Burnout Recovery | Work Stress and Burnout Prevention Strategies for Women

Welcome And The Big Question

0:21 SPEAKER_01: Hi and welcome to Work Stress Anxiety. I'm Cheryl Paris and today I'm joined by Dr. Carla Catua. You know one of the things Carla says in this conversation is that rebuilding starts with one particular thing and that is your definition of success. The real one. So let's get started. Hi everyone, I'm Cheryl Paris and welcome to work, stress, anxiety. If you are new here, welcome. Guess what? That's right, I have a guest with me and I want to welcome Dr. Carla. Hi, Dr. Carla. Hey there, how's it going?

1:03 SPEAKER_01: Happy to be here. Now, one of the things, as a coach, you understand this so well that often when things happen and we realise that we need to take action if we want to move towards the things we want, uh, we have to do it in a realistic way. Yep. Uh, and sometimes that's not always possible for us because of the expectations uh that we have for ourselves and sometimes for the people around us. So I'm just interested for someone who is frightened that slowing down might make them less successful at what they're doing.

1:44 SPEAKER_01: What where does rebuilding really start for them?

Redefining Success Beyond Outcomes

1:48 SPEAKER_00: Uh well, one, it starts with your definition of success. Because, for example, like my definition of wealth, yes, it does have to do with money, but it also has to do with time, it has to do with freedom. So I can consider myself wealthy, whether I make 50,000, 100,000, a million, two million, whatever it is, if I if I have time and freedom. And I think with success, that's the same thing. Are you successful just because you accomplish such and such a goal? Or are you successful every step along the way because you learned something or you experience something?

2:24 SPEAKER_00: So it's quite often difficult. I work with a lot of kids that are athletes and they just want to win the game, the match, the whatever it, and it's awesome if that's the outcome. I'm proud of you. I hope that happens for you. Yet if you don't win it or you don't get the result you're looking for, did you enjoy the practice and the time along the way? So I think as a as a person in the workplace, you know, does success have to be getting that promotion or getting the thumbs up from your boss or whatever it is that you're looking for outside of yourself, though I want you to get the promotion.

3:06 SPEAKER_00: You know, if you didn't, is there a reason why you didn't? And if you learn that, you've learned something and you take it to the to the next experience. So it's more about the journey and not necessarily just the outcome. Yeah.

Chunking Goals Into Daily Steps

3:20 SPEAKER_01: Cool. And it's interesting you say you work with uh young young people and who are athletes, and um, it's really interesting because I I look at myself now, and I was I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and I was saying, I'm so out of shape, you know. I'm I'm a coach and I talk about making sure you have balance in your life. And here's me, I haven't exercised in God knows how long. And I mean, I do do walk and I really do enjoy walking, but you know, a couple of years ago I was doing half marathons, so you know what what's going on here?

3:59 SPEAKER_01: And I you know, like I said, I I was talking to my daughter today, and she's a personal trainer and personal coach, a fitness coach, and she was saying to she she was really good, I have to admit, she refrained from telling me off, and she said, Um, mum, you've got all these kettlebells here, and I love kettle kettlebells. I don't know why I'm not using them, and she just said, Mum, just do 10, just do 10, just do 10. And I thought, you know what, that's what I'll do from tomorrow. I will start doing uh 10 10 kettlebells and I will build it up until I'm able to um do something practical again, or at least feel as if I'm achieving again.

4:45 SPEAKER_01: But I know like myself, a lot of high flying ladies, they're very ambitious, and I want I want your take on this. How can they keep their ambition, you know, that excitement to achieve without things eating them alive?

5:07 SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that most people have have the most trouble with the implementation piece. It's great to you know say, okay, I'm gonna think a different way, or I'm gonna shift my mindset, or I'll do this, or say they meet with me and they they talk a good game and then they don't do anything we talked about all week for action steps, and then they come back next week and they it's so it's really um you know, committing to yourself that I wanted I want to be um, you know, lose 10 pounds or I want to um, you know, manage my time better, whatever your goal might be for yourself.

5:46 SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think you really have to, in order to do it and implement it, you have to make the decision to to really to not look at it as a overwhelming thing. Like for you to say right now, today that a month from now I want to run an ultra marathon, you're never gonna pick up the kettlebell because you know that that's not realistic. Like you're not gonna do an ultra marathon next month. But if you set a goal and you said by next year I want to run an ultra marathon, and then you just chunk your goal, like your daughter said, 10 reps today, 10 reps all week, then maybe next week you bump it up to 15.

