We usually think of time as the enemy and blame it for burnout, but time is our friend. Taking time to make time is beneficial and empowering.
When I think about burnout, I often think of stress, darkness, and overwhelm.
I don’t have enough time. What I am doing is not good enough. I don’t have enough energy or resources. People are taking advantage of me. Nothing is going right. Everyone is mad at me, or interrupting me. They are making my life/job harder.
Burnout feels like I’ve lost control of my life. Like my time isn’t mine anymore. I just want to quit. I am the victim in my story instead of the hero.
Notice that all this comes from scarcity. I am in a no-win situation. Hopeless. Darkness. I don’t feel the spirit. The light goes out.
Lighten Up
I’m pretty sure all of us can relate to this at some level.
So how did we get here?
More importantly, how do we get out of burnout?
I call the opposite of burnout “Lighten up.”
We need to examine what we are doing and why. We need to question some of these sentences from before.
What is time?
In this video we will look at this thought: “I have so much to do and I don’t have enough time “
Time is a mental construct so what we think about our time is the problem.
Our thoughts about time are our own mental constructs. I can’t teach you everything here, but I can give you some tips that will lighten up your thinking. It will help you stop making everything so heavy and dark.
Scarcity
We have so many stories around time and they usually come from scarcity.
What do I mean when I say “scarcity?” That there is not enough! Not enough energy, time, money, patience, motivation. You get the idea. Often it boils down to not loving ourselves enough to be still and schedule activities that renew and refresh, regenerate and rejuvenate ourselves. WHAT?
Taking time to make time for ourselves is crucial and beneficial.
Be Curious about How you See Time
Taking time to question what we are doing and notice how much time we spend thinking about “doing” compared to actually “doing” brings awareness.
Taking time to write down how often you really are interrupted will surprise you. It will be far less often than you think.
Taking time to write down what you want to accomplish and then breaking it down into manageable tasks is empowering because these specific tasks are what you schedule in your calendar AFTER you schedule your free time!
Making decisions ahead of time means you spend no more time thinking about it until the time comes for you to do it.
It is true that when the time comes, you won’t want to do the thing you scheduled, but practice letting your calendar be your boss. Trust and honor your past self by doing the things that will reward your future self.
Each topic above could be its own video or blog post and they will become available soon!
I hope that you find some hope in these simple ideas so that you can lighten up from burnout.
