How To Find Time for You When You’re Burnt Out And Overwhelmed
Consuelo was struggling, big time.
Over the phone, it all came pouring out- the pressure she’d been under lately (stress was at an “11 out of 10” in her estimation), the sheer exhaustion every single day, the health problems that were mounting to the point that her doctor was now concerned.
She’d reached out to me because she was desperate for a break. Despite all that, she wanted to wait a couple months to “start”.
“Till things calm down and I can really focus on myself,” she said.
If this thought has ever come across your mind - that you need to “wait” to focus on you - you’re not alone. 💜
Most women who reach the point of burnout have a lot going on in their lives and struggle with finding the time to “focus on me”.
The unfortunate result is that burnout recovery becomes more and more distant. And if you never stop waiting for the craziness of life to subside, often your body will force you to do it with some sort of health crisis.
(Case in point: the crisis that finally led a client of mine to reach out to me for help was when she developed stress-induced shingles and was in so much pain she couldn’t sleep at night).
If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you do want to figure out how to focus on you.
You want to make more time.
You want to fully recover from burnout - and you want to do it as quickly as possible.
In this blog post, you’re going to learn the real reasons finding time to focus on your own wellbeing is so challenging, why you actually have a lot more power to create time for yourself than you think, and the exact steps women who succeed at finding that time follow.
But listen. This isn’t just about figuring out how manage your time and take care of yourself. It’s also about building the skills that will help you become the most effective leader you can be, positioning you for the next level of your career. It’s all the same process.
Why finding time for “You” can Feel so daunting - even when you know you’re burnt out and something’s gotta change
We’ve established that when it comes to finding time to start healing burnout, you’re not the only one struggling.
👉 “I’m too busy right now” is the number one story women tell themselves that ultimately holds them back from getting what they really want for their health, their career, and their life.
Part of it is this: change is scary, even when it’s change that we want! So your mind will come up with all sorts of reasons to keep you stuck in place and out of the scary zone. “I don’t have time” is one of those stories we tell ourselves.
—> BUT why is that story so powerful? Because of everything you’re dealing with and have been told about what it takes to recover from burnout.
First, Let’s be real: making time for “you” is hard when you’ve got so much going on.
Part of it is the reality of your calendar: it’s packed with meetings, to-do’s, and commitments.
And the other part of it is how you’re feeling about and reacting to those commitments.
When everything is “urgent” or an emergency that you believe must be solved by you? That’s a lot of pressure! No wonder you’re overwhelmed.
Add fatigue onto that overwhelm and the result is you’re operating far below full capacity. You’re barely getting the things done that are already on your to-do list! So the thought of adding one more thing - even if it’s something that’s fun, for your health, and would just take 10 minutes - feels like a heavy imposition, and rightly so.
Another reason it feels impossible to make time for yourself is that you’ve been taught that “time for you” requires carving out hours for yourself each day.
You’re taught burnout means you need to “rest” and do “self-care”. But since no one around you is really doing that, you’re left to model yourself after the 22-year-old social media influencer sharing her 3-hour daily self-care routine and perfectly organized refrigerator filled to the brim with colorful meals prepped a week in advance.
(I’m tired just thinking about that, sheesh!)
In other words, you’ve been sold a popular lie about what “focusing on you” really looks like in both time and substance- one that doesn’t account for the reality of your life as a professional woman who’s got serious responsibilities.
Similarly, you might believe that to recover from burnout you need distance from “real life”.
Like a sabbatical from work. Or a vacation. Or a wellness retreat.
(Side note: I dive deep into why these solutions never work in a separate blog post HERE.)
You may have friends or colleagues who have done this. And on the surface, it sounds logical that you’ll be able to spend more time taking care of yourself and learning stress management techniques when you’ve got less distractions and more time.
But here’s the difficult truth: you need to find a way to focus on you without the world stopping. And more than that, you need to learn to navigate all the craziness of your life, just as it is. (You can’t practice setting boundaries on vacation!)
Let’s explore how to begin doing that.
3 Shifts That’ll Open Up More Time to “Focus on You”
Good news: you CAN make time to do the things you need to recover from burnout. And you can do it WITHOUT taking a sabbatical or adding hours of self-care and rest onto your already packed to-do list.
It’s just a matter of shifting your mindset, taking action, and being open to learning new skills. At a high level, you need to…
Take Back Your Power💪
This one’s part tough love and part reality check.
It’s easy to look around, see other people with seemingly loads of free time to live their lives, going on trips, spending time with family, and wonder… “when do I get to do those things? When is it going to be easier for me?”
