127. My Public Health Burnout Story
How do you know if you’re experiencing burnout? Would you recognize the signs that you were burning out? Burnout looks different for everyone. For me, it looked like exhaustion. This week I share how I dealt with burnout while working in public health.
When reflecting, I noticed that my burnout was not linked to one specific experience or event, it was a combination of systemic stressors within the public health sphere, working the job of 3 people, dealing with unexpected personal problems, and (surprise) ME!
Learn how I finally dealt with burnout, and 6 methods of empowerment to confront your feelings of overwhelm. Discover how to create a life that is supported by your boundaries and values, how to be efficient in the workplace, and how to achieve your dreams without burnout.
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What You Will Discover:
Why we should celebrate our local libraries.
How to recover from and prevent burnout.
The definition of burnout and why it is so important to recognize.
Why you should apply for jobs even if you don’t fit the job requirements.
6 ways to confront your burnout.
How to be an efficient leader.
Resources:
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Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski
The Public Health Millennial Episode 77: Helping MPH Grads Figure Out What’s Next Through Mindset Coaching w/ Marissa McKool, MPH
Ep 45. Work Boundaries in Public Health
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hello, everyone, welcome. How are you doing? What are you doing? Are you walking your dog? Are you listening to this while you fold your laundry? For me when I listen to podcasts it’s usually when I’m walking my dog, sometimes when I’m driving but usually walking my dog. I’m recording this towards the end of my work day.
This morning I actually went and worked at the public library near me. I really encourage you to do that if you work remote. First of all, it’s free, which is great, and it gets you out of the house. It is quiet and you’re supporting a community resource basically. And honestly, when you think about the capitalistic nature of, especially in the US, everything, it is so amazing, our public libraries and the public library system and the access. You get to go there and work for free however long you want. You get to take books out for free. They have kids programs for free.
And I know my public library has, I haven’t used it yet, but I’m hoping to, basically free tickets you can get for things like the botanical gardens and the zoo and things to do basically, which is amazing. So if you work from home full or part-time and you’re trying to get out of the house, you want a change of scenery, you’ve gone to coffee shops. And that’s great, I do that too, but make sure you don’t forget about your local library, a great place to go work.
Yesterday I did a webinar with the CDC Fellows Professional Development Collective on imposter syndrome. If you were there, if you are a fellow listening, I’m so glad you were there. And if you’re a new listener to this podcast because you met me at that webinar, welcome. If you’re a fellow at the CDC and you’re like, “Wait, I’ve never heard of this group”, make sure you go join the Fellows Professional Development Collective. They do amazing work, helping you get resources to professional development.
And yes, I might be biased because I was one of the five people who created that group, but that was what, seven or eight years ago. So it’s amazing it’s still going, and it’s evolved so much. They do much, much more than we did when we first started it. But that leads me to today’s episode because I’m going to be sharing about my public health burnout story. I get asked this a lot when I’m a guest on other people’s podcasts. I figured it’s about time to share kind of more of the in depth details with all of you. I’ve shared bits and pieces on this podcast.
And I have a really old episode where I talk about my story, but that’s when I was editing my own podcast. And I’m almost positive it’s super rambly and kind of off the point, so I wanted to re-record and do a fresh take. And also make sure I give you all some takeaways for how to recover from burnout or prevent burnout. And I want to say, as you probably know, because you’ve clicked on this episode, this might be a little longer than normal.
It is so hard to trim down your career story, or in this case, my burnout story that happened over the course of many years, just down to a 30 minute episode. So I did the best I could. Feel free to listen on one and a half or double speed if you need to. I do that all the time with my podcasts.
First, I want us to define burnout. I get asked this also a lot by folks, how do you define burnout? How do you know if you’re burnt out? And the truth is there is not one clear measure. There’s not one scale that catches burnout in everyone. There’s not one clear definition. Everyone’s experience of burnout is different.
I personally like thinking about it the way that Emily and Amelia Nagoski, who are the authors of the book Burnout, talk about it. They talk about it as being stuck in exhaustion, you can’t get out. And I like to think of it as being stuck in an emotion. Exhaustion is one emotion. For me, I was stuck in resentment. And being stuck in resentment of course created exhaustion. For you, yours might have been anger or shame or guilt or something else.
And burnout for many of us manifests in different ways as far as physical symptoms or the physical experience of it. But really, everyone who’s experienced burnout does have one thing in common and that’s being stuck in an emotional experience. Living in that emotional experience on repeat every day, being unable to ebb and flow in and out of it and let in other emotions.
So a brief professional background before I get into where burnout started to develop and what happened. As probably many of you growing up, I knew I liked helping people and I wanted to help people. The first thought was be a doctor. That’s what, at least when I was growing up, when you thought of helping someone, that’s what came up. And I remember distinctly really wanting to have this dream. I’ll go work with Doctors Without Borders and treat victims of sexual violence.
And then in high school, I went to medical camp, it was a one week camp at UC Berkeley. And I left actually deciding I wasn’t going to be a doctor, not because it didn’t interest me. Because I didn’t believe I was smart enough, which obviously was not true. And also indicates that this medical camp was not very good at inspiring students to go into medicine, at least not an Arab American girl like me with working class parents who didn’t even have a college degree.
The next best thing, I thought, I’ll be a nurse. I’m not saying that to diminish the importance of nursing as a profession. I know that happens a lot between thinking about the field of being a doctor and a nurse. That’s not my intent at all. But I’m sure that my thinking was influenced by that messaging we got, and I was in high school. So then I went on to the University of Arizona.
My plan was to get a nursing degree. And the way it was structured there at the time is you do your freshman sophomore year, then you apply to the nursing program that you complete your junior senior year. I applied to the program twice and I got rejected both times. And that’s a whole story for another day. And I learned so much from that experience. But I ended up taking a leave of absence because I felt really kind of lost.
