From burnout to bust and back again. The warning signs I missed

It wasn’t so long ago that I was just like you. Yes you. Sitting at your desk, or rushing from meeting to meeting with no time in between to even eat, take a breath or (some days) a toilet break for that matter. Early starts and late nights, working from home after dinner, checking emails constantly and responding because I felt if I didn’t I would be letting people down or my manager expected it of me. Feeling resentful because I was the first one at work to turn the lights on in the morning.

You see I was addicted but not to a normal drug of choice for most people. I was addicted to ‘busyness’ and to that feeling like I had to always be pushing myself and ‘doing’, striving for the next big win at work, delivering a project to market in impossible timeframes, getting that next promotion or generous pay cheque, the bigger house, the holidays, the car. I chalked it up to just what was ‘done’, what was expected of me, and what I had always worked hard and studied for. So I kept pushing through and ignoring the warning signs.

It started slowly and then happened all at once. The constant tiredness and fatigue. The feeling like I never had a decent night’s sleep. The demise of my healthy diet and exercise routine. Putting on weight and looking at the mirror at those big bags under my eyes. But instead of doing something about it, I just covered them up with concealer, slammed down another coffee and washed down another takeaway dinner with a glass (or two… or three) of Chardonnay to help me unwind because it had been ‘a hard day’ (on a Monday) and quite frankly I didn’t have time to stop and think about making a change. I was too busy ….

The freight train that was my life was out of control. But I didn’t heed the warning signs, in fact I kept going faster towards the tunnel, telling myself this is just what everyone else was feeling like and what we had to do to do our jobs effectively.

And then one day the train tracks ran out and I hit the tunnel in the most spectacular way. I was diagnosed with an aggressive rare form of breast cancer and my life turned upside down. As someone once told me “You don’t hit the wall, the wall hits you”

On the day I got my test results back I felt like a lightning bolt had gone through me. I said to the universe “OK I get it now” and resolved from that day onwards that ‘no more’ would I be addicted to busyness and in the process letting my health and wellbeing fall off the pyramid. Now it is firmly at the top. I quit my corporate marketing job, I work part time from home for a cancer charity, and I am now pursuing a new direction with my life coaching and my workplace resiliency programme that I discovered I love more than I ever loved stressing about brand plans or ‘go to market’ strategies.

You see like you, I thought this was what I ‘had to do’ and it was normal. Now I see that it isn’t normal to live your life strung out, worn out and on edge . There is more to life than work and being ‘busy’.
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So many times when you ask someone how they are their response is ‘really busy’. Are we really that busy? Let’s create space in our lives to slow down, take a deep breath and be here in the moment before it passes us by. I learnt the hard way that today is all we have, and that tomorrow is not a given. But you don’t have to …
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My top tips for avoiding burnout:
1. Stop ‘doing’ and start 'being'
2. Discover mindfulness
3. Manage your energy not your time
4. Make exercise a priority and find something active you love to keep you motivated
5. Create routines to help you during busy times.
6. Switch off your devices for an hour before bed 
7. Get proper sleep
8. Lay off caffeine and alcohol.
9. Do something you love today
10. Let stuff go! 

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