Becoming: The importance of doing less and being more

Burnout Culture

If you’ve ever experienced burnout, you’ll know that there is a deep feeling of resentment that sits within your gut towards basically everyone around you. Every day you wake up, say a new morning mantra to get you through the day, in hopes that “today will be better than the last”. However, every time you end your day, you reflect on more of your bad moments than the good. This usually leads to a lot of therapy sessions, chats with friends, and ultimately a decision to leave a job for a better one.

What I’ve found— hopping from job to job, is that getting better at expressing your “boundaries” doesn’t just magically make the burnout go away. So after the 3rd resignation in my career, I decided to get really curious about my continued cycle of burnout.

Turns out, burnout wasn’t something that was happening to me, it was happening for me. I know thats a cliché statement, but its true. Burnout is simply a way of your circumstances reminding you that your priorities are in the wrong place. When we overwork ourselves to exhaustion, we have to ask “what am I allowing into my day that is causing me overwhelm and anxiety”? “What am I saying yes to that is causing me to say no what’s most important”?

The only way we can answer these questions is if we’re really clear on our values, our responsibilities and our priorities.

“Doing” doesn’t always equal success

If our calendars are filled to the brim, we don’t have room to take an hour lunch break, and can’t remember to eat three meals a day, well— there’s something much deeper at play than chalking it up to “busyness”.

High performers & people who are most successful in their jobs— seemingly climbing to the top of the ladder year after year, all have one thing in common; they know how to prioritize really well.

As humans, we’re only really equipped to prioritize 2-3 things a day. And one of those three priorities is supporting our own physical bodily needs like eating, breathing, going to the bathroom and sleeping; which means the other two priorities in a day must be incredibly strategic. (And spoiler alert, if you don’t prioritize your physical needs, your mental, emotional and spiritual life will take a hit).

We live in a culture that says “we must put in the work in order to see results”, “we must be consistent otherwise our content won’t go viral”, “we must hustle in order to make it on our own”. But who says that producing results, going viral, and becoming an entrepreneur is what defines success in this world?

If your success is defined on your output, you’ll never find true fulfillment in this life. I’m sorry, but its true. When you die, no one will remember what you did, what you sold, or what you produced. They will only remember how you made others feel, how you showed up, and what you said that impacted their life.

When I stopped jumping from job to job hoping my burnout would disappear, and started to look deeply at how I was showing up, I realized I was quick to react, always looking for solutions instead of enjoying the process, and as a result, was snappy with all of my co workers around me. I was doing this because I was basing my success off of how much I could do in one day vs who I could become. But reality check— when you rush through life especially at work, you either a) end up having to re-do what you did later down the line… or b) you are seen as someone who isn’t collaborative & open minded, therefore leading to overly critical performance reviews at the end of the year.

It was only once I realized that doing less, and becoming more in my job was the only thing that would decrease my cycle of burnout and in return position me as a strong leader.

“Becoming” is what you were created for

So how does one “do less” in a world that says “doing more” is better? And how do we “become more” in a world that says “your transformation is only half of who you are”?

The answer lies in three things:

• Purpose

• Values

• Mission

First, our purpose is not something we do— its who we are becoming. Once you realize this, you can stop looking for things to do and instead focus on who you want to become every day. Point blank, your purpose is NOT defined by what you do in this lifetime.

Second, our values are a compass to our souls deepest desires. In order to discover yours, give yourself the prompt “people upset me when____” and fill in the blank.

If people upset you when they don’t follow up with you, then you probably value reliability. If people upset you when they aren’t considerate of your feelings, then you probably value empathy. If people upset you when they don’t acknowledge your efforts, then you probably value appreciation. If people upset you when they don’t wash the dishes after they ate a dinner you cooked for them, then you probably value service. To take this a step further, usually your values stem from your greatest fears. So in this example, somewhere in this persons life— reliability, empathy, appreciation and service were compromised at some point, therefore they became a value that they live by.

Once you can identify your values, it really helps you align to the right people, places, jobs and scenarios because it becomes really easy to say no to people, places, jobs and situations that compromise them.

The final step to becoming more and doing less is establishing your mission. If becoming stems from sticking to your values and honoring them every day, then it becomes easy to create a mission statement for your life. Your mission in this life will always be connected to something bigger than yourself. It will help you to serve others in some capacity through how you show up and how you make others feel. (Again, NOT in what you do).

Doing less, starts by becoming more. Try it on this week, and instead of creating a massive to-do list for yourself, start with “who do I want to become today?” Maybe you answer ends up being “I want to become someone who is unhurried” or “I want to become unapologetically independent”. Whatever the answer is, insert that person into your tasks & priorities, and watch how your work day makes a shift for the better.

Becoming more takes practice and ultimately time. Time to un-do many years of conditioning and false narratives. But once you start doing it, I promise it will change the way you see your work, and how you show up, which will in turn keep you from the cycle of burnout.

Want to discover your purpose statement, values or mission? Schedule a 1:1 here.

Cheers,
Nicole

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