Burnout & Balance: A High Achiever’s Dilemma
Dear Dr. Jo,
I’m a female entrepreneur who has achieved what some consider significant success, but for me it comes at too much personal cost. As a leader, I over-function. I work too much. I feel too much. The cost is that I’m nearly always either teetering on the edge of burnout or I’m burned out.
I know there are unconscious patterns that drive me to work too hard and I’ve been coached on recognizing some of my behavior patterns, yet I’m still struggling with pre-burnout.
Any advice for how to address this issue and find a better state of functioning and balance?
~ Sick of the Burnout
Dear Sick of the Burnout,
First of all, huge congratulations on your business success! As you likely know, women entrepreneurs are fewer (~50% more men start businesses than women) and while those female entrepreneurs are likely to have seen their businesses grow faster than men’s in recent years ( 84% to 78%), the majority of venture capital and outside investment still goes to men. In fact, in 2024 only 1% of VC funding went to wholly women-led companies; which considering that female entrepreneurs do better than men, makes little financial sense. Ok, Dr. Jo steps off her soapbox.
Soapbox aside, I think that one unconscious pattern that can drive high performers like you no matter your gender, is this feeling of never achieving enough or of never being enough. If any of this resonates with you Burnout, it’s even more important for you to develop a practice of taking in the good and really feeling into the success you’ve cultivated. Positive psychology has demonstrated time and time again that just stopping to review your day and find three good things that happened and why they happened has lasting positive impacts on happiness and decreases burnout. One of my personal favorite ways to do this is with the 5 Minute Journal (I receive no compensation from this – it’s just a help).
Just like any entrepreneur’s budget, if you want more money at the end of the day (or in your case, energy), it helps to both increase the positive energy (i.e., really take in your wins and successes), as well as decrease the negative energy. On the accounting side of the decrease, there are several other habits you can cultivate.
- Pause throughout your day. I often recommend to my clients that they pause multiple times throughout the day and take a few deep breaths (just exhale longer than you inhale), but you can also stand and stretch, take a short 5 minute walk outside, do a short body scan and notice any sensations in your body starting with your toes and moving up through to your head. When you are going, going, going all day, you’re only depleting your stockpile of energy from the previous night’s sleep. Pausing, even for 3-5 minutes allows your body to slow down enough so you can build up some energy reserves during the day. I’ve found it also makes you more productive so you can actually feel better about what you accomplished at the end of the day (and write about it in your 3 good things. . . see that positive feedback loop?)
- Have short conversations with others during your day, especially strangers. Small talk for many can feel like one of Dante’s levels of hell, but the results might surprise you. Research has shown that whether it’s chatting with our local barista while picking up our caffeine booster or talking to people on public transportation or your Lyft driver, these short infusions of conversation make us happier, more optimistic and give us a stronger sense of belonging – all things that diminish the likelihood of your burnout.
- Lean into play and creativity. Vacations are amazing, we all need them. So don’t forget those. But we actually need things to look forward to everyday, not just once or twice a year. So whether it’s obsessively playing NYTimes Connection and the Mini (Yes, yes, that is me!), spending a 15 minute break working on a puzzle, or working in your garden, your brain (and burnout prevention) needs these regular breaks of fun. One of the biggest mistakes I see high performers make is to turn their lives into a template of productivity and efficiency maximization. They’re tracking their sleep, their workouts, even their heart rate variability but they’re not creating space for bliss, both intentional, and serendipitously. Vacations aren’t enough to counteract burnout, though they’re great and I love mine, they’re not enough. . . it’s important for you to prioritize your happiness enough to find moments daily where you’re prioritizing that and only that (i.e., not just reading another book for better business insights.) Many adults facing burnout can’t tell you the last fun, relatively pointless thing they’ve done just for them, not to take care of someone else. Make regular fun moments a priority, Burnout!
Sick of the Burnout, trust me, I do feel you! I’ve been there before and I know it’s easier to give this advice than to take it. But start with one of these ideas that most appeals to you and start small. Maybe initially you only track 3 good things for one week. Or you just try to incorporate 1-2 pauses in your day. Put a calendar reminder to check in after a couple of weeks. Are you feeling as burnt-out? Is there any burnout relief from your efforts, even if small, that might give you the encouragement to continue, or even expand, your efforts?
Finally, I’ll leave you with one piece of wisdom from my coaching mentor. We all want to reach “the island where it all turns out.” That place where we finally feel successful and accomplished and can rest on our laurels. I’m not convinced that place ever exists for most of us, we hit one goal and then immediately set another so there isn’t a magical destination where our desires are all sated. And, in swimming faster and working harder, we can’t get there faster and finally rest and enjoy the rest of our lives. We’re living our lives right now, as you read this Burnout, so please stop putting your happiness off until you’ve reached an imaginary success point.
The time for you to prioritize your well-being is now, and it’s not a lot of time, it’s more an orientation towards finding moments of joy that are available to us all, no matter what your level of career success is.
This is the latest edition of my new work advice column — Dear Dr. Jo! If you have a work issue you’d love my insight on, please email me at [email protected]