And I did some HIV AIDS prevention work in Tanzania, which, sidenote, was problematic for the whole white saviorism involved. And I talked about that in a lot more detail when I was on The Public Health Careers Podcast. I think at the time it was called The Public Health Millennial Podcast with Omari Richins. So I will put a link in the show notes if you’re curious and you want to go hear my perspective on that because I do think that’s important. But this episode’s already way long enough.
And while I was there doing that work, I discovered this thing called public health and I realized, this is what I want to do. I want to help communities of people. I want to prevent health outcomes. And it was just such a light bulb moment. It wasn’t like, well, since I couldn’t do medicine or nursing, I guess I’ll do public health. No. It was like, this is what I’ve been seeking this whole time. No wonder those other things didn’t work out.
So then I switched my major to public health. Once I graduated, I worked in social work for a year. I worked with children and adolescents with a variety of mental and behavioral health diagnoses in a lot of capacities and I loved that role. Part of the reason I did that was actually because public health, as many of you know, doesn’t have a lot of jobs that don’t require a master’s, which is stupid. I write about this on LinkedIn all the time, but I will spare you my rant.
But anyways, I learned so much from that year working in social work, working with children and families and psychiatrists and therapists and behavioral therapists and so many other things. Then I went to Emory to get my master’s in public health. I basically had to carve out my own major. I knew I wanted to do sexual violence prevention. That had always been a topic I was passionate about. I think some things are changing, but still probably not enough. There aren’t a lot of schools with programs really dedicated to violence prevention and understanding that is a public health issue.
So I kind of had to carve out my own path. So while I was at Emory, basically any class project I could turn into a project about sexual violence prevention, I did. And my thesis, I did it in that topic. And I found a faculty advisor who had done work there. So I did as much as I could. And the pieces I couldn’t, I really focused on sexual and reproductive health. I did some evaluation on abortion services and a couple of other things. So that’s kind of always been my areas, reproductive health, sexual violence prevention.
When I graduated I did an ORISE fellowship at the CDC in the division of violence prevention, doing sexual violence prevention evaluation. You all, this was my dream job. And as a little sidenote, when I saw this job advertised, I think I saw it in December the year I was going to graduate. So one, was way earlier than the timeline I had, two, it said it required a doctorate degree. I applied anyways, I was like, “This is my dream job. This is what I want to do. I’m going to apply.” What’s the worst thing? They could say no.
I ended up getting a job interview and this is why I tell so many people, do not hold yourself back from applying for a job that you don’t meet some of the qualifications, even something like a degree qualification. Now, I recognize, especially now, this was back in 2015, so a lot has changed. I know a lot of jobs and HR departments run resumés through software such as Filter Outward, so I get that piece.
But I ended up getting an interview and in the question portion, and they say, “What questions do you have?” I asked, “Well, what is it about having a doctorate degree that would make me more qualified or able to do this job? What am I missing in my skill set from my master’s that you think a doctorate would provide?” And that stumped them. They could not answer that question. They could not articulate it.
And this is why it’s so important to apply to jobs even if you don’t fit all the qualifications, because you have to remember, the person writing the job description is honestly just trying to fill up space for part of it. And I ended up getting that job, that fellowship and they were willing to push it back till I graduated. And honestly, I thought I would be a lifer at CBC. I wanted an FTE. I wanted a full-time position. I wanted to work there my whole career.
And of course it had problems just like it does now, it probably always has and always will just like any organization. But I loved my team. I loved my boss. I loved the division. I loved the work I was doing, but outside of that I was wracked with insecurity and imposter syndrome. Everyone in my friend and family group, especially being the first person in my family to get a graduate degree and to kind of have a ‘traditional’, what America sells as a traditional career, thought I had it together, but I constantly doubted myself.
So there was this balance between I doubted myself, I was insecure, but I also had big dreams and I was making it happen. That’s such an odd place to be. And I know many of you are there right now. And then my mom got sick, totally unexpectedly in the middle of the night I get a phone call. She’s going into emergency surgery, basically we hope to save her life. We don’t know. So I caught the first flight home, this was across the country. She ended up being in the ICU for weeks, had three surgeries within one week. I think if I’m remembering correctly, again, this was 2017 at this point.
And she was in the hospital for about two months. And I ended up moving home to take care of her during this time period and her recovery, which was three or four months. My personal life and work was starting to collide like never before. And this was all before I was 30. I was dealing with insurance and advocating at the hospital and scheduling appointments and administering meds when she was in recovery at home and helping her adjust.
And on the other hand, I was working full-time, finishing my projects, working East Coast hours, living on the West Coast. And if I’m being honest, I was so thankful for the distraction of work. It allowed me to not get stuck in the overwhelm of what was happening with my mom and to direct my energy elsewhere for some time. I was so thankful to continue to be able to work and make money and I could do it remotely so I could be present with my mom and her health when needed.
And actually I think that was some of the best quality of work. It didn’t distract me. I would have been more distracted if my employer forced me to stay in the office and then be trying to coordinate care from across the country. So after she recovered, I ended up getting a job at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. And the next year, for sure, maybe two, but definitely that first year at the School of Public Health, I was burning out. I did not know it.
Looking back, I can see it very, very clearly. Of course, it kind of started with my mom getting sick and me moving home and all of that. But even when I think back before that, when I was a fellow at the CDC, even though I loved lots of it, there were things I didn’t love. Every job has challenges.
And I remember one of my friends who is still at Emory in her last year asked me to write, I think it was for the student newspaper or something, a perspective from a recent grad. And I wrote it, and I sent it to her, and she called me, she’s like, “We cannot print this.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” She’s like, “This is so negative. We want students to feel inspired about what’s going to happen after graduation and what you wrote is so depressing.”
And that’s because I was really struggling with, okay, even though I love my job and I have big goals. There were all these challenges in public health, my grad program, and I don’t think any grad program prepares you for it at all. The lack of funding, the high turnover, the hierarchy, the power imbalances, the overworking, the hustle culture, so many other things. So even though that first year at UC Berkeley, I was really hitting burnout. I think the seeds were planted and watered far before then.
