Speaker #0Welcome back to From Corporate Into Calling. Today we are gonna be talking about the thorny issue of burnout. Is corporate burnout blocking your career change? We're gonna look at the definition of burnout so that we really understand that we are not the problem, the corporate system is. We're gonna look at the ways that burnout is actually keeping you stuck inside the very system that is making you unhealthy. how it shows up even if you've already taken the step of quitting your corporate role. We're going to look at what really lies behind the burnout, what it's trying to tell us, the information that it's given us for the kind of changes that we need to make and most importantly we'll talk about what you can do differently to make sure that burnout is a thing of the past. If your career looks great on paper but feels wrong in your bones, you're not alone. Welcome to From Corporate to Calling, your lifeline into meaningful work. I'm Alyssa Murphy, a regenerative business mentor and former startup CEO who walked away from corporate systems to create work that brings life. Each week I share stories, reflections and provocations to help you recognize the signs of burnout and make a career change with purpose. If work looks good but feels wrong, this is your invitation to get out of corporate and into your calling. You can probably hear I'm not quite at my best. I have just got over my third bout of Covid, which was not fun, and my voice is still really cloggy, so apologies for that. It was interesting because I knew I wanted to talk about burnout this week just having had the experience of being laid up in bed for the last five days because for many of us that is just not an option when we work inside a corporate system and for many of us it's also not an option when those kind of corporate ideals and standards are still very strongly internalized. It's not easy for most of us to actually just rest and take care of ourselves. I'm probably at a stage now where I can accept it to a certain degree, where I certainly have a work-life set up that allows for a lot more ebb and flow, where I'm very human first in my work. I don't expect perfection of my clients and they don't expect it from me. We are all humans doing the best that we can and that is really the missing piece, isn't it, inside of corporate systems. It is just not built for humans doing what they need to do, going through life, dealing with the challenges of life. It really expects a kind of automaton-like perfection and consistency from each of us that is just not natural. And I think that's really at the root of this burnout topic that we're going to discuss today. Let's start with definition of burnout. So it's described as a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress, particularly from work. Interestingly, I think that burnout has started to be used in quite generic terms to mean that we're kind of run down and overwhelmed. but the World Health Organization for example defines it as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical malady. And I think what that tells us is the problem is not with us when we are experiencing burnout, the problem is with the system and the stresses that we are trying to operate within. And I think probably most of us know that academically, But that's probably not how we're internalizing it if we're going through the experience of burnout. Most of the people that I have spoken to who have experienced some degree of burnout, there's quite a strong degree of shame that comes with it. There's a strong sense that they just kind of weren't up to the task, that there was something that somehow broke within them. And I really want to contest. that idea because to me burnout isn't a signal of weakness at all. To me burnout is a strong signal from within. It's our internal wisdom telling us, screaming at us in fact, that we can't go on in the way that we are. That we are putting ourselves into a situation, into a system that cannot support us, that cannot bring us life, that will not no matter how many surface level tweaks that we make. And if we're really talking about burnout, those little tweaks like taking a personal day or, you know, a little bit more flexibility, they don't make the difference, they don't move the needle. We're talking about systemic problems here. What really makes a difference is stepping outside of that. corporate system altogether, rejecting it utterly and choosing a different way of working. But here's the rub. Choosing that different way of working, which I would define as choosing a regenerative work life, requires a great deal of internal resilience, of courage, of confidence. of energy. It really requires us to be at our very best and that's extremely difficult when we are experiencing even the after effects of burnout. So let's talk about the two different ways that burnout can actually really be entrenching us even more deeply into unhealthy the situations. So the first is if you are still in a corporate role, you're still inside of the corporate system and you are experiencing burnout. And by the way, I just want to mention as a caveat here that you don't have to wait until the point that you experience burnout. And I say that because I recognise that tendency in myself, less so actually in a work context. I do this more in a sort of parenting context. So I might allow myself to really get pushed to the brink, to really take on a lot of responsibility, get really overwhelmed, and I often find myself thinking, well, at some point I'll break, and then I can start fixing things. That is not the answer. We do not have to take ourselves to breaking point to recognise that we need to make changes. that we need to make system level wholesale radical changes in order to be well, to experience joy and satisfaction in the work that we're doing, whether that's as an employee or as a business owner or as a parent or just as a human navigating this world. So don't wait until you're at the point of burnout but If you are somewhere on that spectrum of burnout and you're inside of a corporate role, it can be very challenging to step back and get perspective on your situation, because it's probably taking all of your energy just to get through the day. I mean, when I think of what my day-to-day life looked like when I was at the peak, of my more conventional career as a CEO and founder. You know, I was working extremely long hours, I was commuting, I was in back-to-back meetings, I would, you know, at peak craziness, I would take taxis between meetings so that I could be on calls, because you couldn't do that when you're on the underground. You know, it was really relentless, and I was in the very fortunate position of loving my work and having quite a degree of control over the kind of workplace culture that I was in but it was still really exhausting, really overwhelming, very stressful at times and if your life looks anything like that in a work context the chances are that you've got very little space to step back, to take a breath and think is this work that I'm doing working for me? Is this how I want to spend my life? Is this healthy? Is this human? Because that is, those are big, big questions to ask. That is quite a radical process to undertake and it requires space. and stillness and reflection. It asks us to sit with difficult questions and if it's taking all of your energy and resources just to make it up in the morning and onto the train and into the meetings and meeting the deadline and on and on and more and more, it's extremely difficult to really question whether you want to be in the situation that you're in and that can mean that we just keep going through the motions. We just keep showing up to the office day after day. We just keep taking on the