Work Stress and Work Burnout | Read the Warning Signs

A Story About Work Stress

0:21 SPEAKER_00: This great story teaches us something about being human. I'm Cheryl Paris and this is Work Stress Anxiety. Together, let's borrow a little wisdom from a story to help us navigate a very modern world.

Marcia Starts Noticing Repeats

0:47 SPEAKER_01: Picture Marcia sitting at the kitchen table with her notebook open. She has been keeping track of what she's been doing at work, not perfectly, not religiously. Nobody is marking it, but she has been writing things down. The meeting that left her felt feeling tense, the conversations that she keeps replaying afterwards, the days when she comes home completely drained, the moments when she actually feels quite capable and steady. And then she notices something Tuesday. That Tuesday meeting appears four times.

1:32 SPEAKER_01: Different weeks, slightly different circumstances, but the same meeting. And suddenly that is interesting because that is quite different from saying, Oh my job is awful, or I can't cope with work anymore, or even something is stressing me out. Now she has something much more useful, something specific enough to become curious about.

Why Specific Evidence Beats Spirals

3:02 SPEAKER_01: So I don't take trust lightly at all. Because quite often when somebody trusts you enough to tell you what's really happening, you discover that the story they've first walked with in with isn't necessarily the whole story.

3:25 SPEAKER_01: Or do you know what terrible? I know I'm terrible at my job, or maybe I am just too sensitive. And they then they begin looking at the evidence differently, and sometimes a rather different picture starts appearing. That's really what I'm trying to do here, and what this is about. Because when we're carrying everything around inside our heads, individual experiences start sometimes merging together. You know, Monday's difficult conversation gets mixed in with Tuesday's meeting, and Tuesday's meeting gets mixed up with the fact that it's Wednesday and it's hump day and I'm already exhausted.

4:11 SPEAKER_01: Or and that Wednesday's exhaustion gets mixed in with things that happened maybe three months ago, and before long, your brain has produced a beautifully organized filing system called Everything Is Awful. Very efficient, um, because the brain is very good at that. But it to me it's about what is useful. I don't think that's particularly useful. Um, one of the things I encourage you to do is create an evidence bank that's that's about writing things down so you can help separate the individual pieces.

Journaling Without Collecting Misery

4:56 SPEAKER_01: Um but there's another trap here. I don't want you to become brilliant at documenting your stress because that isn't the objective either. To me, a journal shouldn't become a museum of difficult days, you know, rows and rows of exhibits. Here we have the email from March, and over there behind the glass, you'll find the meeting with Sarah. Raise one eyebrow and I thought about it for the next six hours. You know, to me, reflection earns its keep when it helps you to understand something and eventually when it helps you to choose.

5:40 SPEAKER_01: So I'd like you to imagine Marcia's looking back over several weeks rather than staring at one difficult entry. She's no longer longer asking how bad was this particular Tuesday. She's asking what keeps repeating a very different question because perhaps she notices that the same meeting appears several times. Perhaps certain situations consistently leave her feeling more anxious. Perhaps there are particular people, deadlines, or types, you know, of work and tasks, or even times of day when things are or appear to be more difficult.

6:24 SPEAKER_01: And she might even notice something else as well. Maybe there are exceptions. Maybe the meeting is difficult when she's already rushed, you know, like when you're late, but less difficult when she's actually spent 10 minutes or you know, 10-15 minutes to prepare for it. Or maybe one colleague consistently helps her think more clearly. Or maybe she notices that when she's tired, she interpretes situations completely different. Or she realizes that there are days when exactly the same workload feels manageable.

7:01 SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, none of those observations automatically tell her what the answer is. The important thing here is it's evidence, it's not a verdict, it's information. And I think sometimes when we're stressed, we desperately want a verdict. We want to know: is the job the problem? Is my manager the problem? Am I the problem? Should I stay? Should I leave? Should I confront someone? Should I say nothing? We want nice little neat answers, perfectly prepared by lunchtime. But the thing is, sometimes the most useful one step is simply learning to see the whole picture, the whole field.

7:51 SPEAKER_01: Because if you're standing in one muddy patch with your shoes sinking into the mud, it's very easy to decide that the entire field is muddy. And equally, one sunny afternoon doesn't mean that the drainage problem has mysteriously disappeared, like round here. Terrible issues with drainage at the moment. And I think part of it is because of you know, they're building new houses, and our old our old Victorian uh sewage system is just not working. But anyway, that's beside the point. I think what you have to do is look across the entire landscape.

8:34 SPEAKER_01: What keeps growing here? Where does the ground repeatedly become difficult? What seems to drain the soil? What appears to help it recover? That's what your evidence bank allows you to do. You're not stopping and inspecting one blade of grass as though it contains the meaning of your entire career. You are beginning to look and look in for patterns.

Five Questions To Spot Patterns

9:06 SPEAKER_01: And there are five things I particularly want you to notice when you're doing that. This is not about making things complicated. I want you to just keep things simple, but I want you to start with this. What keeps repeating? Not what happened once when everybody was having a dreadful week. What repeats? Then ask yourself, what helps me to actually recover? And that's important because your evidence isn't only evidence of what goes wrong, right? Look for evidence that helps you. Maybe you recover more quickly after talking about things.

