Day #15: Burnout & The Urge to Do.

Rather than turning yourself inside out to say NO, simply…

Fight the urge to say Yes.

Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash

Today’s post is an excerpt that comes from Jackie Colburn’s incredibly helpful article “How I Got Into And Managed to Walk Away from Burnout:

To beat burnout, I had to make a concerted effort not to overuse the word Yes. In every situation, I started asking myself if I actually wanted to do something. If so, what level of participation was I comfortable with, and were there ways I could remove myself from the role of coordinating that effort?

For example: old me would frequently say yes to social engagements, then immediately jump in to facilitate the plans or coordinate consensus with a group. While it may not seem like a big thing, when this is the default behavior with every interaction, it takes a lot of energy. I forced myself to pump the brakes and wait for the other person — the one who had invited me to hang out — to get the ball rolling and follow up.

The result? I see some people less often, but that helped me realize that those relationships may have been a little one-sided, allowing me to reallocate my energy elsewhere. If you’re struggling with this aspect, I invite you to try the not my monkeys mantra where you allow yourself to step away from responsibilities that aren’t actually yours (rather than leaning in and taking over).

Question the impulse to do.

As someone with doer energy, I can empathize with anyone who has that knee-jerk reaction to step in and problem-solve, even if it doesn’t always serve us energetically. To make changes in my life, I had to start questioning my relationship with doing and how it had fueled my toxic burnout cycle. My experience with work, my worth, and doing was a product of my environment.

Read Jackie’s full post here.

Baby steps. NO takes practice. Start small, and work your way up.

Tomorrow and Saturday, we’re going to look at working from a calendar instead of a To-Do List, JOMO and learning to sit with the idea of not having to fill every minute of your day.

Good luck,


- Jason