And for some of you, the stress you’re feeling now, the burnout you’re feeling might not even realize it’s burnout, those seeds have been planted a long time ago and they’ve been growing. And when I was at UC Berkeley, I was working the job of what literally at one point was three different people but with budget cuts and turnover, that obviously changed. I was coming in at a time where the existing staff who had been there for a while were carrying some trauma from the past decisions and actions and changes of previous leadership.
There was what I could see, little to no proactive action taken by the school or university or leadership to help the staff heal and move on. It was sweep, sweep under the rug, let’s pretend that didn’t happen. I had more work than time available and so did everyone else around me. There were leaders there at the time, they aren’t there anymore, who I felt were so unsupportive and a little out of touch. There was a lot of lip service given. The hierarchy problems, the power dynamic issues were rampant.
Many of these challenges you are facing too, they exist across our field. And just like me, you have personal challenges you are navigating at the same time, whether you’re going through a divorce or you’re a single parent or you’re trying to pay off your student loans or you have your own chronic health issues or a million other things. For me, I was still carrying the trauma of my mom’s health scare and taking care of her and dealing with that before I was even 30 years old. I had guilt from that experience I wasn’t able to shake.
I was in a new city where I didn’t know anyone trying to buy a house in the Bay Area, which was freaking insane. I was exhausted and I resented my job. I resented the leadership and their decisions. I resented every time someone asked me for help or to do more. I resented the emails I got. I was not a happy person. I was pretty miserable. I was so unaware of how unhappy I was.
I remember once I was at the house I was renting at the time, and I got a notification on a Sunday about an email. I started to cry. I was so overwhelmed. I was so angry. I was so upset. I was thinking, how dare they email me, it’s a Sunday. How dare they invade my personal time. Don’t they know how much I have on my plate? I was just at the end. I was at the end of my capacity. I also had so many other emotions. I’ve struggled with chronic anxiety my whole life. I’ve told many of you that. At this point this was before I found coaching, so it was really bad.
I felt like a failure when it came to dating. I was totally in the belief that if I didn’t have a partner it meant something was wrong with me. I just felt so stuck, and I tried so many things. I’m smart as hell and so are you, resourceful and so are you. And I tried the organizational system tools, the Asana, and the calendaring, I advocated like hell at my organization. I worked out regularly. I ate healthy.
I tried everything those 10 steps to burnout recovery articles tell you, and none of that worked long term. I even went to therapy. And that did help me. It helped me process the trauma of my mom’s illness, but it didn’t eliminate my burnout. It didn’t help me prevent future burnout or give me tools for that. Then I found coaching and here are some things I learned and changed through coaching that finally eliminated my burnout, reduced my stress, and made my life so much better. And I’ve talked about some of this on the podcast before.
Number one, I am part of the problem. I know that’s a really hard pill to swallow. Yes, there are structural and systemic issues. There are people in leadership positions who are terrible managers. There’s a lack of staffing. There’s a lack of government funding investment. There’s so many other external problems. We’re not denying that. But my burnout wasn’t solely caused by those external things. I was contributing to it.
I was creating it by not saying no, by not setting or holding boundaries, by not offloading work, by not being efficient and effective, by not knowing how to process emotions so I don’t get stuck in that resentment. By focusing way more on what I didn’t have control over than what I did, and so many other things. Again, I’m going to go through some high level pieces of this. But the first realization was I was creating my burnout. I was part of the problem. I was making it so much harder for myself to navigate the challenges of the field.
And if I wanted something to change I had to change because waiting around for something external, my boss, the job, all of that to change was not working and it’s not working for you either.
Number two. There’s nothing I ‘have to do’. I was always so upset about how much I had to do, focused on how much was on my plate, how much was on my to-do list, how many emails I had, what people were asking me to do. The truth was, and still is, I don’t have to do anything. Everything you do is a choice. And believing that I had to, I avoided taking responsibility, that I was part of the problem, and I was creating my own burnout. And once I started shifting to see, no, this is all a choice. This is all a choice.
I had to take responsibility for the choices I was making, every choice. And when you do that you get to feel more empowered and in control, you get to make more intentional choices, you get to stop making choices that aren’t serving you.
Number three. Boundaries are for me and no one else. Oh, boy, you all, this was a big one. Most people talk about boundaries as if it’s a fence you build and then no one can come over it. So if you say, “Don’t email me on vacation”, and then someone sends you an email, you get pissed and you’re like, “They crossed my boundaries. They don’t respect my boundary. It’s their fault I’m not resting or enjoying my vacation.” No. Cut that shit out. A boundary is for you, no one else.
Other people are still going to do whatever the hell they want to. They have free will, they’re adults, you cannot control them. A boundary is for you. If you set a boundary of not checking emails on vacation, they can email you all you want. It’s on you to not check your emails or not reply to them, not for someone else to stop emailing you. Now, I have a full episode on boundaries, so if you struggle with this or you’re hearing me talk about this, you’re like, “This lady doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
We’ll link it in the show notes. It’s episode 45, it’s on work boundaries. I explain it in much greater detail. Give you examples too.
Number four. I can’t change a lot of things around me, but I can change how I react to those things. You can’t force your boss to be nicer. You can’t force your colleague who comes in every 10 minutes to ask you a question to stop doing that. You can’t force all staff meetings that are terribly unproductive to change. You can’t force policymakers to add $100 million more to the budget. Sure, you could contribute to some of those changes, but you don’t have direct control. But you can change how you react to those external things.
How you react to what people say or don’t say, how you react to what happens by what you choose to think about the situation, what you choose to focus on, which changes how you feel, and that changes what actions you choose to take.
Number five. What other people think of me is none of my business. This was a very, very hard lesson. It’s something I’m constantly working on. You, just like me, have probably been socialized to believe you cause other people’s feelings. So you try to show up a certain way or do certain things or say certain things, so they don’t get upset so they like you, but you don’t cause other people’s feelings, their thoughts do. Their thoughts have nothing to do with you.
