What I Learned From My Last Burn Out
I think I never actually talked about this publicly, but 2023 was really tough for a lot of reasons. Financially, as a company -- due to the economy it was tough; personally and emotionally it was tough; and overall, it just was not the best year -- which is fine; it happens and is a part of being a business owner. But what I can think about the most is how much time I spent burnt out last year and how it affected me physically, emotionally, and mentally. As this year has started and I had a week off to reset in December, I finally was able to feel drastically better, and hopefully, talking through my journey helps another.
Let me set the stage a little bit - we all juggle a lot of roles, but I think it's important to know mine and where I was at with all of them so I can take you back to why I was burnt out.
Work: I am an entrepreneur - the founder of a marketing agency that is now four years old (isn't that crazy?) and in 2023, I had 3 W2 full-time employees and 2 part-time employees, along with 2 agency partners. At any given time, we have between 25-30 active clients, and we offer customized packages per client. We also handle events and launches, which involves mostly me traveling all over the country. For this reason, in any given month of 2023, I was at home maybe a total of 7-10 days. Along with my daily calls, I am constantly networking, connecting people, going to events, in meetings, and more, so basically - always on. On average, on a daily basis, I am in about 8-10 meetings. In addition to my job, I have a separate company with my parents, I volunteer my time with non-profits, advise, take mentorship calls, and foster collaborations.
This is not to glamorize the hustle at all - but this is simply just a list of everything on my plate.
Family: I live at home with my parents and am very close to them. My brother also lives close by, and during most of 2023, my grandparents were also here living with us. I love spending time with my family, and my parents also have a fairly active social life, so we are always interacting with our masjid community, family friends, or with each other, whether it's going out to eat, or to the movies, etc.
Friends: I am someone who tries to be present with my friends as much as possible. I can be a terrible texter, but if you call me, I will 90% of the time answer or send a text back if I can't answer. I am proud to say that though I don't see all of my friends often, I have kept in touch with all my long-distance friends and ones that live close to me as well. But this is also effort and work that I have been putting in, so whether it's daily or a couple of times a week, I am catching up with any one of my close friends. With my travel - it made it easier for me to see my long-distance friends, so with my travel schedule, I would always make it a point to reach out to all my friends who I wanted to catch up with. There was a strain among 2 major friendships I had in 2023, and I feel like that also contributed to my stress levels.
So now that I have set the stage, I guess what you can get from this is I am present, and that's the thing I have definitely put a lot of pride in myself with. But what I realized was with being present with everyone else, I wasn't really present or there for myself, which I think has been a huge reason for burnouts in the past and this past 6-month burnout.
I have always LOVED the holidays and holiday season, but this year by the time we got to October, I could feel myself being done. The excitement was just gone, and I still had 3 travel trips left, a couple of projects to wrap up, and figuring out some really hard business decisions as well as finances. When I am stressed or anxious, I tend to sleep a lot, which meant that I was sleeping a lot but was not waking up rested, and because of how much I was sleeping, I really had no time to create a routine and always woke up in a panic.
Step 1: Usually, the first step when you feel a burnout coming is to take a break, but when you're an entrepreneur, you can't really take a break sometimes, and this for me was one of the periods where a break was not an option.
Step 2: Look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Toward the end of October, when I was at the height of my stress, I realized that I had a 5-day break coming up over Thanksgiving and then another 10-day break coming up at the end of December, so I focused on those 2 milestones as I was getting through my travel to LA, NYC, and the rest of my work before the EOY. This really actually helped because it reminded me that there was an end.
Once we got to the holidays, I evaluated what the contributors were to my burnout, and it really was the fact that as an inherent introvert, I never had time in a day for myself, and really that's what I needed. I found that because I was so present with work, my family, my friends, and more, my personal tasks that made me feel like I had it together, such as laundry or working out or having time to read, were all getting pushed to the side and inherently taking forever. Those tasks were all piling up in my head as major to-dos, and the more they got pushed back, the more stressed I became despite how much I was getting done with work/relationships. At first, I put a lot of blame on my businesses and thought that they were the cause of it all, but when I stepped back, I realized that it was not the case. I started my companies so that I could dictate my time and have that flexibility, but the time that I was dictating was all going to other people, and I just was not prioritizing myself.
