the components that aren't talked about necessarily in the course. So, I encourage you to still listen. You'll still get something out of it.
If you didn't get that early access, no worries, I'll share at the end if you're interested in how to get that course and what you'll get in it. So, let's talk about burnout. I know I don't have to define or explain what burnout is to all of you. You've been experiencing it during the pandemic and probably well before the pandemic, and we're going to talk about one of the main factors contributing to your burnout and the process for recovering from that.
There are several types of burnout, right? There are several reasons we end up feeling burnt out from emotional burnout, being emotionally spent, to being tired of caring, right, or to feeling powerless, like nothing you do can or will make a difference. I think the one word we can all agree sums up the current burnout in public health many of us are feeling is exhaustion. I love this quote from the book called Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski; they say, "Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion."
When I read that, I like underlined it and put an exclamation point next to it, and circled that. That is so true, that's what's so exhausting being stuck in an emotion, and that emotion just replaying and replaying and defining our whole day and us just living in that emotion. Often we think of burnout as something happening to us, right? Like, it's being caused by my workload, or my boss, or the pandemic, and when we think that, that the cause of the burnout it's happening to us by something else, that adds another layer of overwhelm.
Because that means we can't get out of the burnout until those things change, which we have very limited or no control over. But when we recognize the main feeling of burnout, exhaustion. It's caused, not by things outside of you, and you know, not happening to you in that way is caused by being stuck in an emotion; then that is actually way less overwhelming because you can actually do something about it because emotions are in your control.
We'll talk more about that in a second, but I want you to think about what emotion have you been stuck in recently, the past couple of months, the past year, the whole pandemic? Really think about it, what is it? And I know we've all run the gambit of types of emotions we've felt, but like, what is the main one that you keep finding yourself feeling or saying is happening?
Are you constantly saying I'm so overwhelmed? Do you constantly feel in panic or worried? Are you frustrated all day long? I want you to think and just pick one that you feel has been the most prominent. Before the pandemic, when I was burning out working and before I found coaching, the motion I was stuck in was resentment. I resented every email I got.
I resented people asking me to do things that weren't a part of my job. I resented that I had more work on my plate than it seemed time allowed for. What is it for you? And let's talk about why you're stuck in that emotion which is the reason being stuck in that emotion is the reason that you're exhausted which is that experience of burnout you're having. And one of the reasons I guarantee you, no matter if the emotion you're stuck in is overwhelm or worry or panic or resentment or frustration, one of the reasons is because of your commitment to helping others.
I know that's probably not what you thought I was going to say, but it's true. People who decide to work in public health don't do it for the fame, don't do it for the pay. We do it because we love it. And the reason we love it is because we love helping people, but that is the exact reason why we're all so exhausted and burnt out because we don't know how to turn from helping other people to helping ourselves on a regular, consistent, sustainable basis.
Honestly, I think this, you know, self-care; I think the word has become a buzzword, so I don't love to use it, but I think us learning and practicing how to take care of yourself, how to get more rest, how to you know, some say to fill your cup, all of that is a core component of being successful in your career, of having you know, working in public health. I think it's a skill. I think it's something that should be, of course, promoted and sensitized but actually should be a part of our job.
It's not part of the curriculum when you get an MPH. It's not a formal part of your job; I think it should be. Because it directly contributes to how successful you are in your job, how well you do your job, how well public health does in serving our communities, but we don't know how, and we don't know how to practice it and sustain it and keep it going. And the reason we struggle so much with this beyond the fact that you know we don't focus on it at school or work, and all of that stuff is we have an underlying belief that helping other people, putting other people first makes us good.
And that focusing on yourself and prioritizing yourself makes you bad. And when I say that on the surface, you might say I don't think that at all. I don't believe that at all, but have you ever agreed to work an event even when you were sick because you thought it would make it harder for other people if you didn't show up? I know I've done that. Or have you ever not taken time off because it was a really busy time for your team at work?
Or have you ever volunteered to help with a project you didn't have to, wasn't part of your responsibility, because you felt bad for your colleagues who are overwhelmed? All of those actions seem noble on the surface, right? But underneath, they are all driven by an unconscious belief that helping others is good and helping yourself is bad, or at least should come after helping others.
We have it in our desire to help others, right? If you're in public health, there's a calling in you, a passion in you to help others, and that kind of base desire feels good. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but then what happens is we receive messages from the patriarchy from white supremacy from media from family that we are supposed to help others.
So, we have this desire, and then we hear constantly and get reinforced in this idea that we have to help others. We're supposed to. It's our responsibility. Especially if you're a woman or a child of an immigrant, or the oldest child in your family, or a number of other things, right? This can lead to feeling obligated, and obligation doesn't feel good, and we don't really recognize that.
Partly because we have this internal desire, so we kind of get confused on what's going on, but also because in our society, we are rewarded for putting others first with being recognized for putting others first. So, we're messaged to that we should, and we have to, and we're supposed to put other people first, and then when we do that, that is reinforced by being recognized for that.
