My burnout journey: how I sabotaged myself, climbed out of a hole, and learned to breathe again.
In the latter half of 2019, I was in a perpetual state of malaise. A friend of mine at work remarked how I was no longer my upbeat, positive self. Slowly turning into a muted grey in the adage about the boiling frog.
For a long period, I overcommitted unreasonable amounts of work. I had unrealistic expectations for myself. Work which had been novel and engaging transformed into impediments towards my growth. My goals pushed aside to keep all the plates spinning day-to-day. The routine responsibilities engulfed the free time I had as well. Time I had carved out to stay on top of industry news, deepen my knowledge, and explore new ideas. People across the organization respected my expertise, recognized my work ethic, and praised each milestone I achieved. While this external validation fuelled me for a while, it was not sustainable. I was experiencing burnout.
Managing others is difficult, much more so than I ever anticipated. There were times where I wished I didn’t care so much about everyone’s well being, but I did. Shaping and reinforcing the environment to maximize people’s autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Active listening and exhibiting radical candor with every interaction requires being fully present. Coaching people through crafting their development plans to reach their self-actualization. Dedicating myself to serve others, I failed to take responsibility for my own needs.
One day, I had enough and decided I would job craft my way out of this hole I’ve dug myself in. I would take into account all the tasks I had, create opportunities for others to lead, own and evolve. Evaluate my relationships at work, spend more time with the teams that energized me, and less with those that sucked my energy away. I would reframe my job, and remind myself of the purpose of it. Map out my motives, passions, strengths - viola, off we go, problems solved. Queueing theory points out that at max capacity, response time approaches infinity. I am not arguing that job crafting doesn’t work, I was not successful at this particular instance of it. During a routine sync with a colleague, the stress finally got to me. We left the confines of the meeting room late in the afternoon, and went for a brisk walk. She urged me to advocate for what I needed to thrive again, she gave me “permission” I kept from myself. Later that week, I negotiated for a sabbatical and role change - I got both without any pushback. You can change your work, how you feel about your work, but sometimes you need a change in your environment.
A week after I hit a hard reset on work and life, I took off to Israel. I started a meditation habit, journaled daily, hiked until my feet were sore, danced in the desert, hung out with locals, had deep meaningful conversations about life, and accidentally fell in love. Most importantly, I finally felt like I had control over my life again. Being disconnected from my routine surroundings provided an opportunity for self-reflection. Finally, my mind, body, and soul could hear each other again. I had not felt so content, at peace, fulfilled, and connected to my inner-self in a long while. I let life’s daily frustrations get me down, and failed to realize that not only were the problems solve-able, they have the capacity to be enjoy-able. In my drive towards clarity, I forgot to embrace uncertainty. Life rarely goes as planned, and my greatest takeaway is to live with intention. Maximize your life experiences so that they bring you joy. At any given moment, I would like to say that I lived my biggest, boldest self, and ready to face my mortality. I aspire to challenge my assumptions about how life should play out, and focus on envisioning how I want life to be and making that into a reality.
Looking back, I have no regrets despite how exhausted I felt, and how challenging it felt. Scaling companies is a turbulent and exciting affair, and leadership stretched me in ways I could have never imagined. It afforded me a glimpse into how businesses strategize, communicate, coordinate, and execute. The learnings, growth, and experience I gained are invaluable. The trust, respect, relationships I established over the years will be cherished for many more years.