When you are a people pleaser, when you have been told you cause other people’s feelings, it’s your job to make them happy, you end up doing things that do not serve you, just to hope someone else will be happy with you. You waste your time and your energy and your effort on things that you don’t have time or capacity for or don’t even want to do. Once you let this go, you get to reclaim your time and your choices and your decisions and what you want and a lot of mental peace.
Number six, this is the last one then we’re going to wrap up. My emotional experience is created by what I think, not what other people say or do or what’s happening outside of me. Now, listen, I wrestled with this for some time. I was super challenged by this, and you might be too. But just like you don’t cause someone else’s feelings, they don’t cause yours. Your boss does not make you angry, the thoughts you think about your boss does. Your job does not make you dread it, the thoughts you think about your job does.
And listen, I was pissed when I learned this. I was like, “So wait, you mean that they’re not the problem, it’s my fault I’m upset?” And I was so mad, but that is the truth, it sucks to hear. But it’s also a good thing, because if it was your boss or your partner or your job that was creating your experience, your emotional experience, how you were feeling, the emotions you were feeling. You’d have to wait for those things to change, to feel better. You’d have to wait for your boss to magically become a better person or quit.
You’d have to wait for your partner to suddenly change. You might be waiting forever, but you don’t have to because you’re in control of what you think. You get to change your thoughts, so you feel better. Now, listen, this does not mean you have to condone what others do.
For me, here’s a good example. There is a leader at my organization who I resented so much. I just fumed. I could feel the anger in my body coming up any time they started to speak. And I thought they were the problem. And I did a lot of work to see, no, it was my thoughts about them that created the anger and the resentment, not them. Once I did that work, it wasn’t like, oh my God, they’re the best person ever, they’re a great leader. No, I still decided to believe they’re not a good fit for the job. They’re not the best manager. They’re not skilled.
I still had those thoughts. The difference was I wasn’t stuck believing they were ruining my life. I wasn’t stuck in anger and resentment. I was able to feel confident and empowered at my job, reduce the time I interacted with them, and reduced how much mental energy I drained complaining and thinking about them. I stopped wasting my energy and time trying to get them to understand my point of view or other people when that wasn’t working. It served me so much better.
It didn’t mean I had to think they were great. All it meant was I had to stop believing that they had to change for me to feel better. So as a result of learning these things, I was less distracted at work. I was able to stay more focused, and on task. I got more work done. I had more time without quitting. I didn’t leave my job. Nothing changed in my job. We didn’t hire new staff, nothing. I turned off my email notifications. I only checked emails a couple of times a day. I said no to a lot more work. I offloaded. I delegated. I set boundaries.
Here is what kind of took off when I eliminated my burnout and I had the tools to make sure it didn’t come back, to make sure if I was starting to feel stressed out, I countered it. And those are all the tools I share with you here on the podcast, all the tools you get when you become one of my clients and you work on deeply. But when I was in that first position at UC Berkeley, I was an assistant director. I stopped working late and I stopped working through my lunch. I took my lunch almost every single day. I left on time, which was before everyone else.
I was still working the job of what was three people at one point, and I was able to get it done in 40 hours or less without new staff being added, without more funding. Nothing changed like that. As a result, I became more efficient and more effective. I had more leadership opportunities. I took more responsibilities and ultimately, a couple of years later, I had an executive director position essentially written, tailored to me, and I got a $10,000 raise.
And from there I was able to start my business on the side while working full-time and then eventually leave to do my business full-time. Burnout is a dream stealer. All of you listening, you’re big dreamers, you have big goals. Right now your stress and burnout is muting them. And when you eliminate the burnout, they come to the surface and not just for you to shoot down like you might be doing now, for you to embrace and step into.
On the personal side I did so much more work on myself through this burnout journey. I was happier. I was more confident. I was more fulfilled. I started taking Arabic classes. I started working out more. I started dating more, that’s when I met Jared. I stopped giving so much of my energy and time to all my friends and family because I was such a people pleaser and I wanted to help everyone, and I put myself last. I stopped doing that.
I stopped being friends with people that weren’t people I wanted to be friends with, I just did it out of guilt. I started saying no to things I didn’t want to go to like after work happy hours, that I truly didn’t want to go to. And when I truly wanted to go, I went. I took a three week international vacation. I made that happen in a job where most people were losing their PTO because they hadn’t taken a vacation in so long.
I cannot emphasize how eliminating your burnout, how transformational and powerful it is. Not just feeling better in your job, but what it opens up for your whole career when you get unstuck, when you can believe in yourself, when you stop wasting your time and energy on things you can’t control and how it bleeds over into your personal life.
So whatever it is you’re struggling with now and you feel like you’re missing out on, whether it’s finding a partner or being present with your kids while they grow or traveling more. Or starting that secret side business you want to start or applying for that position you really want or moving to that city that you’ve always dreamed of living in. Or ending a relationship with a family member you don’t really want to engage in or anything else. That all becomes available to you when you end your burnout.
You have the confidence to make those things happen. You have the energy, you have the time, and you have the tools. And I know this is possible for every single one of you listening right now. So what is it that you want to be different? What is it you want to achieve? That’s possible for you, it just requires you to do the work to end your burnout.
So yes, public health systems and structures and policies need to change, but that takes a long time. Do you want to wait years to feel better and get out of burnout? No, you’ve already been doing that, and it sucks. You have the ability to reduce your stress and feel better on your own without your job changing. Alright, that was long enough, and that was as condensed as I could get it.
To wrap up, if you resonated with anything I shared in my burnout story, if you’re experiencing burnout or stress or overwhelm, I want you to schedule a consult with me. It’s completely free. You share what you’re struggling with, your challenges, what you want to be different. And I’ll share with you what changes you can make to make that happen. Head to mckoolcoaching.com/coaching to learn more and sign up. We’ll leave a link in the show notes.
And as I wrap up I want to share our podcast review. As you know, I’ve been doing this at the end of every episode the past couple of weeks just to say thank you for those of you who have taken time out to review, it means so much. And I want to just thank you for your time doing it and your thoughtfulness by reading them on the podcast.
