# Recommendation 2 — Invest in your own well-being

- **Episode:** [21](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/21.md) (2023-01-13)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** burnout, wellbeing, self-care
- **Time:** 31:32–39:15 (start 1892s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/21?t=1892](https://truthliesandwork.com/21?t=1892)

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[31:32] Leanne Elliott: One of the things that I do ask people to look out for is high levels of resentment. This, to me, is the key to everything. If you are getting an email from a particular person, and every single time you get an email from that person, you roll your eyes and you sigh really loud and you think, oh my God, this person again? What else could they possibly need from me? If everything that happens during the day is the straw that broke the camel's back and just sends you into it, you had your to-do list and somebody put one extra thing on it, one extra thing that's literally like you have to write back Tuesday at 2 o'clock, but it throws you over the edge
[32:11] Al Elliott: Yeah
[32:13] Leanne Elliott: That's a really bad sign. If you are someone who typically enjoys service and being of service to people, but you're mad at everyone, can't get out of your own way, and really don't feel like helping people right now, that's a bad sign. And all of those things are rooted in resentment. So if you find yourself feeling really resentful and feeling that you are giving much more than you're getting, Yeah. You are at very high risk for experiencing burnout soon if you're not already deep in it. We're in the middle of some research at Oblong at the moment on the relationship between leadership behaviours and employee wellbeing. And an early finding that's really surprised me that employees are really, really keen to see in their leaders is that are their leaders investing in their own wellbeing, in their own mental health? Not only is it going to be beneficial for you to invest in your wellbeing, invest in your own self-care, that's also going to reflect really well with your employees. That, that's what they want to see in their leaders. That's what's going to help boost their engagement and their wellbeing as well. It all comes down to being that great role model. So if this resonates with you and you want to start investing more in your own wellbeing, Kate offered some advice as a starting point. I think the steps are Number one, foundational self-care. When I say self-care, I don't mean pedicures and baths. What I mean for foundational self-care is pee when you need to pee, drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry, move when you need to move, stand when you need to stand, sit when you need to sit, rest when you need to rest
[33:55] Al Elliott: Yeah
[33:57] Leanne Elliott: The basic thing that you need to be put— that needs to be put into place in your life for you to recover from burnout is a sense of safety. When your alarm system has been going off your whole entire life, it's convinced you that every situation that you're in is unsafe
[34:12] Al Elliott: Yeah
[34:12] Leanne Elliott: When you are recovering, your job is to increase your body's sensations of safety. Your body is going to feel safer If you give it what it needs when it needs it. So I think the very— and people often want to skip this step and ignore these things. We laugh about it on my podcast all the time. My podcast listeners will walk around the world saying, pee when you have to pee. You know, it's like, it's, it's a sort of an inside joke that we have with one another, but it is one of the truest things that I've ever found and something that no one is talking about when it comes to burnout
[34:51] Al Elliott: Yeah
[34:52] Leanne Elliott: If you are not telling your body that you are going to show up for it, it is not going to feel safe. If you don't feel safe, your brain cannot recover the way that it needs to. So this is number one, foundational self-care. Kate's raised a really important point there. Foundational self-care is so important. She also talked on part one with her own experience of burnout, how she engaged a coach and a therapist. So here's Will with some advice on identifying which type of support what you need. I think with a coach, if somebody's starting to feel kind of burnt out and they're just noticing a kind of listlessness setting in and they're really just kind of not feeling like themselves and no longer seem like they have the same passion or excitement about work, but more or less they're doing fine, they're still functioning, they're getting things done, Yeah. I think that's where coaching is more appropriate. And I think when somebody's getting burnt out to the point where they're really struggling to get by, that's when looking at therapy is better, right? So I've seen people where they're kind of burnt out to the point that they're not sleeping well. Their health is starting to suffer. Their family's just noticing you're not the same person you used to be. That's when it's like probably your mental health is suffering at a level that you really need to talk to a mental health professional. I mean, there's a lot of discussion of different, whatever, coping strategies, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness
[36:44] Al Elliott: Whatever
[36:44] Leanne Elliott: I think those are all important. But for me, the core issue is that this person is having a crisis of meaning, that they have sort of lost the thread. They no longer have this vision for their life and for who they are and for where their life is headed. And kind of tying that back in with what we were talking about earlier, This is why I think the kind of cynicism piece from a mental health angle, I think, is one of the most important to look at with burnout. Because if you've lost hope, you've lost everything, right? I mean, there's no point in even getting into how do we meditate or whatever if you just feel like there's no—
[37:37] Al Elliott: Hope
[37:38] Leanne Elliott: hope for your future, right? So for me, I think one of the first things I really look at in therapy with a person is reattaching them with their sense of purpose, right? And this can be not just with work, but with life more generally. So we'll look at their strengths, we'll look at their values, and I'll Yeah. I like to ask people about when did you feel most alive? When you look back, what were these peak experiences in your life and in your career where you just felt like, I'm doing what I was meant to do? And I like to kind of break those down and really look at what was happening in those experiences and how can we kind of restore that? How can we bring What was going on then into the present moment. And from there, kind of once we've identified what was happening in those kind of peak moments, that's when I might get into more of, you know, starting to get into, you know, coping strategies. Let's start developing a plan to sort of put some of these factors back into place for you
[38:57] Al Elliott: Yeah
[39:00] Leanne Elliott: Uh, but, but for me, I think the question of meaning is, is what's most important and, and really kind of helping that person feel a sense of hope for, for their career and, and just for themselves
[39:11] Al Elliott: That's some really good advice there for investing in your own wellbeing. Let's go on to the 3rd point