112 - Slowing Down & Refining my BURNOUT BASELINE

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Summary

In this episode, I want to talk BURNOUT BASELINES and how I’m redefining her baseline for burnout and stress. Us high achievers often struggle with slowing down and doing nothing. Today, I want to dive into MY experiences with disconnecting and finding moments of true relaxation. We’ll explore strategies I have been implementing to redefine her burnout baseline and the importance of grace and compassion as we approach this…

For show notes, head to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠coachellyn.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and, of course, follow me on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠OR check out my ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more!

Takeaways

• High achievers often struggle with slowing down and doing nothing.

• Disconnecting and finding moments of true relaxation is essential for redefining the burnout baseline.

• Strategies like batching tasks, single-tasking, and setting boundaries can help redefine the burnout baseline.

• Giving oneself grace and compassion is crucial during the process of redefining the burnout baseline.

Sound Bites

"Sometimes it's not about how we respond to the busy seasons. We're all high achievers, we're all high performers, we're go-getters. In a lot of ways, I feel like we relish the busy seasons."

"We struggle when we are asked to slow down. We struggle when we are asked to do nothing. We feel anxious almost. Like somehow the slow is toxic or dangerous to us."

"I was able to disconnect in that. In some respects, I was still filming and vlogging, which in some ways I'm kind of okay with, but I also kind of wish in some ways that I could have turned that off."

Resources

• Check out the Burnout-Proof Business Bootcamp for help with these things!

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Drop a comment below…

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TRANSCRIPT:

Ellyn Schinke (00:01.006)

Hello, my friend, and welcome back to episode number 112 of the Burnout Proof Podcast. I'm really excited today because I had this idea to talk about this from another podcast I was listening to, my coach's podcast actually, Crying Burns Calories by Katie Saltzman. And it really got me thinking, especially with some awarenesses that I was having last week about how I really want to redefine my baseline, my baseline for burnout, my baseline for stress, and...

how I'm trying to go about doing that. So let me give you some context for what I mean when I say redefining my baseline. I've kind of realized more and more that sometimes it's not about how we respond to the busy seasons. We're all high achievers, we're all high performers, we're go -getters. In a lot of ways, I feel like we relish the busy seasons. We relish the productivity, the worthiness, the enoughness that comes with it. We relish the ability to get shit done, to show what we're worth.

I'm realizing it's less about how we respond to the busy seasons and more about how we respond to the slow. Think about the last time you were on vacation, the last time you took time off. How did you handle that? How did you handle the time off? How did you handle doing things or not doing things? How did you handle doing nothing? Because I would argue that for most of us, for most of us high achievers, for most of us high performers,

We struggle when we are asked to slow down. We struggle when we are asked to do nothing. We feel anxious almost. Like somehow the slow is toxic or dangerous to us. And this is often more telling than how we respond during a tough or a busy season. I remember reading somewhere once something along the lines of,

The pace at which we're moving when we return from vacation, when we return from time off, that that's actually our baseline. That's actually the speed at which we should be moving. But for so many of us, because we are moving so crazy fast, we're doing so much, we have such jam -packed lives and jam -packed schedules, the rest of the time that we feel, for lack of a better way to say it, discombobulated.

Ellyn Schinke (02:25.902)

That's such a, I kind of like that word. It's kind of a word like whippersnapper and like shenanigans. We feel discombobulated when we come back from vacation because it is such a slower pace at which we've been moving. But in so many ways, that should be our baseline. That should be, you know, the way in which we do operate. And I've had some kind of...

a -ha's around that recently. Just realizing that when I'm around my house, trying to have a relaxing, like watch a Netflix movie night at the end of the day or at the end of the week, and I find myself on my phone half of the time and not actually even watching the thing that I'm engaged in.

when I realized that for me to get through walking on a treadmill in the evening, you know, just to get my those last few steps in, which I'll admit walking on a treadmill is super boring, but like the only way I can get through it is to like pull up a YouTube video and watch a YouTube video while I do it. You know, all of these times where I would want to be present and be engaged and yet I'm distracted. The time where I actually feel like I've been able to fully

slow down disconnect turn off was this past Friday. You might've seen if you follow me on Instagram, I went snowshoeing with some friends. Yes, snowshoeing in April, only in the Pacific Northwest or only in the places where there's mountains. We have mountains in our backyard, so there's always going to be snow up there. But we went snowshoeing and it was awesome. It was such a good day. It absolutely kicked my butt. I was exhausted by the end of the day. But...