Our parents telling us they couldn't do it without us, our colleagues saying how grateful they are, and then we receive messages in our jobs in public health that something bad will happen if we don't help others. Right? So, the organization will suffer, your colleagues will have to work overtime. And then when we think about the work we do, people will die, communities will suffer, they'll continue to be harmed, right?
This then leads to shame and guilt. You shame yourself if you want to or do take action to prioritize yourself. You feel guilty for wanting to put yourself first or setting boundaries to protect your mental health, and that doesn't feel good, but it's all cloaked in this good deed of service. Right?
The core-based part of you that has an inner desire to truly helped others has now become layered with obligation, shame, and guilt. So, whatever emotion you struggle with, you're stuck in resentment, overwhelm, anger, that is causing the exhaustion. And you can't find your way out of it because it's weighed down by this obligation, shame, and guilt.
It's being reinforced by the idea that you helping others is good, and better, and more important than you helping yourself. So, you don't rest. You don't set professional boundaries, or you do and don't keep them. You don't take lunch. You don't say no to more work. You put everyone else before you.
This is one of the main factors, main contributing things that gets us into professional burnout. So, there are two steps as I see it for undoing professional burnout and recovering from it. The first, get unstuck in your current emotion that you're stuck in. The second, learn to help yourself more than you help others.
So, let's talk about getting unstuck. Getting unstuck in the current emotion, you're stuck in that's creating exhausting that's creating burnout. I'm going to give you some high-level details about how to get unstuck today. This is something we have a whole video dedicated to. Actually, it's the first video in the burnout recovery course if you want to dive in and get more support there.
But the basic premise, your brain has been in survival mode during the pandemic. Responding to stress constantly, and when your brain and body responds to stress when it goes into the stress response cycle, it makes it very difficult to process your emotion unless you do it intentionally. You do it consciously, on purpose. Which most, if not all of you, have not been doing.
Because when it comes to survival, our brains will always choose to kick in and stay into the stress response first. Right? That stress response is programmed to save you. Save you from a lion if you see one in the jungle; keep you moving if you're lost and need to find your way home. So, if you do see a lion, your brain is going to keep you in that stress response cycle to keep you alive.
It's not going to give you time and space to process the anger you feel right now. So, you've been in your stress response cycle for nearly the whole pandemic. Right? You need to take charge and consciously and intentionally process your emotions, and in order to do that, you have to slow or complete your stress response cycle. At least long enough to process some emotions.
The goal isn't to get out of the stress response cycle and then never go into it again. That is unrealistic, right? Our brains are designed; our body is designed to have that response cycle. So, that's not the goal. The goal is to be aware you're in it, take action to slow it or complete it for the moment, so you have space in your mind and body to process your emotion, and then recognize, yeah, you'll have another stress response. That's totally normal.
And this isn't about leaving your stressful job first and then getting yourself a vacation. This is about reminding yourself and your brain you are safe, right? When we're in a stress response cycle, it's because our brain thinks we're not safe. Like, there's a threat. So, you have to actively remind your brain that you're safe; it's okay.
At this moment, you are safe. And so, what I want you to do is use your anchor thoughts. We talked about anchor thoughts before, but anchor thoughts are the thoughts that you repeat to yourself that anchor you down back to reality. Right? Our brain likes to be very dramatic. We have to anchor it back down to reality. Bring it back down to the foundation so we can feel grounded and centered.
So, tell your brain that at this moment, right now, maybe as you're walking your dog, sitting at your home desk, or cooking that there is no threat. You are okay. There's no line to run from. You are not lost. Whatever the other anchor thoughts that can help you, kind of be centered in the moment. This will help your brain to start to slow the response cycle in that moment and then give you space to cry, scream, dance, or whatever approach of processing your emotion you take.
This is a process, you don't do it once, and then you're done. You do it over and over and over and over again, and that's not a problem. That's a great thing. In the burnout recovery course, I go into much greater detail about the strategies to do it. But this is the basics, like, everything I've shared with you, you can totally take this and do it. You can do this right now and start getting unstuck and start processing whatever emotion you're stuck in, and get out of the exhaustion.
Once you do that, the next step is to learn to help yourself more than you help others. You can't learn this; you can't really implement this and believe this if you're stuck in an emotion, right, if you haven't processed your emotions. So, you have to do that first. But learning to help yourself more than you help others is about changing your unconscious underlying beliefs about putting others first.
Those thoughts in your head that prevent you from resting, prioritizing yourself, putting yourself first, and all of this, this all starts with radically undoing a core belief all of us in public health hold, which is helping others is good, is always good. I think probably everyone in public health, especially if you're listening to this podcast, believe this.
So, I'm going to ask you what if that's not true? What if sometimes helping others isn't good? Gasp, shock, how dare I ask? I know. But truly think about it. We're really challenging your underlying belief that helping others not only is good, the most important thing is not always good, right? Because that's why you keep choosing it. That's why you keep taking actions that deprioritize yourself is because of this belief.
