Burnout lessons from swimming

Hi Everyone 👋

I want to share a lesson I learned about burnout, from my sister's swimming!

We've all felt it, stretched too thin, juggling too many things, pushing too hard - Burnout is tricky, it creeps up on you, and by the time your realize it, you're already drained.

Burnout can happen for a bunch of different reasons, at work you might be wearing too many different hats and trying to fill too many gaps, entering a stressful period or working, taking on too much work for an unrealistic deadline. It can even be as simple as you've just been working too long without a break.
At home you might have personal circumstances that require more of you than usual, stressful life events, physical changes or stressors - we've all experienced what a few consecutive days of bad sleep can do to us 😂

My sister told me a story of how her swim training made the proverbial penny drop on how burnout can look without you even noticing it.

The lesson...

My sister joined a swim club a while ago, during one particular session, as they approached the back end - they had to do 4 slow laps, 4 medium laps and end with 4 laps swimming full out.
Great, she thought, little bit of planning and she can smash this!
She was swimming along nicely in the first 4 laps, conserving her energy, feeling good.
The next 4 laps she started pushing a bit, she felt like she was in her sweet spot, getting a bit tired but manageable, it's only 4 laps, how tired could it make her?
Next was the hard laps, she pushed her hardest, it felt like she was giving everything, kicking extra hard and being ultra focused on her effort, her technique, her breathing, she was absolutely smashing it - or so she thought.

Afterwards when she compared her times, her last 4 laps when she gave her everything - were slower than her first 4 slow laps 😦

This is when burnout truly made sense to her - a few minutes in a pool painted a picture that we often don't see in the workplace because burnout doesn't usually happen overnight, it's days, weeks or months.
What happened was she was working at a maintainable pace, she was happy, stressors were normal but increasing. As she pushed harder, she had to keep on pushing harder, she gave her best but by the end her best was worse than her barely trying. That's the thing about burnout, it takes so much more from you to deal with the basics, nevermind performing well.

Her story really made me think and reflect on my own experiences (and sometimes bad habits)

I remember starting a new project, and every little bump in the road upset me, I started to take it personally, pushed even harder and it got to a point where it affected me at home, my sleep, my physical health. I took a week off, focused on myself, enjoying every day and spending quality time with my family. When I got back to work, nothing burned down, the project was still on track, some of the same bumps were still there - but they were easy to deal with and no problem at all 😂

I'd like to leave you with this.

Have you been feeling frustrated, your goal always just out of reach, like all you need to do is push a little bit harder, and this is the 3rd time you're just pushing harder? Have you considered that maybe you're on your last 4 laps and you're burned out?

Sometimes the best way forward isn't pushing harder, it's taking a break.