6:21 SPEAKER_00: So you have to chunk your goals for yourself on a daily basis. Because if you start picking that kettlebell up every day this week, and then next week, and then the week after, now it just becomes part of your routine. It's just who you are. You wake up and that's what you do. So it's hard at times for people to do that because they have these values of let's just say health is so paramount and it's so important to me, yet they haven't worked out and they're eating fast food because they're too busy working and all these things.

6:50 SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, it comes with kind of a level of maturity and responsibility and and not saying you and not using the excuses or the limiting beliefs of I don't have time or I don't have energy. You you do, you just have to put it first and prioritize it. Yeah.

7:08 SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And I think it also comes with a level of honesty. I mean, I I am this I am the way that I am now because I have whether consciously or unconsciously chosen not to exercise. And um when I look back and I think, yes, actually, I have made to it's been a conscious decision because of this, this, and this. Um, and now I'm going to make a conscious decision to do something else. So um I haven't booked it yet, but um uh half marathon time next year, yeah, is is is is looking good. It's looking good.

7:50 SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not I'm not promising anyone anything, but I'm definitely going to be doing something about definitely something about it because I don't like I don't like the fact and now that I'm a bit older, you know, I'm pre-menopausal or near menopause now, and it's like I if I don't look after myself, you know, I want to see I want to see my grandkids get married. Do you know what I mean? I want to see my grandkids have kids, you know, and I'm not it's not gonna happen if I don't look after my my body as well.

8:24 SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you can keep me to that, people. You can keep me to that.

8:28 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I want to see the picture. And and the thing about it is, is like just showing up and and doing that, like you don't have to worry about what your time is and how long it takes you, but you know, it's just it's that commitment that you just made and actually the belief in yourself that you can do hard things because oftentimes we don't work out anymore or don't do something anymore because it's it's it's a challenge, it's not always fun. It's even athletes, professional athletes, don't want to go to the gym every day.

8:59 SPEAKER_00: They say it all the time, and but they they have that goal, they have that drive, and they make that commitment to themselves. And it's it's just believing you can do hard things. And honestly, at first it's gonna be really hard. You know it's gonna be really hard, and you're not gonna do it every day, but then it you know, it's just it's sticking with it, and then as you stick with it, then you start to gather more self-belief because you are seeing the evidence that you can do hard things, yeah.

9:27 SPEAKER_01: Yes, and like you say, it's it's seeing the evidence, isn't it? And um, you know, we've just had uh I'm a big tennis fan, and we've just had uh we've been uh recently over here, and one of the things that most impressed me, apart from Djokovic and everybody who is just that honestly, they're just amazing, was seeing Serena Williams come back. Yep. And yeah, okay, she she didn't get through the first round, yeah. But the fact that that woman, after everything that she's been through, was willing to even try, yeah.

10:06 SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have to take my hat off to her, and it really, you know, she's a lot younger than I am, and I thought to myself, if Serena can do it, Cheryl, you what are you doing? What are you what are you doing? You need to sort yourself out. But it's really interesting because we we tie a lot of what we do into our identity, and it's really interesting what you say about chunking things down, accepting that not everything that we do has to be easy, that sometimes difficult things are what are the things that are really going to challenge us.

Separating Identity From Achievement

10:41 SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just interested to know what you think. You know, if a a listener, um how can a listener separate who they are and what they produce, especially if their career, you know, you talk about athletes, has become the main source of their identity.

11:05 SPEAKER_00: So how can they separate who they are from their achievements?

11:08 SPEAKER_01: Or yeah, from what from what they produce. So, you know, they may uh I I you know, I'm I'm I'm thinking of one friend in particular um who um when I was I'm laughing because when I was at um when I was 18, 19, right, I had a wide diverse friend, friendship group, you know. I I was really lucky, but a lot of my friend, I was so I I looking back, I was lazy. I was one of these type of kids who um I was really good at maths, and um I I can't I must have had an aptitude to it, and I literally did not study.

11:52 SPEAKER_01: Other people would do the studying, Cheryl would not do any studying, yeah. And um I used to I used to be a bit envious of people who could put in, you know, put in the hours and actually do the work. And if dad, if you're listening, yes, I admit I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid because I kind of convinced myself that talent would get me through everything in life. If I'm good at if I'm good at something, I don't need to worry about practice. Nah, nah nah. That's that's what people who try. I'm I'm already good.

12:32 SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm just I'm just curious because we do that, we build our careers, you know, we go to we go to uh college, we get our degrees, we get the job, we're sitting, sitting proud, we've got the desk, we've got the staff. Do you know what I mean? I'm here, you know, and you know, we get the glow and the buzz, and it becomes our main source of who we are, and we we cannot for some reason separate that person who's sitting in the chair, bossing everybody around from the real person, and I'm just how I'm just interested in what your take is on how people can do that.

