The last real vacation I had was back in November of 2019. We spent 4 days and 3 nights in Bangkok with the Coffeebot Admin staff. We went around the temples, ate at the night market, shopped a bit, and I worked for around 4 hours everyday. I’d wake up early, have coffee, and work before we go out.

You might think it’s not much of a vacation if there’s still work involved, but that’s always how it’s been for me. Aside from clothes, my vacation pre-requisites were:

1. My laptop
2. Internet access in the place we’re renting or staying at
3. Pocket wifi rental

Sometimes, especially if I know it’s busy back home, I’d lug my laptop around with me and work while going to the next destination. I work while on vacation because I don’t want to get flooded with emails and work when I get home; because the office needs me; and because I want to. I enjoy working. I love my work, even if it comes with stress.

The Precursor

I’m sharing this with you because I wanted to give you some insight on who I am before I get to my main point.

I used to hate the weekends. I hated that there was no one there to reply when I sent emails. I always felt the need to accomplish something, anything before the day ended. I needed to be productive.

This feeling intensified during the pandemic, so I made a plan to keep myself busy. I had a list that I stuck to and did, even on the weekends and holidays. I vowed to complete it before the year 2020 ended. It looked something like this:

1. Workout at least 5 times a week.
2. Release 2 vlogs a week (write, shoot, edit and upload myself to save my staff additional burden).
3. Revamp my website.
4. Create 3 digital marketing courses.
5. Update my page more often.
6. Conduct 2 online events to promote said courses.
7. Come up with new services for Coffeebot.
8. Research and implement new tools and processes for Coffeebot.
9. Conduct DICT trainings again.
10. Attend talks, interviews and webinars I was invited to, (and thanks the the vlogs, there was a lot.)
11. Complete at least 2 subjects on my MBA class every week. Finish my MBA before 2021
12. Complete an online course for an external company I was commissioned to do.
13. Be a part of new business ventures.

Now that I’m looking at it again, IT’S A LOT! But ladies and gentlemen, I was able to complete 8 out of 11!!! My most productive year EVER!

… and by December 2020, I was burned out.

The Burnout

I found it difficult understand anything I read.

I only read (x10 for me to understand) and acted on urgent emails…

I avoided reading my text and Facebook messages, even if they were fun stuff or hello from friends (sorry about that. 🙁 )….

I’d reply days after anyone contacted me….

I stopped posting on social media…

I gained weight, stopped organizing anything in my life and taking care of myself (skin care products, shelved).

I spent a lot of hours hours gardening, and went to places I knew had no internet. (dirty hands and no internet meant NO WORK)

I was stressed by everything… stressed enough to cry over someone calling my Begonias ugly.

I was still able to work, but only did the essentials. I didn’t love it anymore. I stopped being EXTRA. And I’m known for ALWAYS being EXTRA.

This lasted for 3 long months…

The Effort to Recover

I shared with you who I was before the burnout because I wanted you to understand the stuff I was made of. I always said…

“You can call me anything, but you can NEVER call me lazy.”

I’ve had burnouts before, but it never lasted more than a week. And I knew how to cure it. Just go out on a night with friends, watch a corny Romcom or add an interesting project, and it always gets me going. But none of those fixed it.

I did what I could to get over it. I started a new hobby, I travelled again and again to lovely provinces that had no internet, even on weekdays… Just to eat, and sleep, and buy plants. It didn’t work.

I watched motivational documentaries on Netflix and when I ran out, also those on Amazon Prime. I got nothing.

I did some research, and actually learned something while working on how to learn something. Apparently, burnouts have stages, and it’s different for every study, but the one that really resonated with me was this one from the Winona University.

Five Stages of Burnout

1. HONEYMOON PHASE

When we undertake a new task, we often start by experiencing high job satisfaction, commitment, energy, and creativity. This is especially true of a new job role, or the beginnings of a business venture.

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2. ONSET OF STRESS

The second stage of burnout begins with an awareness of some days being more difficult than others. You may find your optimism waning, as well as notice common stress symptoms affecting you physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Check.

3. CHRONIC STRESS

The third stage of burnout is chronic stress. This is a marked change in your stress levels, going from motivation, to experiencing stress on an incredibly frequent basis. You may also experience more intense symptoms than those of stage two.

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4. BURNOUT

Entering stage four is burnout itself, where symptoms become critical. Continuing as normal is often not possible in this state as it becomes increasingly difficult to cope. We all have our own unique limits of tolerance, and it’s key that you seek intervention at this stage.