So this one’s from Meow Cat 99. It’s titled ‘exactly what I needed’. And they say, “Sometimes I don’t rest enough. This podcast has taught me that rest is important and 100% always needed. Even a small social media break is great for your mind and charity. Give Marissa a listen when you need rest.” Thank you so much to that listener for taking time out to write that really thoughtful review. And if you have time to rate and review the podcast, it would mean so much to us.
Without further ado, I’ll let you all go. This was a long episode. I appreciate you tuning in and listening to my public health burnout story. I hope it helped you. I hope it resonated. And I will talk to you next week. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hello, everyone, welcome. How are you doing? What are you doing? Are you walking your dog? Are you listening to this while you fold your laundry? For me when I listen to podcasts it’s usually when I’m walking my dog, sometimes when I’m driving but usually walking my dog. I’m recording this towards the end of my work day.
This morning I actually went and worked at the public library near me. I really encourage you to do that if you work remote. First of all, it’s free, which is great, and it gets you out of the house. It is quiet and you’re supporting a community resource basically. And honestly, when you think about the capitalistic nature of, especially in the US, everything, it is so amazing, our public libraries and the public library system and the access. You get to go there and work for free however long you want. You get to take books out for free. They have kids programs for free.
And I know my public library has, I haven’t used it yet, but I’m hoping to, basically free tickets you can get for things like the botanical gardens and the zoo and things to do basically, which is amazing. So if you work from home full or part-time and you’re trying to get out of the house, you want a change of scenery, you’ve gone to coffee shops. And that’s great, I do that too, but make sure you don’t forget about your local library, a great place to go work.
Yesterday I did a webinar with the CDC Fellows Professional Development Collective on imposter syndrome. If you were there, if you are a fellow listening, I’m so glad you were there. And if you’re a new listener to this podcast because you met me at that webinar, welcome. If you’re a fellow at the CDC and you’re like, “Wait, I’ve never heard of this group”, make sure you go join the Fellows Professional Development Collective. They do amazing work, helping you get resources to professional development.
And yes, I might be biased because I was one of the five people who created that group, but that was what, seven or eight years ago. So it’s amazing it’s still going, and it’s evolved so much. They do much, much more than we did when we first started it. But that leads me to today’s episode because I’m going to be sharing about my public health burnout story. I get asked this a lot when I’m a guest on other people’s podcasts. I figured it’s about time to share kind of more of the in depth details with all of you. I’ve shared bits and pieces on this podcast.
And I have a really old episode where I talk about my story, but that’s when I was editing my own podcast. And I’m almost positive it’s super rambly and kind of off the point, so I wanted to re-record and do a fresh take. And also make sure I give you all some takeaways for how to recover from burnout or prevent burnout. And I want to say, as you probably know, because you’ve clicked on this episode, this might be a little longer than normal.
It is so hard to trim down your career story, or in this case, my burnout story that happened over the course of many years, just down to a 30 minute episode. So I did the best I could. Feel free to listen on one and a half or double speed if you need to. I do that all the time with my podcasts.
First, I want us to define burnout. I get asked this also a lot by folks, how do you define burnout? How do you know if you’re burnt out? And the truth is there is not one clear measure. There’s not one scale that catches burnout in everyone. There’s not one clear definition. Everyone’s experience of burnout is different.
I personally like thinking about it the way that Emily and Amelia Nagoski, who are the authors of the book Burnout, talk about it. They talk about it as being stuck in exhaustion, you can’t get out. And I like to think of it as being stuck in an emotion. Exhaustion is one emotion. For me, I was stuck in resentment. And being stuck in resentment of course created exhaustion. For you, yours might have been anger or shame or guilt or something else.
And burnout for many of us manifests in different ways as far as physical symptoms or the physical experience of it. But really, everyone who’s experienced burnout does have one thing in common and that’s being stuck in an emotional experience. Living in that emotional experience on repeat every day, being unable to ebb and flow in and out of it and let in other emotions.
So a brief professional background before I get into where burnout started to develop and what happened. As probably many of you growing up, I knew I liked helping people and I wanted to help people. The first thought was be a doctor. That’s what, at least when I was growing up, when you thought of helping someone, that’s what came up. And I remember distinctly really wanting to have this dream. I’ll go work with Doctors Without Borders and treat victims of sexual violence.
And then in high school, I went to medical camp, it was a one week camp at UC Berkeley. And I left actually deciding I wasn’t going to be a doctor, not because it didn’t interest me. Because I didn’t believe I was smart enough, which obviously was not true. And also indicates that this medical camp was not very good at inspiring students to go into medicine, at least not an Arab American girl like me with working class parents who didn’t even have a college degree.
The next best thing, I thought, I’ll be a nurse. I’m not saying that to diminish the importance of nursing as a profession. I know that happens a lot between thinking about the field of being a doctor and a nurse. That’s not my intent at all. But I’m sure that my thinking was influenced by that messaging we got, and I was in high school. So then I went on to the University of Arizona.
My plan was to get a nursing degree. And the way it was structured there at the time is you do your freshman sophomore year, then you apply to the nursing program that you complete your junior senior year. I applied to the program twice and I got rejected both times. And that’s a whole story for another day. And I learned so much from that experience. But I ended up taking a leave of absence because I felt really kind of lost.
And I did some HIV AIDS prevention work in Tanzania, which, sidenote, was problematic for the whole white saviorism involved. And I talked about that in a lot more detail when I was on The Public Health Careers Podcast. I think at the time it was called The Public Health Millennial Podcast with Omari Richins. So I will put a link in the show notes if you’re curious and you want to go hear my perspective on that because I do think that’s important. But this episode’s already way long enough.
And while I was there doing that work, I discovered this thing called public health and I realized, this is what I want to do. I want to help communities of people. I want to prevent health outcomes. And it was just such a light bulb moment. It wasn’t like, well, since I couldn’t do medicine or nursing, I guess I’ll do public health. No. It was like, this is what I’ve been seeking this whole time. No wonder those other things didn’t work out.
