I am lost, I am tired, and all the energy and motivation is gone! Why did this happen to me?
I always wake up at 06.30 am, but since a couple of weeks, I am tired when waking up, I cannot find the energy, and I find everything too much. My body hurts, my concentration is gone, and my brain does not take anything in anymore. I want to cry all day, but I have no idea why? I want to work on projects I like, but I cannot find the way how to! I only want to stay on the sofa and do nothing, watch Netflix or just being with my phone doing nothing…..
From feeling the best about myself and in my body and being 100% zen and positive, working with such joy on many projects, to a woman that is a mess, exhausted and who finds walking the dogs already too much. This change happened so fast. I coach people on Life and Business on how to reach their full potential, how to get away from toxic people and environments and how to get a great mindset and time-management not to feel overwhelmed, I lived by these standards for a long time before I started my company to help other people. I am good in what I do, but this time I have made a mistake to stick to long in a toxic environment, result: Hello burn-out and sick leave!
Why did I stick in this environment, which I felt was not good for me? I loved what I was doing, I love the team I worked with, the job and all the clients, but on my third day in this project there was an alarm bell and that day I should have said: Sorry but this is not for me! But I did not, I kept on going and trying because there was so much potential. But what I forgot, was that many times things will not change or get better if it happens regularly, and although I saw that, I still kept on going, because I thought it was not eating at me and I thought I could handle it with all I knew on how to handle these environments. It did work. I could handle it!
Until I had five days off, I came back, and the progress of getting in my burn-out started…… Although I do not how to handle it, deep inside it does eat at you, toxic and unhealthy environments always eat at you!
A burn-out is not because you are weak and cannot handle stress, it happens to people that have a high responsibility level for what they are doing and to people who do not give up that easy.
There are many reasons why all of a sudden, your body and mind is burned out, but we do see some common reasons:
– You feel under-appreciated with all the hard work you put in
– You work with narcissistic people
– Lack of control
– Too high of a perfectionist
– Demanding or unclear job expectations
You keep on fighting for what is right and what is asked for, but it is not working. This will mean that you put energy after energy in what you are doing, without getting any energy back to you, without the ability to feel relaxed, because in your time off you are tired and uninspired, your body and mind cannot concentrate.
If you are anything like me, you keep on going and do not give up so easily. Until you come at a point that you have no energy left in your body and your body is begging you to stop!
The first symptoms are:
– Feeling tired all the time
– No concentration
– Feeling frustrated
– Loss of motivation
– Withdrawing for responsibilities
That will go into:
– Not being able to relax anymore
– Crying about small things
– Not feeling appreciated
– No energy left
– Less appetite
– Not be able to work
– Not wanting to be around people
– Sense of failure and self-doubt
– Procrastination
– Losing yourself!
This is what you get when your mind and body is burned out. This is what happens if you do not listen to yourself. To get out of a burn out can take between 3 and 12 months, and the most important thing is acceptance in your path of recovering.
For me at this moment that is the hardest part, accepting that I need a nap during the day, accept that I cannot work eight hours, accept that I feel weird and not myself, accept that I am actually just a bit lost and understanding that I am not a failure although it feels like this.
Accept that the smallest and easiest things are now difficult. You look beautiful on the outside but feel like a mess on the inside, and you cannot even explain it, because you do not even understand it yourself.
Know your body! Know your boundaries! When you tell yourself three times in a week, THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, well it is not going to work! Stop it and do something that will light you up. When something repeats for the second time, it will keep on being repeated. That means it is a habit, and it will happen again!
You are the only one who has control over your life, and it is not worth it to reach to the point that you need recovery to get out of it, mainly because you have put more effort in it than you ever got back.
Recognize on time when your body and mind is feeling different, and when you are starting to think more negative, get back to yourself before it is too late. Because you do not deserve to get burned out, you only deserve to live your life to the fullest!
We deserve to be happy in what we do, 24 hours a day is not a lot, especially if you spend many hours a day on something that will not fulfil you.
Damn this is so annoying, I feel like I am weak, why has this happened to me? I know better. Why?
I am human, that is why! No one is perfect, at this moment I need to accept that this has happened to me, work on it to get out of it and especially LEARN from it so it will never happen again! I write this story to show you that no one is perfect, even the people that help people can enter in the patterns they help others with!
Ask for help, talk about it with others, and do never feel like you have failed.
I will get out of this even stronger and more motivated as I was before, now just accepting it and work on getting my energy, concentration, and motivation back. I am taking my rest. I am doing what I love to feel positive again. I am making sure I recover the sleep my body and mind needs. I do my daily yoga and meditation and when the doctor declares I am all fine again and I feel it also, I know I will never let this happen to me again, and I have now experienced something that I can help other people with even better.
Think about you. I always tell everyone to do this, but now even more!
You are the one who deserves you!
Download here my Time-Management guide and get the first steps on creating a good Time-Management and do net let the Burn-Out happen to you!