Pay yourself first: could this be part of the answer to avoiding burnout?

What is different about those busy people who despite juggling heavy workloads and many commitments outside work manage to not just survive but also thrive?

I know from my own personal experience and from my coaching conversations with many individuals that they are not superhuman productivity machines. However, they do have some things in common, one of which is...

They pay themselves first in terms of time spent on what brings them joy or keeps them well. This often comes in the form of finding their opposite world which is a form of active rest.

I spent many years in senior high pressure roles in the worlds of health care, local government and education whilst also studying. Like many of my clients, when I was on the hamster wheel of busyness, I would just work harder trying to get more done. Instead of stopping at a reasonable time of day when I should have done, I would just carry on for ‘just one more hour’…and then another. This meant I often postponed catching up with friends, missed family events or going to yoga/for a run, all things that would have actually helped my nervous system to reset and concentrate better the following day.

It didn’t help if someone told me to take a break or rest (as most of my family did). I told myself they didn’t understand how much I had to do. If I was sitting still, I was thinking about work – although not in a stressed way, I have been lucky enough to really enjoy all my jobs. But I wasn’t switching off and sometimes my brain felt as if it was going to short circuit which meant I wasn’t always as productive as I liked to think I was.

But what I learned over the years, and is backed up by research, was that if I wanted to carrying on enjoying my work and being productive but NOT at the expense of the rest of my life, I needed to reframe my mindset and swap a few priorities around. I found a way to continue to work hard and effectively but also thrive in my life as opposed to just surviving each week and ending up exhausted at the weekend and just hanging on for my next holiday.

Now that I’m self employed, statistically, I’m at high risk of burnout because basically, I’m it! Coach, facilitator, content developer, marketer, administrator, accountant, social media poster and networker for People Like Me Coaching Consultancy. I need to work hard to pay the bills without a supporting infrastructure so it would be very easy to slip into work, work, work and exhaust myself. But I learned my lessons and know how to thrive in my work and at home and have many strategies that I put it into practice. One of these is to pay myself first using the following two approaches:

1.        I found my ‘opposite world’: Nick Petrie (leadership researcher) and his team in their extensive recent research around burnout and factors that protect you from it uncovered this concept from a term used by one of their research participants. Here is an excerpt from an interview between Nick and Dr Rachel Morris of (https://youarenotafrog.com) where Nick recounts the story of talking to this individual who had experienced burnout in the past and had discovered a better way of working...

“...what I discovered after I burned out is I have this work ethic and I just couldn’t switch off. I’m always on and I’d go to work, I’d be in my head solving problems. Then I’d come home in the evenings and I’d have dinner, but then I’d still be up in my head logic solving problems. Then I’d do some emails and I was really still in work mode. Then I burned out. I realised I needed to do something to, to just switch off my work identity.

I tried some different things, but I discovered Argentinian tango. In Argentinian tango, it is the oppositeof my work world. You need to be in your heart and you need to be in your body. Two places I rarely am during my workday, I’m up in my head in logic. Second, the currency in Argentinian tango is the opposite of my work. No one cares about where you work. No one cares how much money you make. No one cares what your job is, even if you have a job. The only thing they care about is can you dance?  I’m with my partner. There’s all this community there. And then I get to the end of the night and I’m just sweating and I feel great, and I go home, sleep well. He said the next day I wake up and I just, I feel really recharged again to go back to my other world. He said, it’s like it’s my opposite world”.

I found my own opposite world in writing fiction or travel blogs. Nothing to do with my day job at all. My coaching practice means I am with people all the time and listening intently so I love the solitary nature of writing. It’s more than though. I also love the new community it has brought me. I attend writing classes, retreats and participate in writing groups. Nobody talks about work. Nobody talks about roles or status and I lose myself in the fictional world I am creating.

 I talk about opposite worlds with clients and what this might be for them. For some, it is attending a craft group or a choir. For others it is some form of physical activity or learning about something they have always been curious about.

What might your opposite world be?

2.        I indulge in active rest to manage and maintain my energy: I often listen to the ladies from ‘Squiggly Careers’ on their podcast (https://www.amazingif.com/listen/ ) and love their concept of ‘active rest’. This is an activity, similar to the opposite world that consumes your attention and helps you switch off from other demands and distractions. I’m not good at sitting still and ‘resting’ but I get huge benefits from immersing myself in new experiences, whether that is taking a history of art course at the arts centre (loved that this year), literature courses, walking mindfully in nature or travelling on active trips (just back from another walking trip in Italy). I may not be ‘resting’ in the traditional sense but I know what brings me joy and I actively timetable that in and it gives me a mental energy boost.

These activities replenish me in a way that lying down for half an hour never could (although I still like a good Netflix binge on a crime drama or losing myself in a good book). It also reminds me who I am outside of my work role and what I love.

What is your form of active rest and how could you fit more of it into your week?

So, I’m inviting you to get excited about something you want to do that is really different from your work life but perhaps you have deprioritised this.

It’s not selfish to find your opposite world. It’s a priority for you, your work, your health, your relationships...your life.

How can YOU pay yourself first?

If you want a conversation about this – get in touch!