Megan Riksen:

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen, and we are here today for another special bonus episode that is for our alumni population. So I get to hand the mic over once again to my colleague Dani Lauer, who will be kind of bringing us through the rest of the episode. Hi Dani.

Dani Lauer:

Hello, Megan. And hi there, Lakers. So glad to be back with you today. We have a really exciting topic and a special guest joining us to talk about professional burnout. What is it and how do I prevent it? So, our special guest here is Kali Wolken. Kali is a certified career counselor as well as a licensed professional counselor in both Michigan and Indiana. And in her private practice, Lookout Point Career Coaching, Kali guides her clients towards finding renewed purpose and command over their life. Kali specializes in burnout and helps burnt out professionals find meaningful and exciting careers. So we are so glad to have her lending her expertise here with us today. Welcome, Kali.

Kali Wolken:

Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

Dani Lauer:

Awesome. So we are just gonna jump right in and get started in talking about professional burnout. So I guess first question, what is professional burnout? How do we define it?

Kali Wolken:

Yep. So I think, I think it's the World Health Organization - we'll get the technical definition first, right, where they say that burnout is stress in the workplace. I'm paraphrasing, but stress in the workplace left unchecked, that leads to exhaustion, cynicism, and loss of effectiveness. And the way that I kind of change that over to human terms is that it's when we don't take care of ourselves, we end up feeling tired negative and completely like imposter syndrome sets in kind of thing.

Dani Lauer:

So, I mean, what kinds of things would you say lead to this type of burnout? How would somebody find themselves feeling this way?

Kali Wolken:

Yeah. The biggest thing to me about burnout is that we as people now have so much that we're doing. And while burnout has always been defined, or more recently been defined in the workplace, it really extends far beyond the workplace. It extends into our lives, into our relationships and home life and parenting, and all of these different areas of our lives. We can feel just completely overwhelmed by the stress because we're always doing, and we do not create enough time for rest. A lot of times we don't have regular self-care skills and so we run into this sense of, I'm just done. I don't have anything left in the tank to do anything anymore.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense, right? Where our plates are so full all the time. I think especially after going through the Covid Pandemic, there was just so many other pieces of life that were thrown at all of us. And then in our workplace too, that kind of bleeds into it. So what would you say are some of the symptoms or signs if someone's kind of thinking through like, oh, you know, maybe I'm feeling this way, but what are some of those kind of things someone could look inside themselves and feel?

Kali Wolken:

Yeah. We often think of burnout as anxiety, but the reality is, is that burnout looks more like depression symptoms. So when stress is left unchecked, it leads to us losing our energy, losing our motivation, losing our hope for things. And so all of those losses lead to these, I don't wanna do anything anymore. I don't wanna get out of bed. I don't want to put my excitement or energy into things that once used to excite me. And so when people are looking at, could I be dealing with burnout? I think it's really important to check in with themselves on how are they feeling in terms of their mood, their energy, their motivation. Because when those are down, that's where you can start to see those signs of burnout creep up a little bit more.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I'm just, I'm thinking back to being out of grad school and I was working, I was in my master's program. I was working full-time throughout almost the entire thing. And I was in my master's program for professional counseling, so I was also seeing clients. And I just remember getting to the end and just feeling that, yeah, I don't wanna leave my couch for the foreseeable future. It just felt very hard to muster up energy to do the other pieces of my life because I was just so exhausted and just feeling like, okay, how do I get my batteries back? How do I recharge? What does thislook like for me? So yeah. Can definitely relate there.

Kali Wolken:

I remember one of my first encounters with burnout, or I almost wonder if I was on the edge and I had a supervisor in grad school kind of pull me back from the edge. And I remember the meeting with her where she kind of sat down and it was one of those kind of lean in and how are you really?

Dani Lauer:

Yes. I've been there.

Kali Wolken:

Maybe you need to dial back something. And it was in that moment, I actually ended up quitting a job I was doing at the time because it was, it was exhausting me. And I am so grateful to her to this day. She ended up finding me a job within the university counseling center and allowing me to have that space to do that. But she, I know now looking back that she recognized it and she was pulling me back. So that's one of my first memories where I really started to encounter that. Let's, let's push, push, push. Oh wait, maybe that's a bad idea kind of thing.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's such a good point, right? For someone else, maybe to be that watching eye, you know, someone who knows you well, a supervisor, a close friend, a trusted advisor, mentor Right. To maybe recognize like, hey, you don't seem like yourself or something else might be going on. Like, how are you really doing? I mean, you cannot underscore the value of those conversations.

Kali Wolken:

That's a good point. Like having somebody, when you're talking about how do we recognize burnout in ourselves, I think it's okay, also, how do we recognize burnout in others? And that piece of those symptoms will show up externally. So seeing somebody who has that change in energy and motivation and they just don't seem like themselves, they seem more negative, or like they're not doing their job with as much joy as they used to. Those can be moments where you could maybe step in in their lives and say, hey, what's up? What's going on? And how can I, how can I support you right now?