13:25 SPEAKER_01: How can we sort of begin to separate to peel away the real person from the per from the boss, the manager, the leader? How can that person peel themselves away and almost um look at themselves from a different perspective?

13:47 SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's looking at the bigger picture because I I had to realize at one point that like we are all replaceable. So I'm feeling important because I have a title and I'm doing this job. But Cheryl, I could teach you how to do that job, and I'm sure you could teach me how to do the job you did before, and we'd probably both be fine, right? We might not love it, but we can do it. So realizing that, like, I hate to say it, but you're not that unique. You, you know, and so if I'm gonna let this job define me, that means I'm that's that's as good as I am.

14:25 SPEAKER_00: And it's thinking bigger than that. Like, I might have this job, but and if you have a job that is your purpose and you're fulfilled and you're passionate about it, that's amazing. If you don't have that kind of job, what are you doing outside of that? Are you volunteering? Are you spending time with your family? Are you building a legacy? Are you donating to a foundation? I don't know. But something bigger than yourself is where we have to think. You know, am I, and even if you're am I writing poetry to share with the world, I don't know what your purpose is.

14:57 SPEAKER_00: But if you're not living in that zone, in in a the bigger scheme of things outside of just your nine to five, that's where it can be troublesome. Um, are you passing on good values to your family, your your children? Are you living a life that you would be proud to kind of have them model after? So I think it's it's stepping out of that the the blinders and really opening up to, you know, am I living my life for more than this paycheck? Yes.

15:31 SPEAKER_01: Cool.

15:32 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

15:33 SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, workplaces um have they like to keep a structure, don't they? You know, especially I think um, you know, I've looked um I've looked at workplaces across uh history, you know, going back to the industrial revolution and employers have always um what's uh I'm trying to think of a way to say this politely, but I can't think of one. They've always tried to exploit um or get the better of their employees. Even even the the really good ones have tried to obviously get the the most out of their employees and if Dr.

One Week Reset For Work Boundaries

16:16 SPEAKER_01: Carla, if there was one grounding next step, anyone who's listening to this um could take this week to loosen not to remove but to kind of loosen, as I often say, spray a bit of WD40 on the toxic expectations um that they have around their work by by Friday. So they got kind of like four days, you know, what could they what could they start doing? Just one round in next step.

17:01 SPEAKER_00: I think what I would say is this is more um one would be plan the vacation that you haven't planned if you can if you can do something like that like last minute or the day off or the half day or give yourself some time. But if you can't do that in the next four days, what I would say is the way I started to set up my day was very helpful. It kind of did two things. One, I had a situation where I was at everyone's beck and call. I had a phone, I had a walkie-talkie radio. Like I was, I couldn't get my work done because I was always putting out fires.

17:37 SPEAKER_00: So I I don't know what I don't know what kind of job whoever is listening is doing, but I what I did is I would have a list of my to-do list of what I had to do that day and that week. And I set every morning I sent or every day I set like two to three things I did by 11 a.m. You know, these were my my I had to create a presentation, I had to make a serious phone call, I had to uh do an interview, whatever would be like uh something that took more brain power, did that in the morning. And then I limited myself to checking my email like twice a day, kind of towards the end of the morning, and then right before I left for work.

18:15 SPEAKER_00: And I okay, so it was something that allowed me to get feel that I got my priorities accomplished and I I did what I need to do for the day. If nothing else, I got those three things done. And then I made my and I put myself first and didn't make myself so available and so distracted that I couldn't get anything done. And I and I it kind of helped me protect my energy, but also accomplish what I need to accomplish.

18:41 SPEAKER_01: Cool.

Closing Thoughts And Follow Request

18:43 SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to thank you, Dr. Carla, because um I've learned so much, and it's really interesting that um you could you've come from come from this from a completely different point of view. You've worked with young people, um, you've had experiences yourself that are really valuable to to our listeners today. And I just want to thank you for your insights and I want to thank you for sharing so much of yourself and your experiences with my listeners of work, stress, anxiety. And I've I've got my list of things that I need to be thinking about, and I want to thank you for that as well.

19:28 SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Dr. Carla.

19:30 SPEAKER_00: Thank you. I love being here. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you. Thank you.

19:35 SPEAKER_01: You know, today's conversation matters because recovery is not just about doing less, it's about becoming seriously more honest about what success is costing you. So if you have found any of today's episodes useful in any way, please follow WorkStress Anxiety. And I just want to say bye for now.