9:52 SPEAKER_01: Or maybe movement helps. One of the things I really encourage the people I work with to do to improve movement in their life. And it doesn't mean it doesn't mean like me going dancing or doing more exercise. It simply means literally just getting up from your desk sometimes and exercising those muscles that we we have. Maybe having clearer information helps you. Maybe, like I said, getting away from your desk at lunchtime makes more difference than you expect. Maybe preparing things or preparation helps.

10:37 SPEAKER_01: Maybe you know, clear boundaries help. Maybe there are people around you who you feel more like yourself. That is all evidence too. Then ask, what am I learning here? And notice that I'm not asking you what's going wrong. What am I doing wrong? What I'm asking you, right? What am I learning? Keeps you curious. Perhaps you're learning that uncertainty affects you more than the workload. Perhaps you're learning that constantly being interrupted is exhausting. For me, constantly being interrupted um makes me lose my train of thought.

11:32 SPEAKER_01: And that's just me. So I know that. Perhaps you've you've learnt that saying yes before you've even checked whether you've got the capacity to do it. Or perhaps you're learning that one situation you've been describing as a confident problem is actually a clarification problem. Because you solve clarification differently from confidence.

Control Influence Acceptance Buckets

12:03 SPEAKER_01: Then I want you to look at three areas and okay, this is deep now. So are you ready? What is in my control? What can I influence? And what might I need to accept? Just for now. And acceptance here doesn't mean approval. I'll say that again. Acceptance doesn't mean approval. It doesn't mean deciding that poor behavior is fine either. It doesn't mean tolerating something unsafe. Sometimes acceptance simply means recognizing this is what is happening at the moment. Because fighting the reason why I'm laughing is because it all this you may be thinking, well, oh terrible, this sounds so obvious.

13:04 SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know it sounds obvious, but as one of my mentors uh said yesterday, knowing something is not the same as understanding it. Okay, and because the way that I see it, fighting with the facts that something is happening consumes an astonishing amount of energy without necessarily changing it. And once you know which bucket something belongs in, you can begin to start seeing where your energy is actually going. Not where you think it's going, but where it actually is.

Choose One Small Next Step

13:45 SPEAKER_01: And then finally, what is one next step? One. One, not twelve.

13:53 unknown: Okay.

13:54 SPEAKER_01: One step. Maybe there is a conversation to be had and arranged. Maybe there is something you need to clarify. Maybe you need to stop volunteering yourself for something. Maybe you need some advice. Maybe the next step is simply collecting a little bit more evidence before deciding anything. Because the reason why that matters is because the objective here isn't dramatic action, it's informed action. Informed action. So here's the small practice I'd like you to take away from this episode. Once a week, give yourself ten minutes with your evidence bank.

14:45 SPEAKER_01: Ten minutes. You might even set a timer. Look across what you've written and asked. What keeps repeating? What helps me recover? What am I learning? What's in my control, influence, or acceptance zone? And what one small next step. That's your review you are observing. Almost as though you're standing a few steps back from the field instead of kneeling mud up to the knees, examining every footprint there is in the field. And you may begin to notice that distance, yeah, those few steps back change what becomes visible to you.

15:38 SPEAKER_01: Because I go on about this a lot, and I appreciate it. May even sound really boring, but I really do believe because awareness on its own is useful, but awareness can lead to balance, and from a steadier place, you can learn something, and learning gives you more opportunities for what will happen next. And that for me is where win-win well-being becomes far more interesting than trying to feel calm all the time, you know. Sometimes well-being is being able to recognize, look, this isn't working.

16:22 SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's knowing this bit isn't mine to fix, and sometimes it's discovering actually there is something here that I can change. And it fit I think that's a fitting place to end, not with a giant conclusion about your career, but with better information because your notebook was never supposed to become your destination. It's to me, it's like a it's almost like a torch shining out there that you can shine across the landscape so that you can see where you are standing, and then you can decide where you might want to place your next footstep.

Weekly Review Plus Support Reminder

17:11 SPEAKER_01: And if you've been creating your own evidence back, keep it, come back to it. And if this episode has raised something you'd like me to explore in a future episode, please tell me at podcastfeedback.com forward slash work stressanxiety. You know, because your experience may contain the seed of a question that thousands of other people quietly recognize too. And just one important reminder if you don't mind, reflective notes, I think, can help you recognise patterns, um, but they're not substitute for medical, occupational, or legal support when you need it.

17:59 SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the evidence tells you that reflection is enough, and sometimes the evidence tells you it's time to involve someone else. Both are useful things to know. So your tiny challenge this week is very simply don't just read your latest entry, look across several, see what repeats, see what helps, see what you are beginning to understand now that perhaps you couldn't see when you were standing right in the middle of it, and then choose one thoughtful next step because the point isn't to become brilliant, as I said, about documenting stress.

18:42 SPEAKER_01: It's to understand the pattern early enough to give yourself more choices.

Closing Encouragement And Goodbye

18:49 SPEAKER_01: And remember, every step you take, no matter how small, is a step towards a brighter, more balanced future. Trust your journey and remember, progress is progress, no matter the pace. Bye for now.

19:08 SPEAKER_00: I hope today's episode gave you something useful to carry into your week. Now, finish your coffee, take a breath, and remember progress is progress no matter the pace.

19:22 SPEAKER_01: Until next time, bye for now.