Dani Lauer:

That's such a good point. I mean, we've kind of talked about this a little bit, but I'm curious, just how does someone recover? I mean, does someone really need to leave their job? Or what, what does it look like? You know? Maybe I've identified I'm feeling burnt out. I'm in this, you know, unmotivated place. What's my path to feeling better?

Kali Wolken:

Yes. The first thing that I will probably encourage anybody to do in burnout is that we have this initial phase of pausing where we need to do kind of a self check. We, we need to set aside some time. And the therapist in me knows that this is good. The human in me also is like, hey, the therapist Kali is totally gonna recommend journaling and everybody reacts to journaling. But listen, people journaling does not have to be writing long sentences. My favorite version of journaling is putting random words on a page.

Dani Lauer:

Say it, honestly. Yeah.

Kali Wolken:

Blob format. Right. But there's some power in writing things out. There's power for us to be able to grab a random sheet of paper and just, you know, I'll say the things on my mind right now and then just all over the page write the things on my mind. But we almost need that pause to slow down because our mind is racing. Right. The stress unchecked means our mind is racing with all the things. So step number one is to pause. It's not to immediately leave your job.

Dani Lauer:

Good to know. It's good.

Kali Wolken:

Step number two is to then say, okay, what's contributing to this? What's going on with my burnout? And are any of these factors that I can make a difference in in the next five days? I would not make it more long-term in that moment because we want some immediate decrease of stress before we make big decisions. Again, we know that as therapists, don't make big decisions when you're really overwhelmed and emotional. But it's important to kind of say, what can I do that can make a difference in the next five days? And then from there you start to get some space for yourself. And the one thing I will say for both burnout prevention and burnout recovery is that we have to start building in consistent self-care. It's a weird metaphor, but I was watering my garden the other day, and I was, I was sitting there going, huh, I probably couldn't just douse this thing with water, like completely flood it and hope it's good all summer. Because it would not work if it didn't rain the rest of the summer. And I think that taking care of ourselves is very much the same. We have to have that consistent thing that nourishes us, that takes care of us so that we can grow and not, you know, dry up, burn out, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah.

Dani Lauer:

That's such a good point that I think sometimes I'll think, oh, I'll just take a week off and go on a fun vacation. Right.

Kali Wolken:

Everybody goes, I'm on vacation for two weeks, why don't I feel better? I'm like, because it was like dousing your garden with water and hoping that it's gonna be okay all summer.

Dani Lauer:

Totally. Yeah. I mean, and vacations are great and wonderful to be able to do. But building that routine, having consistency, is going to be just so important in the long term that makes so much sense with the water, dowsing your water analogy. I mean, I wish that were the case, but, it is not. So Yeah. I love that. And I like your point too about kind of that taking a moment to, I think of that as like a brain dump with the journaling or just writing everything down. It's getting all of that externalized outside of your body onto a piece of paper, taking your nervous system down a notch, right, and trying to just find some, some stabilization almost.

Kali Wolken:

Right. Yeah.

Dani Lauer:

So helpful. Yeah. Okay. So what about, I'm just thinking strategies. I mean, we talked about the self-care piece. Any other strategies? You know, somebody's like, ooh, I'm not there yet, but I can maybe feel myself veering into burnout territory. You know, are there things, you know, other than kind of those regular self-care that somebody might wanna do?

Kali Wolken:

So I know you and I earlier were talking about the book, Burnout. One of the big takeaways that I got, I think it's early on in the book, they talk about the idea of running and art being too really good strategies for kind of dealing with burnout and reducing that stress response. And I always joke, I think the running is kind of the physical exertion of stress and the art is the emotional exertion of stress kind of thing. And so that's why I think they both are recommended. I don't actually have research to back that up, but when you think about the ways that those things can impact us, I think that they have a lot of power to them. And not all of us like running. And I totally get it. Even if we can just step outside for five minutes, I think it makes a difference. It's this intentional act to help ourselves that makes the biggest difference. I think nowadays it gets used fairly decently, but the metaphor about, you know, you're watching a streaming service, you're binge watching a show, and it has the whole, the next episode begins in 17 seconds or whatever it is. I think they've shortened it because they've learned people don't wanna wait. But if we just let it keep happening and we get through like season seven of Friends or something like that in a day, we are kind of feeling guilty about that. But in the same vein, if we go, you know what, I've just had a day and I am gonna watch all of season seven of Friends today. We have still accomplished the exact same outcome, but because the second one we did intentionally, we feel better about it.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. That's so interesting. And it's so true. It's, it's about kind of taking initiative or having the choice or having agency over it versus the thing having agency over us. So Yeah. I love that. I always feel if I go on like even a 15 minute walk - to your point about running, I am not a runner. Always maybe hoped I would be, but it hasn't hit me yet. But the walking, even that, right? Just kind of getting a little bit of physical exercise, taking a little bit of a break. Sometimes it's popping in a podcast, sometimes it's just walking without any music or any noise that just feels really good. So I love that strategy. And we will, the book that Kali referenced, we will link that in the show notes. They are, yeah. It's a phenomenal book. Gives a great, a lot of great tips on burnout and just kind of helps flesh this topic out a little bit further, and to Kali's point about, it's not just workplace. It is something that happens in all areas of life. They definitely talk about that in the book as well. So yeah. Kali, anything else we should know about burnout? Anything else that we haven't talked about or that is on your mind?