I hinted at this above, but if you wait for work and life to get easier, you’ll be waiting forever.
✨ You will have time to focus on you only once you decide that it’s your absolute priority.
When it comes to your health, your mental wellbeing, or creating better work-life balance, no one else is going to step up for you. Maybe your mom 😊 but that’s about it.
And I know what you’re thinking: “Easier said than done!” Yes, I agree.
That’s why you need to just start, and start small:
Example: for my THRIVE clients (women in my private burnout recovery program), making time starts with the small act of setting aside 45 minutes for us to have an honest conversation and put together a plan.
Obviously I believe getting some kind of support is crucial to sustainable burnout recovery (learn the reasons why HERE). But even if you’re going it alone, starting small could look like simply sitting down for 10 minutes in the morning to eat a decent breakfast, and doing that consistently.
Bottom line: You have more POWER than you think.
And fully breaking free from burnout requires you to start TAKING BACK your power over how you distribute your time, your energy, and your attention.
Which leads us to the second shift…
Learn the Skill of Discernment
One of the reasons you’re feeling so overwhelmed, exhausted, and time-poor is that you’re struggling to manage your time and your energy.
But this is not an innate ability. It’s a skill and you can learn and become better at with practice.
To be clear, I’m not talking about “time management” in the way most people think of it- like predicting how much time tasks will take, time blocking, putting tasks into checklists or a calendar, preparing, etc. Yes, that practical aspect is important, but it’s a surface-level problem.
💡 The deeper skill that undergirds effective time management is DISCERNMENT.
You must be able to clearly discern:
✔️ What’s a good use of my time?
✔️ What fuels me up?
✔️ What really makes an impact?
✔️ What are my priorities?
✔️ Where am I saying “yes” to people and tasks that are draining my energy?
And then you must take action - being a lot more careful about what you say “yes” to with your time, energy, and attention.
*Discernment is a crucial skill you must develop not just for burnout recovery but also if you want to be an effective LEADER and grow in your career. You can’t be constantly putting out fires while the big stuff that’ll actually make an impact gets ignored!
But discernment is also a skill that takes deep internal work to master. That’s where the third shift comes into play…
Conquer Your Patterns
Often, the time to focus on you never comes because you’re not ALLOWING it to come.
Busy, high-achieving women - especially those who find themselves in burntout - have a sneaky habit of making themselves busy, without even realizing they’re doing it.
—> Psychologists call this “chronic overfunctioning”.
Sometimes it happens from mistaking “busyness” with “productivity” - making us feel more ‘valuable’ when we’re occupied. And other times it happens out of:
🔸 fear / worry
🔸 guilt
🔸 shame
🔸 a desire for control
🔸 a desire to be liked or viewed as helpful or worthy
🔸 an “addiction” to stress or that feeling of being under pressure
If you want to be less busy and have more time- including time to “focus on you”- then you need to identify your unique patterns and stop letting them drain all your time and energy.
To be transparent, making these shifts is not easy (at least not on an emotional level). But it’s a necessary part of getting back your time and energy and banishing burnout.
So how do you do it?
How women Leaders put these shifts into practice - in THRIVE
In THRIVE, my burnout recovery coaching program, I help career-driven women open up more time in their life so they can focus on their physical and mental wellbeing, establish healthy work-life balance, and become more effective leaders in the process.
Obviously, we don’t do it by piling your already full plate even higher!
⭐️ Instead, the goal is to lessen your load, release some of the pressure you’re feeling, and make you better equipped to handle whatever gets thrown your way.
Here’s how my clients do it:
1️⃣ RefueL To Expand
When it comes to creating more time, we start from the premise that one of the main reasons you have no time is that you’re mentally and physically exhausted, and overwhelmed. Everything feels hard. Everything takes longer than it should. When you do have a little time to yourself, you just want to zone out.
So the first step you’ll take to expand your time is to expand your ENERGY, and do it as quickly as possible.
This is where foundational self-care comes into play.
I’m not talking about a 12-step morning routine, but just going back to basics: feeding yourself the food your body needs to operate, getting decent sleep, and moving your body, even if very gently.
❌ You’re not going to spend all day doing this stuff.
Together, we’ll strategize how to implement this foundational self-care, and even explore how you can offload some tasks to free up more time. (For example, ordering healthy meal delivery instead of putting the pressure on yourself to meal prep all weekend.)
Results usually come quick! And with your newfound energy, you’ll be able to move onto the next step…
2️⃣ assess your time & Energy
Using my Somatic Drains & Gains exercise, you’ll assess what in your life is currently draining your time and energy versus fueling it. This could include tasks, routines, and even relationships.
