Changing careers will not fix your burnout. Your patterns will.

I thought changing careers would solve my burnout.

For a while, it actually felt like it worked.

New environment, new skills, new rhythm. I was fully “in it” - you know that feeling, right?

And then, slowly, something familiar started creeping back in.

The same inability to stop. The same detachment and numbness at the dinner table.

That’s when I realised something I didn’t want to admit:

I tried to be sneaky but in reality I behaved the exact same way.

My career started early, I was 23 when I was put in charge of the most profitable product categories of a global sports brand and from the very beginning I was “spectacular” - professional, always ready before deadlines, shining on stage, and delivering more than I was asked for.

The problem was, I couldn’t do it any other way.

Cars most usually have 5 gears. I used to have just two: brilliant high performance and complete shut down.

The brilliance did not show up only at work - I was winning life at all levels. Always there for my friends, doing sports at least 5 times a week, following a strict food protocol, always with impeccable manicure.

The crashes? Complete K.O. I was disappearing from life - sleeping 14 hours a day, avoiding conversations and social gatherings, ordering groceries online to not have to leave the house.

I was in my High Performance gear, and I didn’t even know how to slow down.

I’ve hit my first burnout nearly a decade ago, just after 4 years in the corporate world. My mom still recalls this moment:

My daughter came to me and told me she is burnt out. She just turned 25.

I was doing between 4-5 work trips within three months, all that on a seasonal basis.

We worked on the weekends, spent endless hours in meetings, setting up showrooms with products, and doing presentations on stage.

The time to breathe would come after each season handover. That was the moment when my body would take over and change the operating mode to the only possible option - shut down.

My gums were bleeding, my hair was falling out, and despite deep exhaustion I could not sleep. My doctor by default would send me on a two week long sick leave with a clear instruction to ditch all screens and take my dog to the forest every day.

But then I’d always come back to the old cycle. Funnily claiming that I didn’t care about how other people perceived me, now I can see so clearly that it was all about the external validation and confirmation that I am “doing a good job”.

I was carrying pride within myself that I was such a good employee that I needed to take breaks to recover.

At some point though it was too much. I lost joy in what I was doing. Insomnia was real and I lost so much weight that people around started asking if everything is okay. I’ve quit the “perfect” job.

Does that mean I never went into the same pattern again?

… you guessed it right.

I embarked on a journey of building a new career as a software developer and a coding teacher. Long story short - I was good at it. Like, seriously good. I went even deeper into the mode of people pleasing, as teaching was my way of serving and supporting others.

And trust me when I say it - the combination of people pleasing with high performance is a recipe for burnout on steroids.

Changing your job or even starting a new career will not solve your burnout.

A specific job or career do not cause you to burn out. Your patterns do.

The temptation is huge - I will leave this job and find something which will not force me to shut down again. I will work less, spend more time with friends, get healthy and fit.

You change your job and 3 months later you are laying down below your desk wondering “what went wrong again?”.

Look, burnout is not caused by external factors. It’s caused by how you respond to them.

Do you agree to stay extra hours when your boss shows up at your desk at 4:55PM with a request?

Do you keep your Slack notifications on after you “logged off”?

Do you listen to what your partner is saying at dinner, or is your mind circling around that unfinished task from work?

While external factors are out of your control, your response is fully up to you.

Today, I want to show you how to stop the vicious cycle and find the other gears, so that you can adapt your responses accordingly to your capacity instead of going from one extreme to the other.

Before we go into the “how”, let’s first discuss the “what” - your capacity.

Imagine your phone battery. Most likely you charge it full every night. During the day you use the phone in different ways - texting, social media, calls, taking photos, shopping. Each app you use is consuming your phone’s battery. You can clearly see it going down - from a 100 to 80%. Then to 65. 50. 20.

What happens? You become more and more aware of how you use your phone, making sure it will not die on you. Worst case you turn on the low battery mode. When the evening comes you always remember to plug your phone to charge until full.

Do you see where I’m going with it? Trying to perform at your best in all areas of our life, be it personal or professional, is quickly using the entire battery we have available.

The difference is - we rarely acknowledge its current capacity and barely ever recharge it fully.

It’s like operating between 3 and 27% of our battery. Every single day.

This low capacity charge shows up in the form of dark circles under your eyes, poor sleep, breaking nails and constant frustration.

Can you see how you care more about your phone, than your own capacity? In my case, my phone surely does.

What is the first thing you see when you look at your phone’s battery? Percentage level. Or a colour - happy green, slightly worrying orange, or alarming red.

Let’s take this analogy and review our own life capacity. Over the next couple of days spend 1 minute in the morning, at lunch time and in the evening to tune into your capacity level.

I always ask myself these three questions:

• Body - Am I feeling space and ease, or tightness and heaviness?

• Mind - Can I focus easily?

• Presence - Did I rush through my meals or did I enjoy having them?

The first step is the most important one.

We have to start being honest toward ourselves and acknowledge how drained we are and how much of our life is lived on an autopilot.

When your phone battery is low, you change the way you use it.

You close the background apps. Stop watching videos online. You turn off data and location services.

Again, taking it into your daily life, find something that is draining your energy and you can stop or minimise doing it.

When my phone is dying I don’t choose to watch Netflix, I turn off the Bluetooth service instead.

It can be anything from replying instantly to every Slack message you get, blocking your morning hours to prevent others scheduling 9am calls, ordering the personalised meal prep boxes, putting your phone outside of your bedroom for the night.

Now, it feels much better when your battery is green rather than orange, right? If you want to keep it there, you can plug your phone for a bit so it regains its capacity.

And you can do it for yourself too.

If you had 5 minutes to yourself, what is the one thing that would recharge you?

Note that by “recharge” I don’t mean “disconnect and numb yourself” through scrolling social media or grabbing a bucket of ice cream.

I want you to look through past moments when you felt at peace, present, happy and easy. For me it’s facing the sun for a few minutes when outside. Playing with my dog. Sipping my coffee with no distractions and full attention on its deep aroma.

Choose one thing. Do it every day.

And if the sun is not shining, still go outside and get some fresh air.

You don’t need to stop doing over hours, quit your job, or ask for a sabbatical.

Here is what you can do right now:

1. Practice radical self-honesty and say: I’m exhausted. I sacrificed my free time for my colleague. I’m not present at my own dinner table.

2. Stop one action - don’t check Slack after 6PM.

3. Add a new ritual - take a deep breath before responding to your boss’ message.

I know you feel uneasy about it.

I know it’s tough to admit we need external validation.

I know it’s difficult to say “no” to our own behaviours and thoughts.

I experience this every single day, yet every day I choose to practice those three steps despite the discomfort.

Today, you have a real choice to switch your gear too.

Thank you for reading until the end.

Big hug, zuz.