I was able to disconnect in that. In some respects, I was still filming and vlogging, which in some ways I'm kind of okay with, but I also kind of wish in some ways that I could have turned that off. I was filming, I was recording, I was taking pictures as we all do. I feel like maybe we're just like the Instagram generation and we're constantly thinking about...

Ellyn Schinke (04:35.598)

sharing it, but I like to think that it's not just me wanting to share the adventures, it's me wanting to remember them. Honestly, I feel like I make, sometimes when I vlog stuff like that, when I vlogged our Mount Rainier trip last year, I feel like I vlog it as much for me as I do for the people who might see it. But that was the only time recently where I really do feel like I truly allowed myself to turn off, where I truly allowed myself to not be

engaged in whatever was going on back home and to not be thinking about work. But is that because, am I able to do that because of the fact that I'm still doing something? Am I able to fully disconnect in that situation because I'm outside and I'm exerting myself and I'm doing something? Maybe, maybe, but it really, really got me thinking about...

resetting and redefining my burnout baseline, resetting and redefining what my baseline level and speed in which I move in life is. And this is still something I'm definitely figuring out, but I caught myself reflecting on what are some of the things that I have been doing that I think are helping with this? What are some of the things that I have been doing that I think are helping with how I'm working, how I'm living, how I'm showing up so I'm not constantly feeling like I'm ping -ponging around mentally and like...

I can never shut off from work and that I'm not being as effective with my time. What are the things that I can do and that I am doing to help with this? And I was able to come up with a few things, some of which I am admittedly still working on and some of which are things that I have been finding to be very, very helpful and very effective. And one of those things is batching, batching content creation, batching, you know, coaching calls, just doing, not letting myself task switch too much, not setting my schedule up.

for ping ponging back and forth between a bunch of different things and a bunch of different topics and types of work, but batching and having themed days as much as I can in my schedule. This week is a terrible example of that, but previous weeks it's been more so like that where Mondays I'm focusing on learning and professional development, Tuesdays I'm focused on clients, Wednesdays I'm focused on content creation.

Ellyn Schinke (06:57.678)

But one of the ways that I've really been trying to batch has been I've been starting to do a power hour each day. Again, this is a bad week. This week's a bad example. But in recent weeks, I've been doing a power hour. And what I've been loving about this power hour is I literally give myself an hour. And I've realized I really do need to define it and set it to be an hour, because if I don't, then what ends up happening is it just takes over my entire morning, and I can get lost in whatever I'm working on. So I give myself an hour to just...

divvy up that time to work on my priorities for that season, that day. Recently, it's been doing a podcast, pitching, doing reach out, and working on digital products that I'm working on creating. That's been my power hour because those are three of my priorities right now. But as I go through that power hour, I set a timer for 20 minutes to work on each of those things. I've had to realize at the end of that 20 minutes that it is okay to leave things undone, to not get through everything.

to not get through the entire list of podcast pitches, to not get through the entirety of the creation of that digital product. And I think that's something that is really, really hard for a lot of us. When we start a project, we want to take it from start to finish. We don't like leaving things unfinished. But the fact of the matter is sometimes you just have to set that timer to as much as you can do and then move on. Sometimes you just have to set that timer, answer as many emails as you can, and then move on because otherwise it absorbs our life.

So that's one thing that I've been doing recently that I do really feel like has been very, very effective. And I also feel like, and this is, you know, hearkening back to something I talked about earlier, consciousness around multitasking, especially when I'm multitasking during downtime, being on my phone while I'm watching TV, you know, having a movie playing in the background while I'm... Excuse me. Having a movie playing in the background while I'm, you know, working on something. Maybe I'm working on a slide deck or something for, you know, the bootcamp that I'm running this week.

maybe that's what I'm doing and I'm multitasking during it. And I just want to be more conscious around the fact that even though it might feel more entertaining to work that way, and even though that might feel like my dopamine stimulation is kicking in a high gear when I'm watching TV and on my phone, I want to just start being more conscious around when I'm doing that and trying to minimize doing that as much as possible. I need to get used to the notion of single tasking. I need to get used to...