So then I switched my major to public health. Once I graduated, I worked in social work for a year. I worked with children and adolescents with a variety of mental and behavioral health diagnoses in a lot of capacities and I loved that role. Part of the reason I did that was actually because public health, as many of you know, doesn’t have a lot of jobs that don’t require a master’s, which is stupid. I write about this on LinkedIn all the time, but I will spare you my rant.
But anyways, I learned so much from that year working in social work, working with children and families and psychiatrists and therapists and behavioral therapists and so many other things. Then I went to Emory to get my master’s in public health. I basically had to carve out my own major. I knew I wanted to do sexual violence prevention. That had always been a topic I was passionate about. I think some things are changing, but still probably not enough. There aren’t a lot of schools with programs really dedicated to violence prevention and understanding that is a public health issue.
So I kind of had to carve out my own path. So while I was at Emory, basically any class project I could turn into a project about sexual violence prevention, I did. And my thesis, I did it in that topic. And I found a faculty advisor who had done work there. So I did as much as I could. And the pieces I couldn’t, I really focused on sexual and reproductive health. I did some evaluation on abortion services and a couple of other things. So that’s kind of always been my areas, reproductive health, sexual violence prevention.
When I graduated I did an ORISE fellowship at the CDC in the division of violence prevention, doing sexual violence prevention evaluation. You all, this was my dream job. And as a little sidenote, when I saw this job advertised, I think I saw it in December the year I was going to graduate. So one, was way earlier than the timeline I had, two, it said it required a doctorate degree. I applied anyways, I was like, “This is my dream job. This is what I want to do. I’m going to apply.” What’s the worst thing? They could say no.
I ended up getting a job interview and this is why I tell so many people, do not hold yourself back from applying for a job that you don’t meet some of the qualifications, even something like a degree qualification. Now, I recognize, especially now, this was back in 2015, so a lot has changed. I know a lot of jobs and HR departments run resumés through software such as Filter Outward, so I get that piece.
But I ended up getting an interview and in the question portion, and they say, “What questions do you have?” I asked, “Well, what is it about having a doctorate degree that would make me more qualified or able to do this job? What am I missing in my skill set from my master’s that you think a doctorate would provide?” And that stumped them. They could not answer that question. They could not articulate it.
And this is why it’s so important to apply to jobs even if you don’t fit all the qualifications, because you have to remember, the person writing the job description is honestly just trying to fill up space for part of it. And I ended up getting that job, that fellowship and they were willing to push it back till I graduated. And honestly, I thought I would be a lifer at CBC. I wanted an FTE. I wanted a full-time position. I wanted to work there my whole career.
And of course it had problems just like it does now, it probably always has and always will just like any organization. But I loved my team. I loved my boss. I loved the division. I loved the work I was doing, but outside of that I was wracked with insecurity and imposter syndrome. Everyone in my friend and family group, especially being the first person in my family to get a graduate degree and to kind of have a ‘traditional’, what America sells as a traditional career, thought I had it together, but I constantly doubted myself.
So there was this balance between I doubted myself, I was insecure, but I also had big dreams and I was making it happen. That’s such an odd place to be. And I know many of you are there right now. And then my mom got sick, totally unexpectedly in the middle of the night I get a phone call. She’s going into emergency surgery, basically we hope to save her life. We don’t know. So I caught the first flight home, this was across the country. She ended up being in the ICU for weeks, had three surgeries within one week. I think if I’m remembering correctly, again, this was 2017 at this point.
And she was in the hospital for about two months. And I ended up moving home to take care of her during this time period and her recovery, which was three or four months. My personal life and work was starting to collide like never before. And this was all before I was 30. I was dealing with insurance and advocating at the hospital and scheduling appointments and administering meds when she was in recovery at home and helping her adjust.
And on the other hand, I was working full-time, finishing my projects, working East Coast hours, living on the West Coast. And if I’m being honest, I was so thankful for the distraction of work. It allowed me to not get stuck in the overwhelm of what was happening with my mom and to direct my energy elsewhere for some time. I was so thankful to continue to be able to work and make money and I could do it remotely so I could be present with my mom and her health when needed.
And actually I think that was some of the best quality of work. It didn’t distract me. I would have been more distracted if my employer forced me to stay in the office and then be trying to coordinate care from across the country. So after she recovered, I ended up getting a job at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. And the next year, for sure, maybe two, but definitely that first year at the School of Public Health, I was burning out. I did not know it.
Looking back, I can see it very, very clearly. Of course, it kind of started with my mom getting sick and me moving home and all of that. But even when I think back before that, when I was a fellow at the CDC, even though I loved lots of it, there were things I didn’t love. Every job has challenges.
And I remember one of my friends who is still at Emory in her last year asked me to write, I think it was for the student newspaper or something, a perspective from a recent grad. And I wrote it, and I sent it to her, and she called me, she’s like, “We cannot print this.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” She’s like, “This is so negative. We want students to feel inspired about what’s going to happen after graduation and what you wrote is so depressing.”
And that’s because I was really struggling with, okay, even though I love my job and I have big goals. There were all these challenges in public health, my grad program, and I don’t think any grad program prepares you for it at all. The lack of funding, the high turnover, the hierarchy, the power imbalances, the overworking, the hustle culture, so many other things. So even though that first year at UC Berkeley, I was really hitting burnout. I think the seeds were planted and watered far before then.
And for some of you, the stress you’re feeling now, the burnout you’re feeling might not even realize it’s burnout, those seeds have been planted a long time ago and they’ve been growing. And when I was at UC Berkeley, I was working the job of what literally at one point was three different people but with budget cuts and turnover, that obviously changed. I was coming in at a time where the existing staff who had been there for a while were carrying some trauma from the past decisions and actions and changes of previous leadership.
There was what I could see, little to no proactive action taken by the school or university or leadership to help the staff heal and move on. It was sweep, sweep under the rug, let’s pretend that didn’t happen. I had more work than time available and so did everyone else around me. There were leaders there at the time, they aren’t there anymore, who I felt were so unsupportive and a little out of touch. There was a lot of lip service given. The hierarchy problems, the power dynamic issues were rampant.
