With the help of friends and professionals (coaches and therapist)

[Note: this post was originally published on Substack August 13, 2024] 

Part 5 of 10 in the series, “How do I launch a business while on my burnout recovery journey?”

It may seem crazy to launch a business after going through burnout. Where does all the energy come from? How do you manage the stress? How do you keep going? This is post #5 of a 10-part series.

As a burnout survivor in recovery, I’ve learned that I need to ask for help, and more often than is comfortable for me (like never!). I never, ever used to ask for help, for anything. I was always solo, independent, reliant on no one for anything, if I could possibly help it.

As it turns out, that’s exactly the opposite of our biology. I spent so many years fighting my basic human needs to attach, to be in a social group, to give and share help and ideas with others, to have community. Part of my burnout was caused by being so good at detaching.

Once I realized that this burnout wasn’t going to be something I could fix on my own, I had to learn how to ask for help.

I had to use words I didn’t like saying.

I had to be vulnerable.

I had to admit that my survival mechanisms weren’t enough.

It. Was. Hard.

It still is.

Recognizing that I needed help was almost as hard as asking for it. No one (at least this is what I told myself) wants to think they can’t “handle it” on their own. I didn’t learn how to manage these sorts of feelings when I was growing up. They needed to be hidden. I had to get by and figure out whatever needed to happen on my own to keep the adults happy, meaning, it kept me out of trouble and kept me from being noticed. (I have no siblings to help me, or blame, for that matter.)

As a child, I heard things like, “sit still,” “pay attention to [any adult],” “be quiet,” and about a thousand other things that made me hide away my feelings deep in my heart. I buried anything that would “be a burden” and especially anything that drew attention to me. So asking for help seemed like an impossible thing.

What I’ve now learned is that when we grow up suppressing these emotions and behaviors, we often also learn unsuccessful communication styles, like being passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive, or manipulative, to try and get what we need without actually asking for it. We also learn to make assumptions people will just “know what we need;” or at the very least, we hope and pray they will figure it out.

I had to learn how to ask for what I need using clear and effective communication. OK, really, first, I had to learn what clear and effective communication. Then, I had to learn how to ask for what I needed.

This is an ongoing practice for me. I’m still learning what I need, what my boundary tolerances are, and how to ask for what I actually need, without using one of those unsuccessful communication strategies (from above) that I was so good at using for so long.

I have learned that there are many people, from my therapist and coaches, to some of my amazing friends, and even some family, that really are here to support me, help me, and offer their guidance when I can actually ask for what I need.

I’ve learned that healing from burnout also takes a village, and we’re all better for it. It’s all part of being a lifelong learner and staying in recovery from burnout.