Can you recover from Burnout? Burnout reflections, one year on

Exactly a year ago to the day I realised I had a problem. A serious one. A problem I couldn’t ignore any longer. I had Burnout. 

Well, I say I couldn’t ignore it… but I tried. Really tried. I did everything to ‘cure’ my Burnout whilst trying to ignore its existence. I threw more work at the problem, more running, more cycling, more saying “yes” to stuff and people that I shouldn’t have. My body was craving a reset, but I gave it the opposite. Eventually it made the decision for me, and I was forced to stop.

In hindsight this was the best worst thing that ever happened to me. But I haven’t always looked at it like that. 

In this post, I’ll show you why Burnout recovery is like building Ikea furniture and I’ll share the five things I’ve learnt one year on from Burnout. 

If you’re reading this and you’re going through Burnout I want to show you there’s hope; light at the end of the tunnel. If you’ve already started your recovery journey, then I want to reassure you that no recovery is linearand even steps back are secretly steps forward. Burnout recovery looks more like tangled wires than a pretty, straight line and this is ok. Embrace it. Lean into it and allow it to shape you. 

Five things I learnt from Burnout recovery:

1.     Don’t put pressure on yourself to ‘recover’ too quickly. The definition of ‘recover’ will change as you go through your journey and ‘getting back to your old self’ might not be the right thing for you. 

The saying ‘journey before destination’ is especially true in Burnout recovery. Embarking on the journey is the destination because everything after that is impossible to define. 

Maybe I’m making it sound easy but trust me, I know it isn’t. Embarking on a journey of self-discovery where you don’t know the destination or the duration is like leaving your house with just a water-bottle and starting to walk. It’s an unsettling feeling. You might feel like you don’t know who you are. That’s ok. Give yourself permission to not define what ‘recovered’ looks like. Recovery is a journey of exploration, not a race to a finish line. 

2.     Reconstructing yourself after Burnout is like building Ikea furniture. There’s loads of flatpack bits in front of you, some vague instructions to help but ultimately it’s up to you to build it. You’ll put bits in the wrong places, think you’ve finished only to find a ‘spare’ bit, and have to deconstruct bits and start again. 

You might have to do this many times but eventually you build a 3D thing you’re proud of. 

3.     Burnout rebound is real. On my recovery journey I quit my job. Twice. Firstly, I quit for another job and then 5 days later quitted my quitting and stayed in my current job. Two weeks later I quit again. This time to start my own business. 10 days later I realised that was really silly and unquitted my quitting. Again. 

I’ve now gone a full 16 weeks without quitting or unquitting. Progress. 

My point is: expect to want to shake things up and change them only to realise they were not the thing causing the problem and want to ctrl+z. Expect to be hit by days where you want to do EVERYTHING and there’s not enough time to experience all these amazing things you’re going to do, then later feel the opposite.

People around you might think you’re erratic but that’s ok. Don’t do anything you can’t undo later and don’t worry about what people think. If they really care for you, they’ll wait. 

4.     They think it’s all over…but it ain’t. There’ll be good days and bad days. Progress is when there’s more good days than bad days. But after a stretch of good days, a bad day can feel like a step back when actually it isn’t. Even a step back is a step forward. A bad day tells you that something is out of kilter and you need to reset or even just rest. Acknowledging to yourself you’re having a bad day rather than ignoring it is progress in itself.  

5.     Take a social media detox. I thought I had a healthy relationship with social media until I did a 10 day complete detox. Here’s the great things I found: 

·      Got 2 hours a day back

·      Feeling more present

·      Reconnected with friends 

I know that last one sounds odd, but it isn’t really: I actually asked people how they were and what they were up to rather than assuming I knew because I’d seen their Instagram update. Existing friendships deepened and new connections were made. 

Above all, I didn’t miss it. I stopped subconsciously comparing myself to others. I stopped disguising boredom with mindless scrolling. I’ve reintroduced it now but not on my phone homepage and notifications aren’t on meaning I’m in control. 

Personally, I think this is the most underrated piece of Burnout recovery advice. 

Final thoughts

This is my journey. I’ve not reached the destination yet and I don’t believe I’m ‘fixed’ but I know this: I’m 1000x more recovered than this time last year; I’m enjoying the journey; I’m enjoying sharing my story and love hearing from those it’s helped. Even writing this is another step in my recovery journey; I hope it can be in yours too.