Feeling Burned Out or Overwhelmed? Try This Small Practice for Big Impact

A simple (but not easy) way to get started

Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help other high achieving professionals and recovering perfectionists reduce overwhelm, recover from burnout, and learn to live the lives they truly want to be living. I’m still working on this in my own life, and I share what I’m learning along the way. Humans Leading is a way for you pause for reflection amidst the hustle of your life and an invitation for you to consider how you might change up what you’re doing in order to find more joy and ease. Subscribe here to get this newsletter straight in your inbox:

Photo by Krišjānis Kazaks on Unsplash

During a recent life coaching session, I asked my client to identify something they could do for themselves during the day that would help them feel a little bit less burned out. The “a little bit less” part was intentional as this client is currently having a hard time feeling good about much of anything.

Even with my encouragement to start small, the client stared blankly up at the ceiling for several seconds. They appeared to be combing through the catalog of their mind and coming up with nothing.

So, I tried a different approach:

“When you were feeling good (aka pre-burnout), what did you like to do?” I asked.

Their face lit up a little, eyes shining brighter.

“Read!” they declared decisively.

I smiled and asked the next important question:

“What would happen if you read at some point during your workday?”

After the initial surprise of this question, they agreed that reading for a short period of time (5 minutes) during their lunch break could be helpful as a reset during their day. They said they’d try it out before our next session and report back on how they felt.

I have seen this type of scenario play out over and over with coaching clients, mentees, friends, and colleagues who are experiencing burnout or chronic stress. In these conditions, your nervous system is so overloaded and overwhelmed that it doesn’t feel possible to make decisions.

It may feel like there are too many choices to consider or that doing something small won’t be effective. But, as I wrote about recently, starting small is the only way to go.

In that piece, I recommended 10 minutes. However, my experience working with my recent client reminded me that it can be necessary to scale down even smaller.

For them, 5 minutes felt doable.

For you, it might be 3 minutes. Or 1 minute.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter how long you do the thing for. It matters that you start to do the thing in a way that lets you build momentum to keep doing the thing, thus maximizing the chances that you’ll keep moving forward with your progress.

Burnout doesn’t go away in the blink of an eye because you didn’t get there overnight. It takes intentional, gradual steps like this. Simple, but not easy.

Getting started: what thing should you do?

I don’t have the answer for you. But you have the answer for yourself even if you don’t quite believe it yet.

If you’re stuck, you can ask yourself the same question that I asked my client.

“When you were feeling good (aka pre-burnout), what did you like to do?”

After this, follow these steps:

1. Identify a realistic amount of time that you would like to do the thing for yourself that you identified.

2. Identify when you would like to start (the sooner the better).

3. Consider an accountability buddy or a support person (like a coach, friend, partner, mentor, etc.) to encourage you.

4. Do the thing. Just prior to doing your planned activity, assess how you’re feeling (energy, mood, stress level, etc.).

5. After doing it, assess how you feel. Do any of the things you assessed in step 4 feel different? If they are a little better, note that. If they aren’t, consider whether you’ll try this activity again tomorrow or choose something else.

This is where trial-and-error comes in. It doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you a human being experiencing a complex situation. With time and persistence, you’ll start to see changes.

If all of this seems too overwhelming to do alone, why not join me for an August 5-minute self-care wellness challenge?

I’m primarily doing this challenge over on Instagram with daily posts in my stories, but you can feel free to follow along here where I’ll post updates in my weekly posts.

It’s August 3rd already, but it’s not too late to start.

And, if you don’t feel like you can spend 5 minutes a day on yourself, I’ll leave you with a question I asked my coaching client recently:

“What is your current approach to life and work costing you?”

I’d love to hear how you’re spending your 5 (or more!) minutes on yourself in the comments of this post.