Burnout Recovery Strategies for Meaningful Work

Being a soulful entrepreneur often means that you are engaged in meaningful work. However, it doesn’t make you immune to burnout. In fact, many soulful entrepreneurs struggle with burnout and find themselves questioning their business choices. This blog post aims to provide insight into burnout recovery strategies for meaningful work and how to approach it from a place of abundance and alignment.

Recognizing the Signs of Burnout:
One of the essential steps in burnout recovery is acknowledging and recognizing the signs of burnout. These signs may manifest as a lack of energy, irritability, frustration, and even physical symptoms like migraines. It’s important to listen to your body and pay attention to the effects burnout is having on your business and personal life.

The Counterintuitive Nature of Burnout Recovery:
Recovering from burnout may seem counterintuitive, especially when you are trying to attract new clients and increase your income. However, it’s crucial to understand that taking the time to recover from burnout will actually help you serve your clients better and nourish yourself in the process. By prioritizing your well-being, you create space to recharge and reset, which ultimately benefits your business in the long run.

Assessing Your Thoughts and Feelings:
Burnout is often fueled by underlying thoughts and feelings about time, scarcity, and the need for urgency. It’s essential to assess and become aware of these thoughts and feelings that influence your behavior. Do you constantly feel there is not enough time? Are you attached to immediate results? Understanding these thought patterns will allow you to consciously make choices that align with a mindset of abundance and trust.

Slowing Down and Paying Attention:
Slowing down and paying attention to your thoughts and feelings throughout the day is an integral part of burnout recovery. By grounding yourself and assessing your emotional state before important tasks such as client calls or marketing activities, you can identify any negative patterns and consciously shift them. Taking moments to assess your thoughts and feelings as you start your workday, before going to bed, or even during the weekend will help you approach your business with a renewed sense of energy and purpose.

The Value of Coaching:
Working with a coach can be immensely valuable during the burnout recovery process. A coach can provide a fresh perspective, help you identify thought errors, and guide you in creating a schedule and plan that aligns with your energy and strengths. They can assist you in cultivating an abundance mindset and building trust in the process of your business, leading to more aligned results and a reduced sense of burnout.

Recovering from burnout is vital for soulful entrepreneurs to continue their meaningful work. By recognizing the signs of burnout, assessing thoughts and feelings, and slowing down to prioritize self-care, entrepreneurs can shift their mindset towards one of abundance and alignment. Working with a coach can provide invaluable support and guidance throughout the recovery process. Remember, by taking the time to recover and nourish yourself, you will be better equipped to serve your clients and achieve sustainable success in your business.

Key Topics for This Episode

Primary Topic: Making the most of the Holidays

• Importance of addressing emotions and challenges during the holiday season
• Benefits of doing shadow work during this time

Sub-Topics:

Identifying triggers and feelings associated with the holidays

• Exploring thoughts and emotions related to hosting, family dynamics, and obligations

Processing emotions and triggers

• Writing down triggers and journaling about them
• Seeking support from a coach or therapist to process emotions

Understanding the concept of shadow work

• Recognizing the need to go deeper in addressing triggers and challenges
• Recommending not to do shadow work alone and seeking guidance

Changing patterns and responding differently

• Examining reactions to comments or situations during the holidays
• Identifying the underlying reasons for upset and disappointment
• Shifting focus from external validation to self-recognition and gratitude
• Considering alternatives in hosting or seeking support from others

Creating a fulfilling holiday experience

• Exploring ways to avoid loneliness and create a positive environment
• Volunteering, connecting with others, or finding alternative ways to celebrate
• Reflecting on personal desires and making choices aligned with those desires

Seeking additional support if needed

• Recommending therapy for deeper traumas or family issues
• Encouraging journaling and self-reflection as a starting point for processing emotions

Applying insights to entrepreneurship

• Relating the principles to business decision-making during the holiday season
• Considering what the desired outcomes and feelings in the business should be
• Choosing focus areas based on personal goals and priorities

Conclusion:

• Empowering individuals to take control of their holiday experience and create meaningful connections
• Encouraging self-reflection, emotional processing, and seeking support when necessary

Analogy for This Episode

Imagine you’re hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner for your family and friends. You want everything to be perfect – the decorations, the food, the ambiance. But as the day progresses, you find yourself overwhelmed and frustrated. People criticize your cooking, no one offers to help, and you feel underappreciated.

Now, let’s imagine this Thanksgiving dinner is like running a business. You are the host, and your business is the dinner. Just like wanting your guests to enjoy the meal, you want your business to succeed and thrive. But sometimes, things don’t go as planned. Maybe customers complain, employees don’t pitch in, or you feel like you’re not getting the recognition you deserve.