Ellyn Schinke (09:21.582)

notion of just working on one thing at a time. I think in some ways, I'm literally staring at my computer screen right now thinking of some ways of maybe I did myself a disservice by getting such a big computer screen because my MO now when I work on the computer is to split screen. It's so normal for me to do that. But I'm just trying to be conscious around if and when I'm doing that. I'm literally, as I'm speaking, closing tabs in my notion because do I really need to have all these tabs open?

just trying to be more conscious about having less stuff up and less stuff going as I'm trying to get my work done. And the next deciding and defining when I'm on versus when I'm off. This has been a really interesting thing for me to kind of mull over and think about because I think it's involved me realizing that maybe I need more disconnection from social media and Instagram. There have been some days where I've hardly...

posted at all or shared at all, hardly been on stories at all, maybe didn't even share a post that day. And I'm realizing more and more that I'm really okay with that. I'm really okay with not being plugged in and not feeling the need to share constantly, not even feeling the need to see what other people are sharing constantly. And absolutely, I still get into moods when I doom scroll, absolutely. But that's been something I've been realizing that I'm really okay with.

those days and those moments where I'm just in the flow of work and I'm not getting sidetracked with Instagram. This one's also kind of come with me letting go of inbox zero. Like when I say defining when I'm on versus when I'm off, in this sense it's defining when I'm going to be available to get back to people versus when I'm not. You know, inbox zero, I am an inbox zero human. I think I feel more organized and less overwhelmed when I don't have...

80 bajillion unread emails. I love my email client. It consolidates all of my email down into one place, and I absolutely love that. But I hate it when there's the little icon next to my email that says, I have unread stuff. I want it to say nothing unread. I want it to be inbox zero, left, right, and center. But the fact of the matter is, and I feel the same way about my social media notifications. I don't want to have any notifications. I want it to be all.

Ellyn Schinke (11:41.838)

notifications zeroed out. But the fact of the matter is we have too many damn inboxes and too many damn places where we are getting information for that. And though I'm still going to be an inbox zero human when it comes to my email, I'm realizing I need to let go of inbox zero when it comes to my social media accounts, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. It's okay if there's messages and notifications there that I haven't responded to yet. I've realized I need to let go of that because...

we could easily spend our entire damn day checking into those places. And I don't want that. That does not give me the peace I want. That's not give me the freedom I want. That's not what give me the ease and fulfillment I want. That's just not conducive to the lifestyle I want. And that's really where a lot of this is coming from when I kind of redefine my burnout baseline and reconsider the ways in which I've been operating at GoGoGo and reconsider the ways in which I have been still as much as

you know, I do this work, it is still my natural inclination to do the opposite of a lot of what I know I should be doing. It's still my natural inclination to work up until the moment I go to bed each and every night, to, you know, work through lunch, to never move or exercise. I'm so proud of the fact that today I had a break and so I took a break to go on a walk. I'm so proud of that. And that's what I want. I want to redefine that aspect of...

how I live and how I work. I want to redefine that aspect of how I live and how I work. And I think the final thing I'm realizing that I can do, and that's just as important to this as everything else, is to give myself a shit ton of grace as I adjust to this. Like I said, I realized last week that I am okay and do okay fully disconnecting when I'm out doing something, when I'm out hiking or snowshoeing or paddle boarding or walking or I can disconnect.

when I do that because it's still, and I think this is why it's still inherently feels productive. It's the times when I'm doing nothing that are hard and I'm aware of that. And I know I'm going to struggle with that, but I have to give myself a lot of grace as I adjust to that because shame isn't going to work. Expecting myself to be perfect at slowing down and shutting off in the way I expect myself to be perfect at everything else is probably not going to help.

Ellyn Schinke (14:07.214)

This is not one of those situations where self -criticism and shaming myself is going to be effective. I've got to give myself grace. I've got to give myself compassion because it's not my normal mode of operating. It's how I have been operating. It's the opposite of how I've been operating for the last 25 years. This is why I say all the time that we are breaking decades worth of bad habits here because how we worked before was rewarded. But just because it was rewarded doesn't mean it has to be how we work now.

And I think that's what I'm realizing.