Maren is the Founder & CEO of Arden Coaching and a certified executive coach. For almost two decades, she and her team have worked to create better leaders at all levels of global organizations, starting with the C-Suite. Arden Coaching’s focus is on how enhancing the human side of leadership is a strategic advantage. They regularly work with senior leaders experiencing burnout.
Today, we’re talking about midlife burnout and my five tips for addressing it.
We are definitely seeing a lot of executive burnout. The world moves fast and with great uncertainty these days, and for many leaders there are no boundaries on their work. So for many, that’s unsustainable.
What is midlife burnout?
I think of burnout as utter depletion, an emptiness or a lack. It’s not the same as stress or overwhelm. It’s not busyness or being tired.
Burnout is the car that won’t run. It’s the fire pit with no fuel or the knee that’s bone on bone. It requires immediate attention and there’s no alternative. Someone experiencing burnout is at the end of options and something has to change.
If you’re unsure whether you’re experiencing burnout, learn how to recognize the signs of burnout.
Tip 1: Declare a Breakdown
My first tip for addressing burnout is to declare a breakdown.
There’s a difference between a car that’s running with a check engine light on and one that’s completely broken down on the side of the road. So proactively declaring a breakdown for yourself gives you the permission to address the burnout immediately and with the attention that it deserves, rather than essentially keep driving around hoping you don’t break down on the highway.
This is stepping back and giving it the time it needs. Even when you don’t have time, think of it like your car just blew a tire on the freeway. You have to deal with it, and it has to be now.
Related: Learning From Breakdowns
Tip 2: Triage
The second step is triage — removing whatever you can from your schedule or responsibilities.
It may not be forever, but for now, it is not the time to take on a new puppy or volunteer job. You have to be ruthless about cutting things out.
This is where you call in favors and learn to delegate, where you hire extra help or break into the emergency fund. It’s about being vulnerable enough to reach out to someone and say, “I need your help.”
Having a friend with you for this part is helpful. They can push you to let go of more than you would on your own. Because, let’s face it, if it were easy to do without them, you probably would have done it already.
Tip 3: Know What Motivates You and Do More of It
The third tip is knowing what motivates you and doing more of it.
Burnout results not just from stress or volume, but from no longer being in touch with the motivation or the passion for something. So you need to identify what truly lights you up.
This is where you can get help from a coach, from a therapist, from a friend. Make sure your life aligns with those things.
Have you given up a favorite hobby or a sport that you could revisit? Do you wish your job had more of the elements that it used to? What are the values and priorities that are no longer expressed in your work or life?
Don’t look at it theoretically. This is where you take stock of just the facts. If you say you love music and value art, but you never play the radio or go to a museum, then you’re not doing the things you say are important to you.
Related: What to do When Motivation Fades
Tip 4: Don’t Overlook the Little Things
The fourth tip is: don’t overlook the little things.
We all have plenty of things that wear us out little by little — the traffic, the messy kitchen, that friend — but we rarely stop to think about what might restore us in small ways.
So make a list. The longer the better, but at least 10 things, and arrange to purposefully add those things into your life.
These can be very small: flowers in the hallway, calling a friend on your commute home, walking outside at lunch. If you’ve identified things that truly fill your cup, make sure you get enough of them.
It’s essential to your comeback-from-burnout plan. Keep a checklist and be sure you’re adding those things in at the right cadence — daily, weekly, monthly — whatever will actually make a difference.
Not only to keep your cup full, but remember you’re coming back from depleted, so you have to get to zero first. So extra, extra, extra.
Tip 5: Step Back to Regroup
Lastly, step five is stepping back to regroup.
By the time we’re in midlife, we’ve made a lot of choices to get us where we are. Sometimes these are just tiny left turns one after the other that leave us far off the course that we intend — and that can leave us feeling burned out.
So take an honest inventory. Again, get a thought partner if you need — coach, therapist, friend — and see if more extreme correction is needed.
Is this time to move house or change job or relationship?
Be courageous and take the steps.
Related: Don’t Know Your Authentic Self? I Didn’t Either. Now, It’s Changed My Life.
Get support
If you are experiencing burnout or think you might be getting close, you might consider executive coaching. Tailored for C-level executives thru director-level, our one-on-one sessions improve the human side of leadership. With our cohort of diverse, deeply experienced coaches, we fuse insight, action, and undeniable results.