In both scenarios, the key is to reflect on your feelings and reactions. Why are certain comments or situations so triggering? Deep down, you may just want to be acknowledged, appreciated, and valued for your efforts. But waiting for others to express gratitude can often lead to disappointment.

Instead, consider taking control of the situation by first giving yourself recognition and appreciation. Understand that you have the power to create a Thanksgiving dinner (or a business) that aligns with your desires and values. Maybe you ask for help or explore different ways to make the experience more enjoyable.

Ultimately, it’s about finding the balance between what you want to create and what is expected of you. By stepping back, reflecting, and making intentional choices, you can have a Thanksgiving (and a business) that brings joy, fulfillment, and success.

Transcript of This Episode

Kavita Melwani [00:00:00]:

Hello. My name is Kavita Melwani, and I’m a master certified success and business coach with two decades of experience as an entrepreneur and almost a decade as a coach. I want to personally welcome you to the Soulful Entrepreneurs Club podcast, where my vision is to empower as many spiritually led businesses to run purposeful and profitable businesses aligned with true selves. I want you to confidently and opulently shine your light without the overwhelm, the stress or the burnout. Together, we will explore challenges that soulful entrepreneurs face and real, implementable solutions so you can step into your unique purpose and shine. It is possible to bridge the success you already have with the truest, soulful, mystical parts of yourself. Are you ready to rise up as the leader you were born to be? Then join me, my soulful friends. The time is now for you to rise up and shine your light.

Kavita Melwani [00:01:06]:

The world needs you. Hello, soulful entrepreneurs. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Soulful Entrepreneurs podcast. Okay, so I know for those of you that are in the United States, this is an interesting week. This is a week that we celebrate Thanksgiving. And for some of you, it’s a time of fun and family and a lot of maybe hosting. And for others, it can be a very isolating and lonely time and can bring up some family challenges that you’ve had in the past, maybe losses that you’ve had, and seeing all the messages around you about how this time of year is about being grateful and that it’s for family and all of that can be difficult. So in today’s episode, I want to talk to you about why this is a good time to do some shadow work.

Kavita Melwani [00:02:17]:

And of course, ideally with a coach, but also so that you can move forward and not feel the intensity of this time in the way that you’re feeling it now. And even if you do feel this moving forward, you know what you need to do to be able to process the emotions, to recognize what’s happening and to show up in the way that you want to show up. Okay, so first, no matter which category you are in, if you are in the category of feeling the trigger, feeling alone, feeling different from and in that way not really fitting the traditional, what it needs to or supposed to look like as a family, or you might be overwhelmed with all of the family and all the things and the obligations. So whichever one it is, either way can be triggering. So when you think about the holidays and you think about, especially this week and the hosting and the food, what are the feelings and thoughts that come up for you. And then what are the people? If you’re going to be around people that bother you the most, who are those people? And when you think about the people that bother you, if you’re not going to be surrounded by people, then you can think about what messages and situations around you that you’re being told that you need to have are triggering for you. So going towards that feeling, giving that feeling of voice, how can you give that feeling some way to express itself? One of the healthiest ways is to be able to write about it. And if you’re working with someone that helps you process your emotions, someone impartial, like a coach or a therapist or someone like that, who is considered like a third party, then you can process it with that person.

Kavita Melwani [00:04:34]:

But allowing, even if all you do is to write down the triggers, write down what’s bothering you, and what about them that’s bothering you. That’s a starting point. Okay. Now the shadow work is a little deeper, and that’s not something that I would suggest that you do on your own. But I think being and bringing that awareness of what’s bothering you and why it’s bothering you gives you the opportunity to respond differently than you have been in the past. So let me give you a few examples. So maybe for you, you’re a person that hosts Thanksgiving, and when you host, you want things to be pretty much almost perfect. You want everything to look good, you want the food to be a certain way, and you spend a lot of time on making sure everything goes well.

Kavita Melwani [00:05:24]:

And then when the people show up, you are working most of the time in the kitchen, and you’re working the whole time. And so you don’t get to sit down for a long time to sit and eat. Maybe you spend some time, and then afterwards you’re cleaning up, and at the end of it, you’re exhausted, okay? If you, at the end of that whole scenario, feel excited and happy and feel fulfilled that you were able to feed these people and that it was an amazing experience and you’re glad you have a year off from it, but you can’t wait to do it next year, then that is something that you just continue to do. On the other hand, if you’re feeling, wow, I was not appreciated, I can’t believe so and so didn’t even offer to help me. Or you’re feeling like, why do I have to host every year? Or you made too much food, or you didn’t make enough food, or someone made a comment about your decorations, or someone made a comment about the taste of your food. And that bothered you. So if you look at all those scenarios and you most likely have a normal reaction, right? So maybe your reaction is to be upset. Maybe your reaction is to sit there and stew and stay angry.