So, we have to shake it up and challenge it. So many of us, so many of you, you deeply believe that it's always good to help others, to your detriment. But what if, just go there, just be curious with me for a second. There was a situation where you knew that if you helped one person like you knew for sure. You helped that one person that would actually hurt someone else; if you knew, you had that knowledge guaranteed I help this person, this other person would be hurt. They would be harmed, then what?
What would you do? I bet you would pause at least. I bet when I posed that question, you had a pause in your brain, thinking, huh? You probably think, okay, is it worth it to help this person or not? Right? And you would probably want to know more about how it's hurting someone else, but you would be invested, right, in not hurting that other person.
Now, what if I told you that other person it would hurt if you helped someone else was you. What would you think? Notice how quickly your brain wants to go into the belief that, oh, in that situation, you should help them; it doesn't matter if it's you. You can handle it. You'll be fine.
How quickly your brain gives up on you, and I know your brain frames it in a way where it sounds like your brain is believing in you like you're so strong you can handle it, and you have to save someone else. No. Your brain is giving up on you. You helping others and putting others first is hurting you.
So, if helping others is hurting another person even if that person is you or could be you and is helping others always the right choice? Always a good thing. If you knew helping your coworker would harm your mother, I bet you wouldn't do it. Or if you knew helping your neighbor would harm your significant other, your partner, I bet you wouldn't do it. So, why are you doing it to yourself?
Seriously y'all, I want you to think about this, and I know this is challenging so many of you and your brains, and that's good, that's what we want. Wrestle with it, think about it, marinate on it. That's what I want you to do this week. I want you to think about this this week. Not to shame yourself, but to get curious. Why are you so willing to hurt yourself? Why are you so willing to put yourself last, to deprioritize yourself?
Why don't you have your own back? Why aren't you fighting for yourself? And your brain is going to want to flip it and frame it on the other person, right? They need my help. They would benefit. It wants to focus on that other person. Don't do that; focus on yourself. Focus on why you're giving up on yourself, why you're deprioritizing yourself? Why you're not putting yourself first?
Why get curious? What's the answer? So, do that this week, and if you want to dive deeper into this, if you want to get more concrete strategies and a list of them and how to endure or complete your stress response cycle, you have to come check out the burnout recovery course that's live today. I'm so excited. So many of you got the early access and have been loving it.
In the course, you will learn the specific details and steps to get unstuck out of your exhaustion. You can absolutely take the basics and the foundation I gave you today and do it. For sure, but we have more details, more steps, more options, more creative things, in the course if you want to learn those. How to process your two years of pandemic stress and emotion in less time than your lunch break, right?
You can watch this video, it takes less time than your lunch break, and you get the tools and skills that you can then use to start processing two years of the pandemic stress. And not just the premise of why you need to process it, but how. And not just the overview of how but the specific ways to do it. Ways to process your stress that don't involve you quitting your job and dealing with the stress of a job search. No one wants to do that right now.
The course also takes it a step further and teaches you how to deal with two of the most common stressors that you're facing that probably contribute to you being stuck in whatever emotion you're stuck in, which is unhelpful bosses in leadership and a high workload. So, sign up for the course, and you'll learn exactly what to do about your boss, so they'll never create stress for you again.
Maybe my favorite part of the course is you'll learn how to cut your workload in half. You're going to learn the one tip that I guarantee you is keeping you from being able to reduce your workload. Nothing in this course was taught to you in your degree program. I can guarantee you that. And it absolutely is not being presented at conferences, although if I have it my way, maybe in the next couple of years, I will be the one doing it because it's needed everywhere.
And it's for sure not talked about at your staff meetings, right? Not being implemented as like learning policy, professional development, in your organization. It's going to give you everything you need to in this moment to feel like you can be in control of your workload. That you don't have to spend more time being overworked and unhappy that you can actually learn how to spend more time being less stressed and being fulfilled, and to learn how you can put strategies in place that will help you not think about work on nights and weekends that you're off.
So, the course, I know your time is precious y'all. That's why I so appreciate you being here with me every week. I love it. Course is delivered to you over three days to make it easy to consume and not overwhelming, and each mini-lesson is less than 30 minutes. I actually think it's around 20 minutes.
So, it takes very little time to watch. And even though it's short, I made sure it's packed with concrete, actionable tools to cut your stress in half and create more time for you. And it's completely free! It's available today, right now. Get off this podcast, go sign up. McKoolCoaching.com/courses. We'll also leave a link in the show notes. Okay, y'all? I love you all so so much; make sure to give yourself permission this week to let go of something or do something you've been holding back on. Bye, everyone.
Are you ready to make a change? Whether that's learning to love your job, making a career move, or anything in between, I can help. I'd be honored to coach you through figuring out what's next and navigating the steps to get there. So, head on over to mckoolcoaching.com/consult that's mckoolcoaching.com/consult to set up a time to chat and talk about how you can achieve the career of your dreams.
Enjoy the Show?
Don't miss an episode, follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.
