Where's Your Raging Redhead?
Or your blonde bombshell? Your adventure athlete? Your ballerina? Your inner pop-star? Maybe even your stand-up comic? Do you have days when the 'other woman' inside you is screaming to get out?
Rediscovering who you were 'meant to be', maybe 'born to be', plays a huge role in getting over burnout!
As we trudge along the burnout path, living up to everyone else's expectations, plans or dreams for us (not to mention all the obligations and responsibilities), we lose ourselves. Over time we become someone we are not! Of course you don't see it at the time, it happens bit by bit, then one day you look in the mirror and don't recognise yourself! (insert overly dramatic scream!)
Just the other day my gorgeous blonde VIP client exclaimed, "I'm so not the person I am! There is a raging redhead in here and she's screaming to get out!" (I swear when I heard this a chorus of angels broke into the Hallelujah Chorus! Honest!)
I know my client as dynamic, extraordinarily successful and brilliant at what she does. She is funny, creative and sees life very very clearly albeit sometimes at a 45 degree angle! (Ah, the beauty of being creative and sensitive!) At this point she has climbed the corporate ladder almost to the top, but is soooo done with it all! She feels exhausted, fed-up and pretty 'homesick' for her true self. You see, the corporate exec wasn't really who she started in life as. Her best friend from way back recently said, "I remember you as quirky, funky, funny, cool, adventurous and creative."
The toll can be great when you are living life as someone you were not born to be.
How did she get so lost?
•By trying to do the right thing.
•By trying to please the important people in her life.
•By being there for everybody.
•By being smart and good at many things.
•By taking on board everybody else opinions.
Like my client, we can all can get trapped by our own success: keep getting promoted, make more money, earn more degrees, build our reputation, until it feels harder and harder to escape. On top of all that life happens. The years tick by, you get buried under responsibility, family pressures, and even your own lifestyle! You get stuck in.
As you burnout you start feeling empty and lost. You find yourself questioning everything you ever thought you wanted, dreamed-of or achieved. Slowly the knowledge and vision of who you were 'meant' to be grows dimmer and dimmer.
Reconnecting with who you are requires courage and truth. Then it requires action. Don't worry, you don't have to go running off to the Himalayas to 'find' yourself. We don't even believe that you have to change your career dramatically, overhaul your entire life or throw out the kids!
What we know from so deep down inside us is that you have to listen to your inner queen that is whispering, or screaming, at you from the top of her lungs.
Getting over burnout is never about simply stopping stress, having less to do, learning time management or about 'a,b,c' prioritising!! (Oh no no that is soooo not us! Boring!) Getting over burnout is deeper, bigger, bolder and more profound. (and definitely more fun!)
So, do you want to stop feeling so exhausted, depleted or 'grey' about your life? Do you want to start living a life in full colour? "YES" your inner queen is screaming! Then it is definitely time for you to reconnect with YOUR raging redhead!
Here's One Great Tip!
Ask someone who's known you through the ages and who really gets you, maybe a longterm friend or sibling, how they remember you?
Ask them to describe you in a couple of paragraphs written in the 3rd person. (We need to remove some of the 'do I dare say it' to her factor!) It's just easier for them to describe you if they write, "She was..." . It's more like a character and after all, you are the leading lady in your own story!