Transcriber: Vy Dinh
Reviewer: Keira White (Music) (Music) What does it take to genuinely
enjoy your life? Success? A beautiful family and devoted spouse?
A high income? Respect in your community? What if you had all of this and still wondered if anything you did
really mattered? That was my story. I had achieved success
in many areas of my life. I was happily married
to a devoted husband and had two beautiful small children. I was a physician in a busy dermatology
office and building a thriving practice. There are many happy and funny moments. One afternoon at the neighborhood
playground with my 20-month-old daughter, she was especially interested
in going down the slide. After watching her a few times,
I decided to slide down the slide myself, after which I heard
her little voice say: “Good job, Mom.” On another morning, I had to put a bit of muscle into buckling
my 3-year-old son into his car seat before driving him to preschool. As I caught my breath afterwards, I was surprised to hear his
high pitched voice say: “You go, girl.” and suddenly I felt like
I accomplished something. Yes, life was good and it certainly looked
like I had everything I wanted. Despite this, there are times
I went to bed thinking it would be better for everyone
if I never woke up. I found myself emotionally exhausted, feeling detached from myself
and those around me. I was plagued by thoughts
that nothing I did really mattered. I was completely burned out. My husband didn’t know what to do. I realized it was my own responsibility to figure out how to pull myself out
of my feelings of burnout. I spent hours on personal development
courses, audiobooks and faith building. I recognized that I had a choice on the story I told myself about my past,
potential, identity and future. I realized that I had a divine purpose,
outside of the home, that was not being fully expressed
in my profession as a doctor. Although I loved my career
and opportunity to serve patients, I had to create space to discover
and begin to implement a fuller extent of calling
I had on my life. Through that journey, I learned
that overcoming burnout could be broken down into three steps
which I will share with you here. 9.8 million working mothers in the United States
are suffering from burnout, according to an analysis
by Great Place to Work and Maven. The American Psychological Association
defines burnout as emotional, mental or physical exhaustion,
accompanied by decreased motivation, lower performance and negative attitudes
towards oneself and others. It results from performing at a high level until stress and tension take their toll. If you are experiencing such symptoms, I would encourage you to seek
professional support as soon as possible. For me, fighting burnout head on
came down to realizing that I was doing too much
of what depleted me and that I had to clear my life to make room to receive
my purpose and direction so that I could give my best
to my family and community. So what are these three steps
that I learned? The first step is to clear your plate. One of the most important parts
of clearing your plate is clearing your mind. Use quiet time to meditate
or just let your mind wander. Brain scientist Dr. Caroline Leaf
calls time letting your mind wander “thinker moments”. You can use thinker moments
to give your brain a rest and allow it to heal and re-energize. Dr. Leaf states: “This can
increase thought clarity, improve the organization
of networks in your brain, create a heightened state
of relaxation and alertness and help you to access
suppressed thoughts. Through quiet time, you create
opportunities to access what really matters to you, establish
a sense of direction and calling and plan your next steps ahead
to follow this calling. Quiet time seemed
like a luxury to me for years, something that people who weren’t
that busy could do, but not me. With two small children
and a full time job as a doctor, this was my excuse. The truth was, I actually had
plenty of time to be quiet, but I was allowing distractions
to fill my unplanned time, on social media for example. Once I became more conscious
and intentional about how I spent my time, precious little pockets
of time began to open up throughout the day for reflection
and asking questions about how to live a more fulfilled life. It takes time to pause
and recognize that you have questions. Examples of questions to ask include: How can I be more gracious
towards my husband? How should I organize my day?
How can I be more present with my kids? Ask for answers during quiet time. The next part of clearing your plate
is clearing your schedule of anything that does not align with the big missions
of your life, as much as possible. Before I learned the principles
I'm sharing today, I found myself busy, all the time and felt like I was on a hamster wheel, constantly moving but not getting
anywhere meaningful. Look at how you're spending your time. Are you moving the needle to fulfill
your goals and dreams every week? Or are you exclusively reacting to stimuli that leave you feeling
drained and unproductive? What non-essential activities
can you delegate and offload? How can you leverage your support system to offload or share tasks
that are depleting you? Once you begin to free up
more of your schedule, you can establish times to determine
what you’re really passionate about, and start to define your goals
and life mission in writing. Once you get clear
on what you really want, it becomes more and more clear
what you don’t want, and what you can remove
from your plate when possible. Bestselling author Greg McKeown illustrated this principle
in his book, Essentialism. From his writings, I learned the value
of discerning what he called: the vital few from the trivial many. He also said: “To discern
what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep and the discipline to apply
highly selective criteria to the choices we make.” So what do you do after
you’ve cleared your plate? Step two is to fill your cup. One part of filling your cup is filling your mind
with the right ideas and information. Do this by becoming a learning machine; hone in on what you’re passionate about and learn everything you can about it to make a little bit
of progress every week. Time driving is a great opportunity
to fill your mind with new ideas through audiobooks and podcasts on topics
you are passionate about. The next part of filling your cup
is filling your soul. Get still and receive from the divine.
What lights up your soul? What really fills you? If we are empty,
we cannot take care of others effectively. When I was burned out, I was attempting
to fill others from an empty space, but when I learned how to fill my own cup, I realized I had so much more to offer my family, friends,
patients and community. As Oprah Winfrey put it,
the number one thing you have to do is to work on yourself
and keep your cup full. Lisa Nichols echoed
this principle when she said: “Your job is to fill
your own cup so it overflows, then you can serve others
joyfully from your saucer.” This brings me to step three. Pour it out, pour yourself out,
we’re here for service. How can you use our gifts to serve others? When you identify your dreams and what you care most deeply about
during quiet time, this can help you to seek to serve
in ways that reveal those gifts. We must nurture our sense of purpose
in alignment with our calling, and this can be done by pouring out
our efforts in service of others. This three step system is a process that I return to over and over to regroup and reinvigorate my sense of purpose in a world full of evolving demands
and responsibilities. So how do you take this system and make it a way of life
when you’re feeling burned out or use these principles to prevent
burnout in the first place? Decide to become a creator of your life
rather than a reactor to your life. To clear your plate, establish
a daily mind clearing routine, incorporating meditation, prayer and/or relaxed mind wandering with questions. Spend at least 15 minutes feeling into where you really are
and asking questions. Write down any ideas, answers
or revelations you receive. To clear your schedule,
look at your schedule and identify what you can offload,
delegate or reassign to allow you to focus on activities
that matter the most to you. Next, plan time to fill your cup. Fill your mind and your soul. Do something that fills you.,
it could be time with friends or time journaling or listening
to an audiobook, sermon or podcast. Fill your cup at least
weekly, if not daily. This will give you
the sustenance to uplift, support and serve those around you. Third, once you feel filled, pour it out. Be intentional about pouring out
to your family, friends and community. How can your most unique gifts
serve the people in your life, community and the world? Find a way to selflessly give
focusing on compassion and empathy for those you are serving. This is all to say
that creating space in your life to allow yourself to receive
guidance towards your purpose, can be the antidote to burn out. Purpose is the key concept here. As said by Bob Proctor: “You don’t decide what your purpose is in life,
you discover it”. How can you discover your purpose
without creating space and time to lean into it? “Your purpose is your reason for living.” And as Lisa Nichols put it: “You feel unsettled because
you know you are meant for more.” (Music)