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5. HABITUAL BURNOUT

The final stage of burnout is habitual burnout. This means that the symptoms of burnout are so embedded in your life that you are likely to experience a significant ongoing mental, physical or emotional problem, as opposed to occasionally experiencing stress or burnout.

Check.

And when I gave up, I realized something about my burnout, and wanted to share this with others incase someone out there is also suffering from what I have.

The Shame and Guilt

I realized that my main problem with this burnout was the shadows that followed it.

I have always been known to be a hard worker, and now, I didn’t have THAT anymore. I know that’s not all that I am, but it’s still a big part of me. Not working hard left a hole. And I tried very hard to fill that because people relied on me.

Shame

Here’s something that employees with managers don’t realize…

If you’re a stand-alone employee who reports directly to the boss, or a manager without an assistant, or a business owner, a burnout means a stand-still of all you work. There’s no one you can go to in order to ask for help. There’s no one who can offer to cover for your work.

I’ve seen burnouts come and go with many of my staff. I see a decline in their work, I call them to my office to ask if they have problems and how I can help. Sometimes, they cry and I close my blinds, but what’s always constant is that I always look for ways to help them recover. I give them advice on how to fix what they’re stuck in, offer to transfer their tasks temporarily and lighten their load, or to give them days off. “Don’t worry about it while you’re out, we have it covered.”

And they recover and all is happy and well. Managers try to give their employees what they need because their recovery from their burnout is top priority.

But when you’re on the other side, all you have are friends who can listen, offer emotional support, and that’s great. But they can’t tick off your tasks to help you cope and recover.

You’re supposed to get through it yourself. So when I couldn’t deny its existence and fix it myself, I told my closest employees, but it came with Shame. It’s not their job to listen, it’s mine.

Guilt

The guilt that followed the burnout dug my hole deeper. I couldn’t work because I was burned out, so I felt guilt. And then the guilt caused stress, which burned me out even more.

Telling me I deserve the rest doesn’t help, because burnouts are involuntary.

It wasn’t my choice to stop being productive. What I want is to get back to my 100%. I just wanted to get my control back.

And my team did very well when I wasn’t my 100%, but I can still feel the effects of my absence at work.

Problem: I know I need a break, but even sleeping in made me feel guilty.

Problem: Gardening made me feel good, but choosing gardening over work made me feel guilty.

Problem: The things required for me to get over a burnout still made me feel guilty, and increased my stress.

As a creature of habit, I did this on a day to day basis.

Procrastination

The solution to my problem came to me while I was literally looking for motivation on youtube because I ran out of videos on Netflix. It was a Ted Talk by Adam Grant called The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers. I’m posting the video below, I highly recommend you watch it.

It starts out with him telling a story, and defining the word “precrastination/precastinator”.

You know that panic you feel a few hours before a big deadline when you haven’t done anything yet? I just feel that a few months ahead of time.

And the entire video talks about moments when procrastination has led to something better.

Examples:

Leonardo Da Vinci thought he was a failure. He worked on the Mona Lisa for 16 years.

Martin Luther King Jr. kept on rewriting his speech, even when he was on stage.

Lessons:

First is not always best. This is not to stay that all procrastinators are geniuses. It’s that the time you spent not working on something may be your opportunity to come up with innovative ideas you probably wouldn’t have figured out if you were always on your feet, in a hurry to finish things. Instead of being the First Mover, you can be the Innovator.

The most successful people aren’t always the ones who think they’re THE BIG DEAL. Usually, they’re the ones with constant doubts and fears. Whats important is that you differentiate between self-doubt and idea doubt. To self-doubt is to freeze, to idea-doubt is test, experiment and refine.

Vu ja de instead of De ja vu. Vu ja de is… surprise!!! the opposite of de ja vu. It’s that feeling when you enter a situation you’ve been in a thousand times before, but you re-look at familiar situations or everyday things as if you were seeing it for the first time. It can cause you to doubt yourself, but it can also give you original ideas.

If you feel doubt and procrastinate, don’t count yourself out.

The Realization

After I got over the guilt and shame, I rekindled my love for work, just not the same way I’ve been doing it for years.

I got my notebook and wrote my new set of goals, and the path we had to take to get there.

Things were clear, the time and effort I had to spend, and the route we should be taking. What made it easier for me to see these was I wrote them as possibilities. Sure, I still wanted to do them as fast as possible, and I still wanted them to be successful. But I no longer considered them as a sure shot to success. I saw them as new things I could try.

I’m not completely over my burnout. I still garden. I now work only a few hours on weekends. There are still moments when I freeze, or get over emotional, but I’ve stopped beating myself up over them.