Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
I’m on the microphone, recording today’s podcast for the second time. Well, the first time was about an hour ago. So I woke up this morning. And this is one of those days where, as a speaker, who does this podcast on a daily basis as a speaker, I am completely blank. So what I was experiencing this morning was speaker’s block, you might have heard about writer’s block, where the writer wants to write something, but the words are not coming. And the thoughts are not translated into words. And they’re completely paralyzed. So as a speaker, I was paralyzed this morning. And the way I rescued myself as I went back and checked my phone. And something that I do all the time. For some reason, I did not do that today. But when I went back to my phone, and have like four questions from four different people, and now suddenly, I have the energy to record today’s podcast. And the question that I’m trying to answer today is from a listener of this podcast, was asking about vacations, spending money that they do not have, and experiencing some kind of work stress that they are trying to escape. So the question is, can I escape the work pressure that I have been going through? Or the workload that I’m dealing with? Go on a vacation, come back, and will I be okay? That’s the question, it’s a long question.
“Srini, listen to your podcast. And you tell me, you say on the podcast that not to spend money that you do not have, and I’m in a situation where I have to spend money and go on a vacation because I’m, I’ve been experiencing a lot of stress at work. I’m thinking that a vacation would help. Even though the last few times that I’ve done that has not really helped.” Good one. okay. What are your thoughts? This question did not come in as a podcast-related question that this question came in, just specifically, because they listened to me on the radio, and they’re asking for my help, talking about the hypnosis can help with the stress they’re experiencing. But I’m turning this question into today’s podcast because I have no idea. Okay, so stay with me, this is going to help though, this is going to help, hopefully, okay, so there is a difference between getting tired and getting exhausted, versus getting burnt out. Burnout is different than stress. So if you are stressed, you’re getting exhausted, you’re getting tired, then there is a different way to approach it, versus you are now completely burnt out, I’m going to make the distinction, I’m going to call them out as two different things I’m going to justify, I’m going to qualify both these things. And then you can decide what you need to do. If you are tired or exhausted. That means you are enjoying what you’re doing. It’s just that you lack energy. And you’re not able to get things done in the amount of time that you need to get things done. You need to approach it differently, you need to figure out the energy equation, you need to go exercise a bit more, or maybe you need to eat more frequently, maybe you need to keep yourself hydrated and all these things. So there or maybe your sleep is compromised, you got to look into those things, the functions that lead you into doing what you need to do need to be addressed.
Now, if you are experiencing burnout, that means the functions again, the function that is leading you to the burnout needs to be addressed to that means the functions that are leading you to do what you need to do, or innovate constraint. Okay, so let me explain this. Let’s say you want to do 10 Push-ups, the 10 push-ups will take you three minutes, usually take you three minutes. And you could do those push-ups in three minutes at any point in time. That’s the average. That’s the performance. That’s the metric right? Now, for some reason, you’re not able to do those 10 Push-ups in three minutes, you’re taking 30 minutes to do 10 Push-Ups. You want to do it in three minutes, or under three minutes, and you have been doing that. But you are now taking 30 minutes. Now, if that’s the problem statement, if I’m looking at the problem statement. The question that I will ask you is what are you doing prior to attempting those 10 Push-ups the what are the things or what’s the sequence? Or what are the events that you’re dealing with before engaging in pushups?
Now turns out that you are running for two hours before attempting these 10 Push-ups. So your two hours run is constraining the 10 push-ups. So you’re exhausted you’re tired. So that constraint for some reason, you are not seeing it you’re not seeing that you’re exhausting yourself with the two-hour run. And now here you are trying to see whether you can still do the 10 pushups in under three minutes. This is a very oversimplified example. But then you get, hopefully, you get the analogy and the knowledge is simple. People are measured, every student is measured and the school with the grades they get. But what the number of constraints each individual or each student is dealing with in their lives in their individual lives is hard to measure. Some are dealing with too many things, some are not. So different emotional states that each student is going through to come to the same exam that’s going to grade them the same way. Hence, one individual, one student’s performance, or the result is different than the other student’s performance. And the results show different numbers. So when you constrain yourself, burnout happens because of emotional stress. Now, if you’re experiencing most of the stress, then it’s burnout and there is a different thing that you have to do. If you are simply tired, that means you probably are experiencing fatigue. That means there are things that are happening, which are not necessarily at the emotional level, that happening because they’re at a logical level. So logically, you can look at it and say, Okay, I need to go drink more water, I’m going to eat better food, or I’m going to pace myself better so that I can get things done. And because that’s why I’m not able to do things, and that’s why I’m experiencing, I’m tired. Got it. So that’s the difference.