Many of these challenges you are facing too, they exist across our field. And just like me, you have personal challenges you are navigating at the same time, whether you’re going through a divorce or you’re a single parent or you’re trying to pay off your student loans or you have your own chronic health issues or a million other things. For me, I was still carrying the trauma of my mom’s health scare and taking care of her and dealing with that before I was even 30 years old. I had guilt from that experience I wasn’t able to shake.
I was in a new city where I didn’t know anyone trying to buy a house in the Bay Area, which was freaking insane. I was exhausted and I resented my job. I resented the leadership and their decisions. I resented every time someone asked me for help or to do more. I resented the emails I got. I was not a happy person. I was pretty miserable. I was so unaware of how unhappy I was.
I remember once I was at the house I was renting at the time, and I got a notification on a Sunday about an email. I started to cry. I was so overwhelmed. I was so angry. I was so upset. I was thinking, how dare they email me, it’s a Sunday. How dare they invade my personal time. Don’t they know how much I have on my plate? I was just at the end. I was at the end of my capacity. I also had so many other emotions. I’ve struggled with chronic anxiety my whole life. I’ve told many of you that. At this point this was before I found coaching, so it was really bad.
I felt like a failure when it came to dating. I was totally in the belief that if I didn’t have a partner it meant something was wrong with me. I just felt so stuck, and I tried so many things. I’m smart as hell and so are you, resourceful and so are you. And I tried the organizational system tools, the Asana, and the calendaring, I advocated like hell at my organization. I worked out regularly. I ate healthy.
I tried everything those 10 steps to burnout recovery articles tell you, and none of that worked long term. I even went to therapy. And that did help me. It helped me process the trauma of my mom’s illness, but it didn’t eliminate my burnout. It didn’t help me prevent future burnout or give me tools for that. Then I found coaching and here are some things I learned and changed through coaching that finally eliminated my burnout, reduced my stress, and made my life so much better. And I’ve talked about some of this on the podcast before.
Number one, I am part of the problem. I know that’s a really hard pill to swallow. Yes, there are structural and systemic issues. There are people in leadership positions who are terrible managers. There’s a lack of staffing. There’s a lack of government funding investment. There’s so many other external problems. We’re not denying that. But my burnout wasn’t solely caused by those external things. I was contributing to it.
I was creating it by not saying no, by not setting or holding boundaries, by not offloading work, by not being efficient and effective, by not knowing how to process emotions so I don’t get stuck in that resentment. By focusing way more on what I didn’t have control over than what I did, and so many other things. Again, I’m going to go through some high level pieces of this. But the first realization was I was creating my burnout. I was part of the problem. I was making it so much harder for myself to navigate the challenges of the field.
And if I wanted something to change I had to change because waiting around for something external, my boss, the job, all of that to change was not working and it’s not working for you either.
Number two. There’s nothing I ‘have to do’. I was always so upset about how much I had to do, focused on how much was on my plate, how much was on my to-do list, how many emails I had, what people were asking me to do. The truth was, and still is, I don’t have to do anything. Everything you do is a choice. And believing that I had to, I avoided taking responsibility, that I was part of the problem, and I was creating my own burnout. And once I started shifting to see, no, this is all a choice. This is all a choice.
I had to take responsibility for the choices I was making, every choice. And when you do that you get to feel more empowered and in control, you get to make more intentional choices, you get to stop making choices that aren’t serving you.
Number three. Boundaries are for me and no one else. Oh, boy, you all, this was a big one. Most people talk about boundaries as if it’s a fence you build and then no one can come over it. So if you say, “Don’t email me on vacation”, and then someone sends you an email, you get pissed and you’re like, “They crossed my boundaries. They don’t respect my boundary. It’s their fault I’m not resting or enjoying my vacation.” No. Cut that shit out. A boundary is for you, no one else.
Other people are still going to do whatever the hell they want to. They have free will, they’re adults, you cannot control them. A boundary is for you. If you set a boundary of not checking emails on vacation, they can email you all you want. It’s on you to not check your emails or not reply to them, not for someone else to stop emailing you. Now, I have a full episode on boundaries, so if you struggle with this or you’re hearing me talk about this, you’re like, “This lady doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
We’ll link it in the show notes. It’s episode 45, it’s on work boundaries. I explain it in much greater detail. Give you examples too.
Number four. I can’t change a lot of things around me, but I can change how I react to those things. You can’t force your boss to be nicer. You can’t force your colleague who comes in every 10 minutes to ask you a question to stop doing that. You can’t force all staff meetings that are terribly unproductive to change. You can’t force policymakers to add $100 million more to the budget. Sure, you could contribute to some of those changes, but you don’t have direct control. But you can change how you react to those external things.
How you react to what people say or don’t say, how you react to what happens by what you choose to think about the situation, what you choose to focus on, which changes how you feel, and that changes what actions you choose to take.
Number five. What other people think of me is none of my business. This was a very, very hard lesson. It’s something I’m constantly working on. You, just like me, have probably been socialized to believe you cause other people’s feelings. So you try to show up a certain way or do certain things or say certain things, so they don’t get upset so they like you, but you don’t cause other people’s feelings, their thoughts do. Their thoughts have nothing to do with you.
When you are a people pleaser, when you have been told you cause other people’s feelings, it’s your job to make them happy, you end up doing things that do not serve you, just to hope someone else will be happy with you. You waste your time and your energy and your effort on things that you don’t have time or capacity for or don’t even want to do. Once you let this go, you get to reclaim your time and your choices and your decisions and what you want and a lot of mental peace.
Number six, this is the last one then we’re going to wrap up. My emotional experience is created by what I think, not what other people say or do or what’s happening outside of me. Now, listen, I wrestled with this for some time. I was super challenged by this, and you might be too. But just like you don’t cause someone else’s feelings, they don’t cause yours. Your boss does not make you angry, the thoughts you think about your boss does. Your job does not make you dread it, the thoughts you think about your job does.
