a tip for preventing burnout

257. "stopping while you are still hungry" is a term i learned from an intuitive eating coach, but see how it applies here. doing this tip can help prevent burnout. 

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Transcript

Burnout After Grad School

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friend, I'm going to give you a little tip today on how to avoid burnout. And I think that this is kind of not a sensitive topic, but a really meaningful topic to me because I suffered so much burnout when I was in my master's program for the past two years, basically. I mean, I was just pretty much as burned out as you could be on in every aspect. And uh so I finished that program in September. Um, and I had already planned ahead of time that for the rest of 2025. So I finished in September 25. I had already planned for the rest of that year that I was going to be really easygoing and I wasn't going to take on any big new projects. I wasn't going to make any really big decisions, that I was just going to basically recuperate and regenerate. And, you know, if you just imagine a battery charging, I was going to just charge. And um, it actually took me that whole time. Um, I mean, I really just started kind of coming back into myself and feeling like my energetic, vibrant self uh in this January of 2026. And so I am really cognizant of not wanting to push myself to the point of exhaustion because it just wasn't fun. Like I just, I really lost a lot of motivation and a lot of joy, and I felt like I just didn't even recognize myself. And I don't want to be in that place again. And so one of the things that I am doing in 2026 is I'm calling it like stopping while I'm still hungry. Um, this is an idea that I got from I worked with an intuitive eater for a while. Um, and one of the things that she told me was to learn how to be in touch with my hunger and my satiety is what is it, satiable satiety, something like that cues like how when I'm satiated, right? When I'm eating a meal. And that was actually really, really hard for me to do because I was just like, I sit down, I eat, it's automatic. I'm not thinking about like, am I enjoying this? Am I hungry? Am I full? Am I satisfied? I just have never really learned how to do that. So we just sort of had this process where we learned how to eat and really enjoy the food and be present and to allow myself to walk away before I was stuffed. Cause usually I would just eat until I felt stuffed. And then like I just thought it was like normal that we all eat until our stomachs hurt and we feel like we kind of groan and moan and like want to lay down and we just don't feel that good. That's just kind of how I thought that people ate. Like you just eat until you feel terrible. And so one thing that we worked on was learning how to walk away from the plate when we're not totally stuffed. When we are like, hmm, that was pretty good. That was satisfying, but like not to the point of discomfort. So sometimes that would almost feel like you're a little teeny bit hungry still. And how I thought about it was like my mouth is still hungry, but my stomach isn't. Like I'm just so used to eating, eating, eating without paying attention to is this actually what I want? Like, is my stomach full? Um, I don't want to get too much into like eating and food and all that because I don't want to coach on items like that. And I think that's really kind of personal decisions and stuff. But it gave me the idea of sort of like just because you could doesn't mean that you should or that you have to. And so how I look at that in terms of my work and my productivity is just because I could do a little more work, I'm actually going to step away when I'm a little bit hungry. When I have the ability to do more, but I'm actually going to pull myself away. So what this will look like is there have been some nights where it's like 6 p.m., uh, Chris is making dinner and I'm just kind of hanging around. And instead of scrolling or whatever, I'm like, okay, I'll just like I'll get a newsletter ready to send out, or I will do another Instagram post, or I will do something in my work. And but I know that like I've had a really productive, good day where I've accomplished a lot. And just because I could do another email at 6 p.m. doesn't mean that I should or that I have to. So I've actually been stopping myself and saying, no, like you accomplished the things that you had set out to do today. You've done a lot, you had a lot of impact, you connected with a lot of people. It's okay to walk away and we can do that email tomorrow. Um, I also talk about this a lot with the runners that I coach. Like sometimes you want to finish a run knowing that you could have run more, or um, you know, like if it's a recovery day or something, you could have run more, but like, are you really going to recover? Is it going to give you what you actually need if you do? And a lot of times the answer was no. They wanted to run more just so it would have a bigger number in their running log, but it wasn't actually benefiting them physically. And so um I think I just wanted to share that a way to sort of avoid burnout, and this can be mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, is to kind of stop when you're at a good stopping point and not pushing through all the way to the wall or past the wall. So, like the other night, I could have written the email at 6 PM, but if I'm doing that night after night after night, where I'm just pushing myself beyond like kind of the limits that I had set for myself, that's really an unsustainable practice. And it's not going to get me that far. And then I'm actually going to have to take time to recover and recoup my energy. Whereas if I stop when I'm a little bit ahead, right? When I'm not totally depleted, then I have more energy. And then that is sustainable that I can do a lot more days without having to pause and recover and rejuvenate because I haven't depleted myself. And so just kind of check in with yourself. Are you depleting yourself emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever it is? And if you feel like you're kind of trying to push through, maybe don't. Maybe just step away while you're still a little bit hungry. You could do a little bit more, but why? For what purpose? Is it sustainable? And if the answer is no, it's not really sustainable and there's no like immediate benefit to it right now, then maybe don't do it. It's okay to not do everything that we could do. I could stay up till two in the morning doing work, but for how long and at what cost? Okay. That's my message for you today. Love you.