Kavita Melwani [00:06:49]:

But instead, what if you allowed yourself to look at it and see, why am I actually upset? And so maybe when a person makes a comment about your cooking or the decorations, it feels like they’re insulting you and your efforts and they don’t appreciate. And for you, being appreciated is important and you put in a lot of effort and you would like a thank you. Okay. And so your expectation is a person to be grateful and to say thank you. Well, the fact is that people don’t always respond and react the way we like. And when we’re wanting so badly to create a situation where people are grateful and we want to show them how hard we work and are hoping that they’re going to come back and say, wow, you did such a good job and we’re hanging on and waiting for that, then most likely you’re going to be disappointed. So when you recognize that you really want gratitude and you want to be people to say thank you, then I would go further and say, well, why is it important to you when someone says thank you? What does it feel like when someone expresses gratitude? And so how can you do that for yourself? How can you thank yourself in a way? Right? I know it sounds weird, but how can you create a situation where you are recognizing yourself? So how can you start to give yourself gratitude? How can you give yourself recognition? What could that look like? Right? And you can even ask people around you for support. You can ask them and the people that love you and say, you know what, it really is helpful when I do these things.

Kavita Melwani [00:08:44]:

And when I host, if you say thank you, I really appreciate when people say thank you. And when no one says thank you, I feel, and you can fill in the blank what you’re feeling, right. And so there’s a sense of, like, how can you show up differently, energetically and physically? How can you ask for what you need? Maybe you decide that, you know what, I actually don’t enjoy cooking all these things. I’m cooking all these things and doing all this because I want that recognition and thank you. And your brain is telling you that the more you do, the more likely you’re going to get that. So what about instead, if you decided that, well, I’m going to just do the things that I really enjoy doing, and maybe I’m going to order the rest of the food, or I’m going to ask people to support and bring something. And so you make it a little bit of a potluck, make it aligned with what you actually want versus what you believe you need to do. Okay.

Kavita Melwani [00:09:52]:

So that’s just one example of how you can change things around to support you. So if you are on your own and you are trying to not feel that loneliness, well, ask yourself what you want to create. What is it that you want to feel during this time? Right? You have the freedom to experience what you would like. And one of the things that is the most rewarding when we start to get lost in our own brain is to somehow give back and serve others. So is there a way that you can volunteer? Is there a person that you would like to see? Maybe it’s not on Thanksgiving Day, but maybe other days of the weekend you can get together with people. Maybe there’s a type of food that you really like, and you get that it doesn’t have to be the traditional meal. So how can you make this time of year serve you? How can you feel as good as possible? Now, I know that when you see all the messages and maybe you’re feeling triggered by not having family. Now, I’m going to encourage you, if you have some trauma or something that is really deep that happened this time of year or family trauma, that you receive support, okay, to speak to a therapist or whoever you need to.

Kavita Melwani [00:11:20]:

But if it’s not at that level, it’s more about just being triggered in this level of, like, this is annoying, and I can’t believe this. And why is it always like this? Why am I the only one? Then? That’s something you can process also through the journaling. Okay. And with that journaling, you can choose, what is it that I want to create? What is it that I want to feel, and what can I do to feel that now? So this is hopefully giving you some way to step back from what is happening, recognize what you’re feeling, recognize what you’re thinking, and also creating a scenario where you’re able to start to do the things so that you can have an experience closer to what you truly desire instead of being on a default reactive mode. So I’d love to hear from you if you tried this. I know this is a little bit of a departure from entrepreneurship, but I think that most of you as entrepreneurs, also have that family dynamics to work with, whatever that may be. And so you can take this this week, and you can even apply this to your business and say, well, what is it that I want my business to be like this week. What do I want to focus on this week? What would the results that I like this week to be? Right.

Kavita Melwani [00:12:40]:

And be clear about how much time you actually have. And how much time you want to spend. I’m going to recommend that you don’t get caught up in what you think you’re supposed to do. This is your life. This is your business. Choose what to focus on. Choose it based on what you want to create. What you want to feel.

Kavita Melwani [00:13:02]:

And the results you want. And then you can continue to create the life and the business that you love. So this is Kavita with soulful Entrepreneurs Club. I look forward to next week. Until then, take good care. Bye.

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