And listen, I was pissed when I learned this. I was like, “So wait, you mean that they’re not the problem, it’s my fault I’m upset?” And I was so mad, but that is the truth, it sucks to hear. But it’s also a good thing, because if it was your boss or your partner or your job that was creating your experience, your emotional experience, how you were feeling, the emotions you were feeling. You’d have to wait for those things to change, to feel better. You’d have to wait for your boss to magically become a better person or quit.
You’d have to wait for your partner to suddenly change. You might be waiting forever, but you don’t have to because you’re in control of what you think. You get to change your thoughts, so you feel better. Now, listen, this does not mean you have to condone what others do.
For me, here’s a good example. There is a leader at my organization who I resented so much. I just fumed. I could feel the anger in my body coming up any time they started to speak. And I thought they were the problem. And I did a lot of work to see, no, it was my thoughts about them that created the anger and the resentment, not them. Once I did that work, it wasn’t like, oh my God, they’re the best person ever, they’re a great leader. No, I still decided to believe they’re not a good fit for the job. They’re not the best manager. They’re not skilled.
I still had those thoughts. The difference was I wasn’t stuck believing they were ruining my life. I wasn’t stuck in anger and resentment. I was able to feel confident and empowered at my job, reduce the time I interacted with them, and reduced how much mental energy I drained complaining and thinking about them. I stopped wasting my energy and time trying to get them to understand my point of view or other people when that wasn’t working. It served me so much better.
It didn’t mean I had to think they were great. All it meant was I had to stop believing that they had to change for me to feel better. So as a result of learning these things, I was less distracted at work. I was able to stay more focused, and on task. I got more work done. I had more time without quitting. I didn’t leave my job. Nothing changed in my job. We didn’t hire new staff, nothing. I turned off my email notifications. I only checked emails a couple of times a day. I said no to a lot more work. I offloaded. I delegated. I set boundaries.
Here is what kind of took off when I eliminated my burnout and I had the tools to make sure it didn’t come back, to make sure if I was starting to feel stressed out, I countered it. And those are all the tools I share with you here on the podcast, all the tools you get when you become one of my clients and you work on deeply. But when I was in that first position at UC Berkeley, I was an assistant director. I stopped working late and I stopped working through my lunch. I took my lunch almost every single day. I left on time, which was before everyone else.
I was still working the job of what was three people at one point, and I was able to get it done in 40 hours or less without new staff being added, without more funding. Nothing changed like that. As a result, I became more efficient and more effective. I had more leadership opportunities. I took more responsibilities and ultimately, a couple of years later, I had an executive director position essentially written, tailored to me, and I got a $10,000 raise.
And from there I was able to start my business on the side while working full-time and then eventually leave to do my business full-time. Burnout is a dream stealer. All of you listening, you’re big dreamers, you have big goals. Right now your stress and burnout is muting them. And when you eliminate the burnout, they come to the surface and not just for you to shoot down like you might be doing now, for you to embrace and step into.
On the personal side I did so much more work on myself through this burnout journey. I was happier. I was more confident. I was more fulfilled. I started taking Arabic classes. I started working out more. I started dating more, that’s when I met Jared. I stopped giving so much of my energy and time to all my friends and family because I was such a people pleaser and I wanted to help everyone, and I put myself last. I stopped doing that.
I stopped being friends with people that weren’t people I wanted to be friends with, I just did it out of guilt. I started saying no to things I didn’t want to go to like after work happy hours, that I truly didn’t want to go to. And when I truly wanted to go, I went. I took a three week international vacation. I made that happen in a job where most people were losing their PTO because they hadn’t taken a vacation in so long.
I cannot emphasize how eliminating your burnout, how transformational and powerful it is. Not just feeling better in your job, but what it opens up for your whole career when you get unstuck, when you can believe in yourself, when you stop wasting your time and energy on things you can’t control and how it bleeds over into your personal life.
So whatever it is you’re struggling with now and you feel like you’re missing out on, whether it’s finding a partner or being present with your kids while they grow or traveling more. Or starting that secret side business you want to start or applying for that position you really want or moving to that city that you’ve always dreamed of living in. Or ending a relationship with a family member you don’t really want to engage in or anything else. That all becomes available to you when you end your burnout.
You have the confidence to make those things happen. You have the energy, you have the time, and you have the tools. And I know this is possible for every single one of you listening right now. So what is it that you want to be different? What is it you want to achieve? That’s possible for you, it just requires you to do the work to end your burnout.
So yes, public health systems and structures and policies need to change, but that takes a long time. Do you want to wait years to feel better and get out of burnout? No, you’ve already been doing that, and it sucks. You have the ability to reduce your stress and feel better on your own without your job changing. Alright, that was long enough, and that was as condensed as I could get it.
To wrap up, if you resonated with anything I shared in my burnout story, if you’re experiencing burnout or stress or overwhelm, I want you to schedule a consult with me. It’s completely free. You share what you’re struggling with, your challenges, what you want to be different. And I’ll share with you what changes you can make to make that happen. Head to mckoolcoaching.com/coaching to learn more and sign up. We’ll leave a link in the show notes.
And as I wrap up I want to share our podcast review. As you know, I’ve been doing this at the end of every episode the past couple of weeks just to say thank you for those of you who have taken time out to review, it means so much. And I want to just thank you for your time doing it and your thoughtfulness by reading them on the podcast.
So this one’s from Meow Cat 99. It’s titled ‘exactly what I needed’. And they say, “Sometimes I don’t rest enough. This podcast has taught me that rest is important and 100% always needed. Even a small social media break is great for your mind and charity. Give Marissa a listen when you need rest.” Thank you so much to that listener for taking time out to write that really thoughtful review. And if you have time to rate and review the podcast, it would mean so much to us.
Without further ado, I’ll let you all go. This was a long episode. I appreciate you tuning in and listening to my public health burnout story. I hope it helped you. I hope it resonated. And I will talk to you next week. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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