How do I recover from burnout enough to find the next thing?

December 2, 2016 11:37 AM

I am more burned out than I have ever been. My organization is transforming in a way that will only make this worse. I am so burned out that I don't feel like I'm good at anything and I can't remember enjoying anything. I need to move on; however I don't want to jump into another role that is going to lead to the same end point. We've just been told no vacations will be approved until March. How do I get myself the space to recover enough from burnout to figure out where I should move to next? This post, like a Tardis, is bigger on the inside and full of special snowflakes.

My industry is fairly small although my skills (full-stack marketer with a number of tech skills and an ability to write) would probably make me hireable outside of this industry. A part of me wants to strike out on my own. But I've been struggling to build a business plan for my new venture; my job leaves me exhausted and drained all the time and I've been low-level sick (with some periods of intense illness) for the past three months.

Burnout level: severe. I often feel that there is nothing I am good at, that I am worthless, and that I should just give up and curl up in a blanket fort (except that I question my ability to build a blanket fort). I am often sick and always exhausted. However, I recharge quickly if I am not at work and am working on certain kinds of projects. Example: I didn't work much over the four-day Thanksgiving break and committed my Friday to helping a friend edit his book. By the end of Friday I felt revitalized, but within three hours of walking in the office door on Monday I was once again sapped of strength, cynical and dispirited, and by Tuesday I was sick again. My sleep patterns are disturbed and I'm getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I am normally an extrovert but I'm struggling with being around people. There are days that even texting my (incredibly supportive) partner or (also very supportive) bestie is more than I can handle.

I am in the mix for a high-level job at another organization. But in my heart of hearts I feel like any organization I move to will be as toxic as the one I'm at now. I moved to this job in order to escape mild burn-out at my previous organization and while it worked in the short term it has clearly had long-term problems.

My ideal life would be to take my marketing and tech skills and do short stints (six months to a year) at various organizations, either as an interim marketing head while they find the right permanent person, or as a project lead for things like website migrations, content realignments, etc. But I don't know how to get from here to there and I don't know how to figure out how to get to here from there.

I also have a startup idea that has legs, and when I think about building that project for someone else it excites me, but when I think of building it for myself it feels awful, somewhere between having to do an eternity of paperwork and having to clean up after 20 nursery-school kids and their shedding dogs. I'm having similar issues with other things; for example, editing my friend's book gives me life but when I try to edit my own I am filled with self-loathing and nearly unmanageable rage at myself.

We've been told officially that we're not allowed any "non-mission critical travel" between now and March due to looming deadlines. This includes vacation. So unfortunately I don't have much opportunity to create the kind of mental space I'd like to work on this issue. I also don't have the savings that would allow me to walk out and just spend a month thinking.

I recognize my parameters - not a lot of money and no time off in sight - are challenging. Does anyone have suggestions as to tools and processes I can use to figure out what my next step should be and what I really want to do? Self-assessments? Books I should read? I've tried therapy a couple of times, and the therapists I've seen have been great at patching me together enough to allow me to continue on in the situation I'm in for the past two years, but haven't helped me find tools to make a change. I feel like what I need more is a consultant who can tell me "yes, you objectively have skills in these areas and here are some next steps you can take." Is that what a life coach does?

Anonymous because several of my colleagues are on MeFi and if this got back to my boss my life would be made even more miserable than it is now.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (7 answers total)

The first thing I would do is see what kind of limits/parameters I could put around myself at work. Build up a wall of defenses (coming in on time and not early, leaving on time and not late, taking full lunch breaks, putting off non-essential work) that will give you even a modicum of breathing room at work.

Second, though vacations aren't approved, are days off? Could you schedule half-days on Fridays and Mondays to give you, in essence, a 3-day weekend? Can you use some sick time for mental health days to just not be at the office? Use that to your fullest potential.