Kali Wolken:

Oh my gosh, there could be so many things. I almost just wanna encourage listeners that burnout is so common nowadays that even if you are dealing with it, to know that you're not alone. Because I think that with that sense of burnout, we do kind of feel isolated. We feel like we've missed something that the rest of the world has figured out. And I think a lot of us are just completely burnt out because we are all so focused on that next five steps, or trying to make sure that we don't fall off the tightrope, that we don't realize that everybody else is playing the balancing act too.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. That's such a good point. We often feel so isolated in our own experience and our own feelings. But I would say too, back to the point about the pandemic, right? So many people, we collectively went through that as a global society. So that certainly makes us have something in common with this type of experience.

Kali Wolken:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Dani Lauer:

Perfect. And then one other, you know, just as we're thinking about burnout specifically in the workplace, any last thoughts or tips about how to maybe do that?

Kali Wolken:

Yeah. In the workplace itself I think that I kind of started talking about it and then I got on a little rabbit trail. But in the workplace itself, I think that we have those moments of slowing down. And when we start to check in and we say, hmm, I feel like I may be working too much. Just let's, let's just say that we know that that's the thing that's causing the burnout is that we are doing 60 hours and we wanna be doing under 40 or something like that. Boundaries, especially in the workplace, are going to be a very important part to that burnout, recovery that burnout prevention and everything. And so I'm always going to start with checking in, but then moving into, okay, how do boundaries come into play here? And how do I start to create those boundaries? So if we're working in a workplace and not at home, I'll talk about working from home in a second, but if we're working in the workplace, it's, okay what time am I leaving this office by? And how do I make sure I convey that to my supervisors, my boss managers, whoever. And if there's a problem there, how do I talk with them to make sure that it's worked out? If you're working from home, which I actually think is the bigger culprit because we'll check email when we're sitting on the couch. We need to have very clear times that we are working and clear times that we are not, and honestly, I think clear places that we're working. So when you're working from home, having a workspace and you only do it in that workspace.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. Absolutely. I remember when I was working from home during the pandemic, that was really important for me to, you know, be in my office when I was working and to shut that door, close it, and kind of let that be the space where work happens and then relaxing in other areas of my home. This is a big difference. So, yeah. And then last thing, you know, what are some resources that people can access for support if they're feeling this way? What resources do you recommend someone might utilize to help with burnout?

Kali Wolken:

I, number one, I'm probably biased, but I do think therapists are a great resource for burnout. They kind of know what they're talking about. And they can often help you with the strategies and the, and the skills that are going to work for you. There are some really great podcasts out there for burnout. Of course, all of them are escaping me in this very moment, but I do know that, and I will try to send those over so that even if I don't talk about them here, you may have some to access afterwards. But, and, kind of to your point when you're walking, that may be a really good time to listen in on something like that because It keeps that on your mind. I think the other thing about burnout resources are that they come and really, I don't want to say well, simple but not easy kind of solutions. So simple in the sense of self-care. We talk about it all the time, but then it doesn't feel easy. And so having support where you can maybe get somebody that you trust who can say, hey, I do want to go for walks every day. Do you mind being a walking partner for me? Or if they live in another state, you know, maybe you guys call at that time and you're walking on a call or something like that. Burnout is not meant to be dealt with alone. And so one of the top resources I think we need to use is other people in our lives. And, and all of the skills and the, and the strategies are great, but at the end of the day, a big part of burnout is that sense of isolation. And we need to be making sure we're not isolating and relying on the people in our lives that can support us. That can help us.

Dani Lauer:

Yeah. That's phenomenal. Yeah. Community is everything. Mm-Hmm. And that's so important to remember. So. Awesome. Well, Kali, thank you so much for joining us. If folks are interested in learning more about your work, where can people find you?

Kali Wolken:

Yeah, my website I think is fairly easy to remember. It's just mycareercoach.online. Quite literally it's online career coaching, so one would hope. And then if they, if they follow on social media or things like that, it's just LP career coach pretty much everywhere you can go. So it makes it really easy on that. But yeah, I, I also am on the GVSU coaching database, so no matter where you find me, I'm always happy to, I respond pretty quickly. That's one of the boundaries that I tell other people, but it says 48 hours or two business days. And I tell people I'm probably just gonna respond exactly when I see it, unless I can't. And then I'll make it on red again and then I'll respond later. So anyway. Yeah.

Megan Riksen:

Love that. Awesome. Well thank you for that conversation, both of you. That was fun to listen in on. I think a lot of really good tips and strategies, and hopefully you all are not journaling long paragraphs, and just writing down some quick words. Do whatever works for you though. But I liked that tip. So thank you so much Kali, for being here. We really appreciate it. And thank you so much to everyone for listening. And we hope you tune into a future episode soon.