If you’re experiencing burnout and/or impostor syndrome, there are some practical things you can do to get your energy back so you can lead powerfully.

Burnout is a pattern that’s happening globally right now. People are stressed, tired, anxious, and it feels like the marathon has no end. In this episode, co-hosts Richard Lindner and Jeff Mask validate this burnout you’re experiencing, explain how it causes impostor syndrome to rear its ugly head, and share some exercises you can do to refresh and re-engage.

Three Levels of Burnout

Leaders have to deal with burnout. Period. First, there’s internal burnout. You’re feeling it as a leader. Richard says impostor syndrome always builds when he’s burned out. “I’m not capable, I don’t have the skills to handle this.” He’s been feeling some of that embarrassment, shame, and fear lately, and he thinks this is a great time to talk about it.

Then there’s burnout in the people you’re in charge of leading. How do you know when to push them to do their best and when/how to give them a break?

Then what about when your leader/manager is experiencing burnout? If the person at the top doesn’t deal with it effectively, they push it down on everyone else. It’s cascading.

At least one of those levels is relevant to every leader on the planet right now, especially in these times.

Two Things You Have to Do

We’re in a season of funkiness and ambiguity right now. The more we label it as weird/difficult, the more we’ll flounder. We have to accept it, learn to be cool with it. It’s not going back to “normal.” We have a choice of how we’ll respond to it. This isn’t about putting a happy face on it; it’s about changing your mindset.

2. Acknowledge it
3. 
   
5. Change your mindset

What opportunities are available now that wouldn’t have been available before? New, unique, and trying times are where character is truly developed, where our best selves can show up. 

Dig deeper into changing your mindset. Get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and make two columns. On the left side, write down everything that’s frustrating you right now. There’s power getting it out of your head. Write down the crap, get it out, no filters. Let it sit, look at it, meditate on it, accept it. Then prioritize it. Weight it. Which things are affecting/frustrating you the most right now?

On the right side of the paper, flip it. Ask yourself these questions: 

• Is there any good in this situation? 
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• Am I learning anything? 
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• Growing? 
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• Getting stronger? 
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• Increasing in humility? 
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• What can I be grateful for in that crap list?

Then look at those two columns, and ask yourself, “How am I going to choose to respond?” We totally have a choice how we respond to any situation, regardless of how difficult it is.

Richard says this exercise works, that Jeff has walked him through it before. Getting it out of our head and onto paper is so powerful. “Embrace the suck,” he says. Acknowledge it. Feel your feelings. How you react to that emotion is where the positive/negative comes in. We get to choose. But it takes reps.

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