next project, the next responsibility. We show up to the next meeting, to the next call. Suddenly we're reporting on the next quarter and life is just passing us by and we're slowly descending deeper and deeper into that experience of burnout. And it's almost that exact burnout pattern that is entrenching us Into that role that we know really and truly we know deeply we don't want to be in anymore And there's another way that burnout can show up even when we have taken that courageous step of Quitting up not only our corporate role but quitting the corporate system is that when we do that Yes, we experience the immediate kind of freedom and liberation of okay. I'm not answerable to those people anymore, I'm not serving that organisation, I'm not tied to that routine that I was in before. But that doesn't mean that all of the ideals and standards and expectations that we've internalised being in the corporate world just somehow magically dissipate. For most of us, that corporate conditioning is alive and well within us long after we have actually taken the step of quitting our job and this is something I see with clients who are working inside the meaningful business incubator so these are clients that have quit corporate and are now taking steps to build their own life-giving business consultancy or whatever form of work that is going to sustain them bring them joy bring them a sense of purpose and allow them to have real impact. And at the same time as they are taking sort of practical steps of testing out an idea and starting to create an organisation and develop their offering, there is so much inner work to be done. Because the corporate conditioning will tell you all the way through that process that you have lost your mind. That what you're doing is frivolous or silly. and it can't be done and who are you to think that you could do this anyway and you will constantly be dealing with this voice that tells you that maybe you should just go and get a job maybe you should pick up a call when your old ceo keeps begging you to come back maybe it would just be so much easier if you just slotted into something that was familiar and it's very difficult to to work against that conditioning. It's why having a coach by your side is so essential because at least 50% of this work that we're doing is inner work alongside the strategic work of building a business. And it can also hold you back with actually having success with what it is that you're building because somewhere at the back of your mind is the thought, if this works, I'm going to be working really, really hard. If I successfully get this project off the ground. I'm going to be taking on A whole load of responsibility. I'm gonna be working really long hours. I'm gonna need to be at the end of the phone whenever somebody needs me. I'm gonna be on all the time because we just assume that being successful in our own business, in our meaningful business, is going to equate to what it looked like when we were at the peak of corporate productivity. We're gonna assume that it will mean high levels of stress and exhaustion, and and shouldering an awful lot of responsibility and doing it on your own. And this is when I finally get to the good news. Because no, that is not what it has to look like when you create a meaningful, regenerative business or consultancy. When you create work that brings you life and brings life to others around you, you never need to experience burnout. Because you are building work on your own terms. You are building work that puts humans at the centre of it. Like I said right back at the beginning of the episode, a corporate system does not have the time or space or even interest in the fluctuations and ebb and flow of what it is to be a human. But regenerative work does. It's the very heart of what we're doing. And you get to decide how you set this up. You get to decide what the objective is, what success looks like, how many hours you're willing to put in, who you want to collaborate with to create this, how you want to set up your organizational structures so it's not highly individualized or highly hierarchical, so that it's more community based, so that you can have people around you supporting you, so that you can do this in an entirely different way. joyful, soul-centered way. You get to decide. When you choose regenerative work, when you create a meaningful business, you get to decide what work feels like. Not only what you're doing, but how you're doing and how that supports you and how that works in beautiful reciprocity with the rest of your life. That is what is. available to you. But watch out for that burnout and how it's showing up for you right now. Please remember that you aren't the issue, the system is. And if you've been playing around with making little tweaks, little changes to what your workday looks like, maybe you've already switched roles or you've changed the organisation that you're working for and oh my goodness, You feel like you're going into the same pattern again. What is wrong with you that you're experiencing burnout again? Nothing is wrong with you. You are alive and well, and this is your body telling you. This is your wisdom, your spirit telling you, no, I do not want to exist with inside of this kind of system. Corporate life is not for me. It is not life. In fact, if that's where you find yourself, it's time. to make a radical and joyful change. If you are still inside of the corporate system, it's time to find the courage to quit. And I offer a single 90 minute, confidential one-to-one session to help you do just that. It's called Courage to Quit. And in that session, you and I will work together to create a personalized exit plan, not just from your corporate job, but from the corporate system as a whole. I know that's scary, that's why I created this session. We're gonna support your nervous system, we're gonna tackle those fears, we're gonna look at all of the practicalities so that you can make a really good ending and set yourself up for the next chapter of meaningful work. And if you are ready for that chapter, you've already taken that step out of corporate and you are taking your first steps into building meaningful work, creating your own life-giving business or offer, then I invite you to talk to me about the Meaningful Business Incubator. It's a really powerful program with a lot of one-to-one coaching but also community support where we will balance on the one hand all the strategic and practical steps that you need to design, test and launch your regenerative business but also all of the inner work that goes along with it so that you really are no longer controlled by all of that. corporate conditioning that you get to create work on your own terms and that you can truly find joy and satisfaction in your work. So take a look at the website for those different offers, the links are in the show notes and you can always reach me by email alisa, a-l-i-s-a at regenerativeworklife.com. I'm always open to a conversation with no pressure and no expectation. I just love to meet the people who listen to this podcast. Thank you for being one of them. If you've enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast so that you don't miss out on future episodes and maybe share it with someone else who needs that lifeline out of corporate and into meaningful work. I'll see you next week. If this episode of From Corporate to Calling was helpful or inspiring, follow the show so you don't miss an episode. And if you know someone who's questioning their career, send them this podcast. Lifelines are meant to be shared. Remember, you don't have to tolerate burnout or misalignment. You can redirect your skills into meaningful work that brings back life to you and to the world around you.