—> In this assessment process, you won’t rely just on your mind (i.e., rational thinking) to figure out what’s draining vs fueling you, but also learn how to listen to the messages coming from your body - something most of us have been ignoring for too long (and part of the reason we’re burnt out in the first place).
After you do this self-assessment on your own, we’ll discuss what you learned and identify what tasks in your daily life (at work and at home) are absolutely ESSENTIAL, and which are NOT.
Most women are tempted to conclude that “everything is essential and urgent!” But that’s the beauty of working with a coach who can challenge you on your assumptions. Usually, it’s things like fear, guilt, or a need to maintain control - not actual necessity - that lead us to take on more and more and stretch ourselves thin.
We’ll figure out what’s driving you take on so much, and then work to overcome it.
3️⃣ set BOUNDARIES!
This is where the real 🪄magic happens - where you free up a lot more time in your daily life.
You’ll set boundaries with yourself and others to eliminate or minimize things you identified as sucking up your time and energy, so you can devote yourself to what truly matters the most- things like your family, your health, or higher-priority tasks at work.
*It’s all about SUBTRACTION.
Together, we’ll strategize how to set those boundaries- whether it means delegating, saying “no”, having tough conversations, or establishing routines. And I’ll also teach you somatic tools to help you embody courage and follow-through when it comes time to stand your ground.
My philosophy on boundaries - and therefore on getting back your time - is that A) boundaries are about YOU (not other people) and B) 3 elements need to be in place in order for the boundaries to stick:
You need to take ACTION. You need to practice. And experiment. When you set a boundary, you get to see what happens- how does your energy change? Your mood? What opens up for you? Does any discomfort arise? That’s important data that can inform your next action steps- and the kind of thing we’ll strategize about and then debrief on in our biweekly coaching sessions.
You need to be intentional with your MINDSET. Self-awareness is important. Positive affirmations to hype yourself up about setting a boundary- and remind yourself why you’re setting it in the first place- are invaluable, especially when it comes to setting boundaries that challenge your normal way of doing things.
Some of the ways my clients do this work include setting reminders on their phone, posting sticky notes around their home or office, or establishing a daily journaling practice.
But thinking has its limits when your mind starts making up stories about why you actually DO need to stay late at work again, or say yes to helping with that project. To overcome those stories, you can’t just work with your mind- you need to work with the body, too…
You need to work on REGULATING YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM. Your nervous system is wired for safety. The old way you’ve been doing things - saying yes to everything, constantly putting out fires etc. - is “safe” because it is very predictable. The new way, with your new boundaries, is unfamiliar and therefore NOT safe.
Your nervous system will try to “protect” you from making the changes that you really do want to make, and this will come in the form of uncomfortable physiological sensations (e.g., upset tummy, tight chest) that your mind will then make up stories about, to get you to NOT set your new boundaries.
The key here is not to give in and fall back into old patterns. Instead, you need learn to regulate your nervous system and continue to take action that stretches your comfort zone, little by little. This is a BIG part of the work I help my clients do, and I draw from a variety of somatic and breathwork tools to help them do the work.
Putting it all together…
Remember my client Consuelo?
Well, she took the leap. Committed to start making time for herself, even if it meant only an hour a week at first, and even though her life felt out of control.
And a few months later, she was damn thankful that she did. Everything had changed.
Her health problems were gone. She was happier and able to deal with all the pressures of her life (even though nothing had really changed). And she’d gotten her mojo back and was in the beginning stages of founding a non-profit organization that she felt passionate about.
Point is, the time to focus on you does exist. Sometimes you just need a little help finding it. And the sooner you take that first step… the sooner you get to experience your own transformation into the leader inside you who’s energized, balanced, and burnout-free.
Ready to Start Focusing on YOU?
Are you a professional woman who wants to break free from burnout for good? And are you ready to take the courageous first step of making a little time to focus on you?
If yes, THRIVE was created for you.
THRIVE is my 1-1 coaching program specifically designed for women who want to escape the burnout cycle- but without giving up their career and other hard-won achievements.
Click the button below to learn more about it:
And if you know you’re ready to take action and it sounds like THRIVE is right for you, then it’s time for us to have a little chat!
Click here to grab a spot on my calendar.
When we talk, I’ll have you share all the details about what’s going on in your life right now (yes, finally someone is going to listen to you without judgement). I’ll then help you pinpoint the root causes of your burnout and put together a plan to move you forward- whether that means working together in THRIVE or something else entirely.