Third, I would put off thinking too much about future plans just yet. Get through the rest of the year and concentrate on the now, rather than on what needs to happen next. It can become a feedback loop of sorts, wondering what the next step is going to be and fretting that you'll make the right choice. Sometimes, taking a step back and allowing that nothing will change (because you're deciding that nothing will change, not because of life circumstances, as such) can also be a bit of a pressure valve.
posted by xingcat at 12:37 PM on December 2, 2016

Could you go out on State Disability for 3 months? Less money but lots of time to recoup and figure out what you want to do. Requires a note from your Dr. Even a GP can put you out for depression, or whatever, for a period of up to a year in CA. Not sure about other states.
posted by cairnoflore at 12:41 PM on December 2, 2016

Knit at work.

I find that it takes about 5-7 minutes to eat lunch, and I spend the rest of my lunch break knitting. I also knit when I'm on conference calls. I'm new at it, so I'm just knitting a basic scarf - no need to count anything, easy peasy. It feels like meditating and fills me with self-liking and joy.
posted by vitabellosi at 12:42 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

First: hugs if you want 'em.

Second: I also came here to suggest the possibility of either sick days, a leave, or intermittent days off. Internet strangers can't and shouldn't diagnose much of anything, but you describe several hallmarks of depression or anxiety (feelings of low self-worth that you do seem to know are unfounded, poor sleep, recurring physical illness, etc.). If there is a mental illness component to this, having some time off or a reduced schedule that allows you to treat/recover -- part of which may mean figuring out What Comes Next -- is not the same as taking off for discretionary vacation travel. And, depending upon your jurisdiction, it may be something to which you are legally entitled regardless of your employer's lengthy ban on vacation approvals. Your GP or a therapist or psychiatrist would be a good place to start.

Also, if you have had some success with therapy in the past for other goals, you might want to consider going into either a past or a new therapist and framing your goal as you have here: you're not looking to weather the current situation, but rather to figure out your transition into a new one.

Finally, when I was in a similar position, a few minutes of meditation a day at work using an app like Calm.com's or Headspace was as effective as everyone who had been foisting meditation on me for months promised.
posted by LadyInWaiting at 1:03 PM on December 2, 2016

A) Learn to take better physical care of yourself. It won't fix the job situation, but it will make it more bearable. I learned to do this while raising special needs kids. I was chronically stressed out, chronically short of sleep and could not get away from them. A short nap, a bite to eat and a tall glass of water was often the difference between "I can't take this anymore!" and "the sun will come out tomorrow..."

B) I think you can happily edit for someone else but not yourself because you need outside feedback telling you that you did good. There are ways to get objective, outside feedback. It may help to pursue an activity with metrics that aren't subjective or relative and to track your performance so you can get some kind of perspective.

You want to do something with real world metrics, not measured by your boss's opinion. When everyone around you is being an ass, it is sanity saving to be doing something that stands on its own and doesn't need someone's opinion to prove you are on track.

You could even do this with your startup idea. But you have to be okay with that physics mentality of "fail fast." You have to be okay with getting feedback that tells you "Well, that didn't work." and then tweaking it and trying again. It can actually be really refreshing to do something like that in a way that allows you to put your blinders on to all the people around you telling you that you are a failure and a loser and whatever awful stuff you are hearing at work that you feel so burned out.

Do some research. Start a landing page to collect email addresses or whatever low risk, first step you can find for your startup. Come up with useful metrics -- like traffic, income, whatever -- that is not rooted in someone giving you their subjective assessment. You want some kind of hard numbers talking to you, not another human being and their opinion.

Best.
posted by Michele in California at 1:22 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't have much advice on the burnout, but at my place of work we have recruited interims for exactly the kind of work you say you'd like to try. We get all of ours from recruitment agencies, people just sign themselves up and fill in a CV. I think it's a really good way of transitioning from a burnout level job to freelancing. And signing up to recruitment agency is relatively low stakes. You might even find that it helps the burnout.
posted by plonkee at 2:01 PM on December 2, 2016

When I was at my absolute lowest point in my previous career and felt that my physical and mental health were in a precarious place, I found it very helpful to listen to a guided meditation during breaks. This would calm and restore me enough to keep getting through the day, until I could make some meaningful change for the long run. The Kaiser Permanente guided visualization podcasts are excellent, and you don't have to be a Kaiser member to use them.

(Ultimately for me, that change meant a complete career change and relocation with my family, and every day I wake up in my new place and thank the stars I did it. So I wish you all the best as you sort it through.)
posted by gateau at 2:34 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]