S2 E15: Setting up your intentional year
with burnout coach Lori Prutsman
Key Takeways
If you don't want to burn out, stop living, like you're on fire.
I felt physically depleted. I had a loss of joy and I just really felt detached from myself and really my own life calling. I felt empty, even though I had great relationships and friends and family and all of that. And I knew that I wasn't happy and I was always feeling panicked and really high anxiety.
I finally decided to focus on healing and took a medical leave of absence for three months. And wow that was the best three months of my life. I focused on me and me only, which was very hard at first. I didn't know how to do that. It was the need to be needed. And I just I felt like I was walking around a little bit, like a zombie. What's my purpose? Who am I? I had lost myself. I lost sight of my true self. Everything became about work. It was my whole identity.
With the woman I work with who are moms, I think the number one thing I noticed is that they are not present in their bodies, so they're not present physically or emotionally when I first start working with. So they're running their lives in their heads. It's all from the neck up. And of course their heart, because they're a mom and they love, but it's about love for others. Not love for themselves. And they've gotten so used to taking care of everyone and everything, but themselves.
You have to start with slowing and stopping for a minute just to recognize what is truly going on within yourself. And it's a critical time for you to be really real with yourself. what am I feeling right now? But the key to all of this is doing it without judgment.
We want to say things like, I don't have time for this. It's not important. It's not about me, but it is. Once you can recognize that, I think it's easier to start setting boundaries. Part of that is strengthening the work and private life barriers. So you can't always be on you can't always be available and you really have to take you time.
And oftentimes, women, it takes a while for them to even understand that they're in burnout because the emotional and the mental and the physical symptoms of burnout are often unseen. Or they just think, oh, maybe I'm just stressed out. Or maybe it's just an off day or off week, but if you're experiencing burnout or sensing it, that it's coming, the worst thing to do is to try to bury it and just carry on. It's not about pushing the feelings down, and trying to ignore them.
If you can prevent your own burnout and become more compassionate and empathetic with yourself, you can, have an outcome of joy and being present and being at peace and having connectedness. And you can really be happy and successful at work too. It actually can happen.
Every day you show up in this shell of a body. But inside is your head, heart, and your gut all three work together. So you can't just put one on the side and say today I think I'm just not going to go with anything in my head. I'm just going to do everything from my heart. And that's not going to show up very well. Or today I'm just going to be in my head and forget the fact that I feel hungry or I have a headache, or I don't feel well or I'm emotional. So it really is about getting my clients to just check in with their whole self. And ask the question, what do I need?
But everybody has this people pleaser. This need to be a perfectionist. This need to be driven. This need to provide. Be the smartest one in the room. All these things are about pleasing at the end of the day. It is about being able to say, let me get back to you. I need to check my schedule. I'm not sure if I can take that on right now. Versus sure, I can do it. Anything you want.
I've really learned to listen and respect my whole self, meaning my body, my heart, and my mind. And I know when something is out of sorts. I know how I act. I know when I'm stressed out, I know my behaviors, I know what I go to do. And so I will just, honestly, I take a slow down. I take a time out. I find that practicing gratitude really does support me and I don't push my emotions down anymore. I full on feel them. I express them. I questioned them. I get really curious about them. And then I support what I need.
Hey, my gut is telling me something here, right? If your whole self is giving you signs of burnout, you really should pay attention to that. That's the cue, that's the sign. And again, you don't know any of that until you can stop for a minute and slow down and start asking yourself questions, what's going on? Why am I feeling like this? I wonder what this could be? Without judgment.
What are some of the things that you think companies can do more often? First and foremost, address burn out. 5,000 exclamation points. Burnout does not have to be a dirty word. For the company to think about or, for the individual who's going through that burnout. We need to talk about it. We need to bring it to the attention of leadership. We need to start creating a culture where it can be discussed.
89% of those people surveyed have experienced burnout, 89%. That is a lot of people. 70% would leave their job for one offering resources to reduce burnout and employees feel uncomfortable talking to their supervisor about burnout. And by gender that's 30% of men and 42% of women. So I think there's plenty of opportunity for companies to embrace this topic. And devise a plan to help their employees, especially working moms so that they feel supported and not threatened in the workplace. A lot of the moms that I'm working with are sharing that they're scared to lose their jobs if they don't work as hard as the next person.
I'm clearly very passionate about burnout and the more we can talk about it and get it out in the open, I think the better off everybody will be.
I'm not big on new year's resolutions and that's only because I fail and I know I fail right. And then I get to beat myself up for it. And I'm pretty hard on that failure. Like a lot of people are when we fail, it's not good. They're usually big resolutions and they lose importance after January. It fizzles out. They don't feel attainable, even though they sound very bold and brave in the moment. They just don't work.
This is how I set up my year; your intentional year.
Start reflecting about the previous year and look at it and review. Break it down in terms of your personal life and your family life, look at things like your health. Look at things like your work, your studies, or your profession, your community, emotional and spiritual health, finances, even your bucket list.
Make some powerful statements to summarize that all up. Statements like the wisest decision I made last year? The biggest risk I took? The biggest surprise for the year, the most important thing I did for other people, the biggest thing I completed? What are you most grateful for? The best thing you discovered about yourself?
What do I want to let go of in order to move into the new year? Who or what needs to be forgiven in order to move forward?
Moving into the new year is looking at things like what are your big dreams? Block out the negative, block out the judgment, just dream. Think about things that you want to achieve, think about things that you dare to discover about yourself or others. What relationships do you want to work on? What will you have the power to say no to? What do you want to make a priority? How will you pamper yourself? Three things that you'll do for yourself every morning?
Break it down again into bigger statements, powerful statements for this year. This year I will draw strength from... this year will be special to me because of...
And give yourself a powerful word for the year. What is one power word for you that you really want to live into? And plaster that word everywhere: bathroom on a sticky note on my mirror. I have it in my car. I have it at my office.
Bio
Lori Prutsman is The Burnout Coach. A certified professional Integral and Enneagram coach, Lori knows that hard work equals success…until it doesn’t. That’s why Lori has dedicated her career to helping her clients abandon burnout and embrace authenticity.
Before leaving the corporate world to launch her coaching practice, Lori recruited top-talent for Fortune 500 companies like Amazon and Booking.com, managing global recruiting teams responsible for critical hires that drove long-term success and innovation. Today, Lori utilizes integral coaching techniques and the Enneagram to ignite personal and professional transformation in the individuals and teams she works with, giving them the space to dream big, set goals, and find the clarity they need to live more abundant lives. Her approach to integral coaching is comprehensive and intended to work with the whole person: mind, heart, and body.
Lori lives in the Seattle area with her husband and their cat, Harley. When she’s not coaching, you’ll find Lori, enjoying time with her family, planning her next big adventure, and exploring all that the West Coast has to offer on her Harley Davidson.
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