So this is how we got to the idea of 2024 becoming about HANI, aka me. The week after Christmas, I did all the major tasks that were cluttering my brain, starting with cleaning my brushes, organizing and clearing my closet, making my vision board, doing a relationship audit, and putting down my goals for the new year. You'd be surprised at the wonders that did for my brain and burnout... and then I got the flu. Looking back now, the flu was essentially a way to force my body to take the rest I had been craving. Being on a flight or train every week gets to you honestly, and it seemed like my body just needed me to veg out in my bed for a couple of days, and I came back more energized than I had been in the last 6 months.
Now the question remains, how am I improving my habits so the things in my life do not lead me to this state as quickly as it has in years past?
Prioritizing myself and my needs
This is the biggest one for all aspects of my life. I have put in place a morning routine that I do most days a week, which gives me time for myself to do things as I want to do them, so whether it's me responding to emails and then going to work out or it's me having time to catch up on TV/watch a show, or if I am sleeping a little extra. Now I have built 3 hours into my morning and 2 hours at night where no one is speaking to me, and I am in full control.
This does start the night before, so I put my phone on "personal mode" as soon as I leave my desk. I also have my notifications turned off, and so this gives me the ability to decide if I have the capacity to take personal calls or texts at that moment. If I have had a day with meetings every hour and do not have the social battery anymore, then I don't have to answer. Obviously, if it's an emergency, I will, but this creates the separation that I don't have to be on all the time for anyone.
The couple of wellness things I implemented that have helped me are:
Working out 5-6 times a week when I am here in MD (and having a travel routine for workouts depending on location) - It helps to find workouts you like, so for me, it's SoulCycle, Solidcore, and Rumble.
Waking up around 5:20 am and having the entire morning to myself
Reading - I want to read 52 books this year, and I already have read 6. This was just a lifestyle switch I had to make, and it was hard in the beginning, but now it is something that's been a habit. Instead of picking up my phone when I am relaxing, I pick up my book. I also have a book in my purse, so when I am waiting for an appointment, instead of doom-scrolling, I read.
Saying no more often and not feeling guilty about it
Including work stuff, I have always operated at 120% or tried to even if I am not feeling that way. Events in my industry happen all day every day, and some weeks I would be in LA and NYC in the same week attending things I thought I had to. In my personal life, I would say yes to family friend events or plans with friends if I felt guilty for not giving enough time. No more of that. For work, I am only prioritizing things that I really want to do or have to do. I also evaluate it on the basis of will this add value for things that aren't required, and I really make sure what I say yes to fits into criteria that I have set. For my personal life, the biggest thing I have done is avoid feeling guilty - if I cannot make it to the masjid, I will say no. Having an equal balance between saying yes and prioritizing certain things with both work and personal has really helped avoid guilt and prioritizing.
Committing to less than what I can do
With operating at 120%, I wanted to go above and beyond for everything, but the other party never realizes that's happening. So with that being said, I started to be more realistic with my contracts at work and with my commitments in my personal life. I know I can operate at 120%, but I now choose to do that for special occasions and try to operate at a reasonable level for the expectation at hand.
Seeing people as they are and having zero expectations
I will preface this with I am really lucky and have some amazing people in my life, but I had to put my own boundaries up for someone who didn't have any.
Speaking of expectations, I did a huge relationship audit and just found that not only was I always available for my friends, but that some of my friends were not matching up even close to the effort that I was giving them, and that's because I had made it too easy. So with reclaiming time for myself, I started to match the energy people were giving me - and of course, it's not always equal, but it shouldn't always be unequal either. If I found that I was always the one reaching out, then I just took a step back because a phone does work both ways. If I found that I hadn't given something enough time, I allocated my energy to that person. I am still learning, and I am not perfect at this, but I have found that by matching my energy and expectations to what the other person is giving me, I am a lot happier, and sometimes the other person doesn't even notice I am doing less.
All in all, burnout comes and there's no way to avoid it forever, but there are ways to be more calm and less anxious. For me, this journey has been about identifying the cause of my stress buildup and finding ways to combat that, and as you may see, it's mostly not work-related, which was surprising to me.