Hopefully, I’m clear, maybe I’m gonna do if I do a third or fourth take on this podcast. Maybe I can even simplify this. But I don’t have time I need to get this podcast out. So you get the idea. So let’s talk about burnout. For a second, I want to share a few more thoughts on this burnout, emotional stress, and the primary reason for experiencing burnout. And we need to understand what is causing this emotional stress. Well, emotional stress, we don’t know why what is causing because there could be so many things going wrong. But then we know the symptoms of emotional stress. For example, let’s say you have a bad mood, you are irritated throughout the day, maybe you have difficulty in making decisions, or maybe some suicidal thoughts. You don’t see life the same way anymore. You’re withdrawn from your friends, and family, a sense of hopelessness is coming and creeping in, you lack sleep, and you become an insomniac, all this all are symptoms of emotional stress. Now, I’m not saying that these things independently may not exist without emotional stress. But if there is emotional stress, then these things do show up and they all show up cumulatively collectively. So, what can you do now at this is the point where people reach out for help, clearly, you should reach out for help. So, when people go through emotional stress, they go on vacations, they could temporarily can, they may feel good, coming from a vacation, but then these things do come back. If you have genuine emotional stress, it will genuinely come back. There is no way to escape this. But there is a way to escape this. And now that we are talking about emotional stress, let me share the solution to this problem, too.
Now, there are different ways to approach this. It depends on who you talk to. Some people tell you, you know, well, you know, to cut down your expectations. Maybe you need to improve your overall holistic life, you need to do 20 Other things like sleep well and eat well all with different people who give you different ideas. What I have seen, and this is through my own experience working with people is that every time you have emotional stress, you need only one thing you need to decompress yourself. Decompression is not simply taking a vacation. Decompression means that you need a strong support system. A strong support system could mean that you need to have to get back friends into your life. A strong support system will also include getting a therapist or two or three therapists at the same time into your life. So you need a support system. So decompression will involve some kind of a support system. So that’s step number one. But then, decompression also includes or a leading component of decompression is a coping strategy. And a coping strategy is something that your therapist should be able to create for you.
And that may include vacations or not ruling them out but then a coping strategy will involve three things. First and foremost is you need to reset expectations. You are not the same individual. And you cannot have the same expectations, I will tell you, you need to only have to put in three pushups, not 10 Push-ups in those three minutes if you want to keep the two-hour run intact, or two in the two-hour run, then you can have your 10 Push-ups, you cannot have both. And that is the reset on expectations. So, what I’m doing is I’m expanding a reality by saying that, the second thing I will do is I will redirect your mind and redirection has so many different things to it. As a therapist, redirect your mind, I will redirect your mind to music, maybe reading books, something like that. So just a little bit of distraction. So redirection, distraction, distraction seems to help redirection seems to help cope with the challenges, then I will reallocate you, I will reallocate your time, reallocate your time to friends, and possibly reallocate your time to spirituality. Now spirituality means some element of mindfulness, some element of yoga, some element of hypnosis, which I do, by the way, which I do with people and I reallocate them. So you see, any kind of mind mending or mindfulness technique is very low on the list. Rich people, when they reach out, they say, Okay, I’m going under a lot of stress, you know, will hypnosis help? Will hypnosis has helped will help. If we understand the causes that are creating, if you have all the symptoms of the stress and the things that are leading you into the stress, and then understanding what kind of a decompression strategy you need, and understanding what kind of a part of that what is the coping strategy that’s going to work for you, then, as an element of a good coping strategy? Yes, hypnosis may help. But you need to have all of the above. Yeah, go take that vacation, don’t spend that money that you do not have. I will still stay with that. But hopefully, as somebody who asked the question you, hopefully, this answer is helpful and as a listener of this podcast.
Hopefully, this is helpful. If it is you’re watching this on YouTube, there should be a place for you to write a comment, and like and share the video. If you’re listening to this on a podcasting app. This should also be a place where you can write a comment and rate the podcast please do that. So that I know that time, you know, it’s a two-way thing that’s going on. If you do that, I know you’re responding to what I’m doing here. But appreciate your questions. Appreciate your support. Thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being a subscriber and that’s all for today. It’s a dull day I thought I was starting the day but it turned out to be a great question that extracted some things in me that I always wanted to share before also. So thank you for doing that. Stay tuned. I’ll be with you as early as tomorrow. Bye now.