How to fix burnout

When you’re on autopilot, somehow you’re able to push through incredible hard things for a long time 

But on the other hand life has become rather tasteless. You’re not really motivated by anything. Rest feels undeserved, you’ve become extremely impatient, stopped thinking and zone out a lot. Not to mention you order in food more often and your sleep is shit. Seems like you’re struggling from burnout. How do you actually recover from it? And how do you do hard things in a more sustainable way? Let’s find out.

I remember realizing I was burnt out for the first time

When I first got into the work world, I worked in a lounge in hospitality. Chaos bombarded in like a wrecking ball. I was working 12 to 13 hours a day. I'd have to clean the dishes, do admin work, sanitize the washroom, clean the lounge area, take orders, prepare the orders and serve them. In my first 2 weeks of working I significantly lost weight because I was missing out on my meals. When I came back home,  I didn't have energy to do anything else and I'd just rot on my bed.

It's just so I realized all of this a bit later on

In my first 2 years, I never really called to check on my friends. I skipped exercising. My whole life was surrounded by work and that was the only thing that I thought about. I never really got vacations either because I was an intern, so I never really took proper vacations for ahem.. 2 years. At first I thought, hmmph maybe i’ve officially become an adult and this is the way things are. But then I also realised I never really wanted to do much of anything.

And in the month of Ramadan, I finished half of the month without a rest. I realized this is not normal. I’m not happy yet I'm letting too many things slide. And I can't let this slide any longer.

We start out with good intentions.

We want to impress our bosses. We want to be dependable people. But in doing so we’ve become trapped in the harsh cycle of working through intense burn out. You might find it hard to even really care about the things you’re losing by being this way, and that's a sign to take into consideration that you’re really deep in this mess.  We need to realize how important it is to stop, look back and reflect on our current state. Because despite everything that's happening, we rarely stop to think about it. 

I don't like who i am when burnt out

So I devised a system and named it “MVR”. (You thought Maldivian Rufiyaa didn’t you?)

In the tech world, there's something called the MVP (minimum viable product). Which outlines that the product made initially isn't bombarded with so many features and complexity. It focuses on the only important features first, gets customer feedback, re-iterates and builds new features along the way. So they start with very very little, and build up from there.

MVR- Minimum viable routine. The idea gelled to me one Sunday afternoon.

The same concept can be used when we are trying to tackle this thing called burn out. Instead of trying to do so many things to “recover” , we can start with the smallest and most important thing.

So how do we plan out the MVR and keep at it? Let’s find out.

The 3 things that we’ll cover are:

What is MVR & how does it help you recover? 

MVR is about slowing down. It's about taking frequent breaks throughout the day. The reason why this works is because we get easily frustrated when distraction comes in. And breaks are something we neglect especially when we’re so burnt out. Everything seems so fast paced and we have the tendency to feel we’re lagging behind if we stop. Little do we realize, we are falling way behind when we ignore the rest our body needs. MVR makes you feel refreshed and rested when done the right way, and keeps your nervous system in check.

Take short naps

During your day, try to take little power naps from time to time. For example, it could be in between your lunch break at work, after school or even during a work block when your mind seems to be foggy. This short rest might not mean much to you, but it means a lot for the brain. You’ll feel more relaxed, energized and fresh to continue on with your work.

How long do we take naps for?

It could be for 15 minutes, 10 minutes to even an hour. It depends widely on your day and time of work. But regardless, you will be able to frame in a 15 min power nap into your busy day. 

What if I'm not a nap person?

Set a 15 minute timer and do nothing. Sit in a cafe and have a coffee without indulging in your phone or anything work related, lay down on bed and look at the ceiling. The goal of the break is to remove yourself from the chaos a little bit to change your burnt tires and refuel. 

3 hours of Chaos

Set a non-negotiable 3 hour block of chaos into the day. Blocking those 3 hours for chaos to bombard means you are being realistic about your day, because we often try to go through the day planned thinking chaos will not emerge. But it always does, so instead of trying to fight chaos, we’re making chaos our friend. Which in regard saves us a lot of stress too. 

It doesn’t matter which time you set it for, this is where you’d have to experiment a little bit. I found that my sweet spot to creep in chaos is 18:00- 21:00. I let spontaneity and randomness take over.

3 hours for chaos? That's a lot.

It is a lot, and honestly we don't even have that much time during the day to let chaos in. We're that busy. But during the day, we let chaos in a lot more than we think, and we go on about spending 3 or more hours in chaos anyway. Unconsciously and unintentionally. In this regard, it’s intentional and conscious, which makes all the difference.

What do we do in those 3 hours?

Nothing related to work, that's a start. Relax, go to a cafe and enjoy a coffee (can you tell i love coffee?). Do some activity that you love doing as a hobby. And let spontaneity take over for those 3 hours. But make sure it doesn’t involve work in any way. This period of chaos is spent for winding down and working on things that you’ve been delaying for so long because you’re extremely “busy” 

If you’ve been slacking off on reading, spend this time reading, or spend this time working on your laundry that you’ve been procrastinating over this whole week. Hang out with your friends. There are countless things that you’ve been holding up on doing because you’re burnt out. This helps you break that cycle of pattern. 

How to sense triggers to play out the MVR

Sensing the triggers can be easy, but also tricky. There are patterns that emerge over time that you should look out for. Some are ;

These are common three and yours could be different too. but the big ones you struggle with would be quite visible to the conscious mind so try to take a note of how you’re feeling. 

What if I don't know how to take note of how I'm feeling?

You start with what you already know. If you aren’t able to take proper rest, if you’re having anxiety at random times during the day and if you’re struggling with poor concentration at work or at school, in some way you’re burnt out. 

And even if it’s neither of those things, it’s good to play out the MVR anyway because in trying you’d know how bad you’ve been burnt out without realizing.

How it helps you do hard things in a more sustainable way.

Doing and learning at a fast pace rarely makes your brain learn what you’re doing or studying. Even with this read you might skim through it really fast and be like oh i get it, i just need to rest more and try to fix burnout as fast as possible.

But MVR helps you to slow down and really take your time in understanding the concept of something. Whether it is learning to cook or tackling something difficult at work. Instead of trying to solve the problem fast, MVR helps you think slowly but more critically.  

Slow down, try to understand, experiment and go back to understand better again. 

Healing is a gradual long process.

It doesn’t however mean you’ll not see small wins. You’ll witness a lot of those in the process. 

Right now, your burnout is telling you that something needs to change. That’s a good thing; it means you care. The problem isn’t that you don’t care. It’s that you don’t have a plan, and that lack of direction is making you question yourself. But you do care, and deep down, you know that avoiding the issue isn’t an option.

So here’s your next step;

1- Take short naps

2- Mark 3 hours a day every day for Chaos

3- Read this article again next week

Do you struggle with constant self doubt? Do you feel anxious all the time? It’s a sign that you could be having an unregulated self. Our 27 page guide shows you why this happens and you’d be surprised by the dramatic change it makes in such a short time. Click here