4 steps to undo burnout and severe anxiety and achieve more balance

Recapping a year into my therapy and mental wellness journey

It’s officially been a year since I started regularly going to therapy and since I took some time off to address my severe burnout and anxiety (that largely stemmed from work but started with postpartum anxiety), and I feel proud of how far I’ve come. I’m super passionate about continuing my journey of growth and mental wellness and helping others do the same in any way I can. This is my second post, and I look forward to sharing even more about my own reflections and mental wellness journey every week.

A year ago, I was so burnt out from work. I constantly thought about work (even when I wasn’t doing it), got panic attacks and the WORST Sunday scaries every week, and had guilt that prevented me from doing non-work things that might actually bring me joy. Flash forward to current day: I feel like I have more purpose beyond work. I’ve minimized the time I spend working/thinking about work while making time and space for things that matter most to me. I log off work by 4/5pm everyday, take middle-of-the-day breaks for myself and for family/friends on slower days, and feel so much more balanced in my life than a year ago. More about my initial journey and progress after 3 months here. We’d all love to have a dream job with dream pay, but whether you do or not, it’s still possible to live a more balanced, fulfilling life.

What was the secret? Here were the 4 key things that put me on a better path and helped me regain a sense of self and fulfillment beyond work, all of which stemmed from therapy and actively investing time in my own growth:

1. Confront my anxieties, uncover the beliefs driving them, and take (uncomfortable) actions to build confidence: This is one of the first and fundamental things that I continue to address with my therapist. Last year, my anxiety was triggered on a daily basis largely by work and occasionally parental responsibilities (from hearing emails from coworkers come through at 10pm to me feeling like I carried the burden of most parental duties). Every weeknight and Sunday, I felt fearful and guilty about doing anything that wasn’t work-related. I felt helpless, overwhelmed, and scared of something negative happening. Through therapy, I discovered that the root of many of my anxieties had common themes, largely around fear of not being “good enough” (usually for someone else) and general self-doubt,  which stemmed from past experiences. I catastrophized in many situations (e.g. if I was behind at work, I’d get anxiety due to subconscious fears of getting fired and not being able to support my family), and this made me feel stuck in my situation. Once I honestly examined my feelings, challenged some of my beliefs (eg. Would I get fired immediately if I did something poorly or would I have time to react or course-correct? Or am I just being hard on myself and doing a decent job?), and took action to combat some of my feelings (eg. choosing to go out on a weeknight rather than worrying about work), my anxiety slowly started to diminish. I realized my actions didn’t usually result in worst case scenarios. And I slowly started to gain confidence that I could rebound even if things didn’t go according to plan.

2. Identify my personal values and priorities to focus on the most meaningful aspects of life: This step may sound a bit lofty and potentially obvious but doing this in earnest made me realize that I was spending like 90% of my time and mental capacity worrying about something (in my case, work) that was near the bottom of my values and priorities’ list. I was also tying more of my identity to it than I’d like. Realistically, something like work is naturally going to take up more hours in the week (and be a part of who I am), but the outsized amount of time I spent doing and worrying about work resulted in me neglecting true priorities (e.g. spending time with my family, doing something fun for myself) that could reinvigorate me. It took some trial and error to determine what values (ie. aspects of your life that you find meaningful) actually contributed most to my fulfillment and satisfaction. For example, I told myself that I wanted to read more novels, but when I actually spent time doing it, I realized it wasn’t the highest priority for me. My top 5 values (in stack ranked order) ended up being parenting, marriage, personal growth, family, and fun/recreational activities. This frame of reference allowed me to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t defined by my 9-5 (and that was totally ok); instead, I could identify around my other values of being a good mother, wife, family member/friend, and a passionate individual with unique interests. Parenting wasn’t my only value either, so I realized I needed alone time (and non-kid time with others) to fully re-energize. Values are bound to change; they don’t need to stay the same forever. Having an understanding of what they are at a given time helps to ensure better use of your time and resources, facilitating more balance and purpose in your life and helping you identify any misalignment.

3. Create habits around activities that ladder to my values and draw boundaries to protect my priorities (and working past guilt): This was the turning point, where I gradually started to spend more of my time doing things that were aligned with my values (parenting, marriage, etc.), and I started seeing a shift in how balanced and fulfilled I felt. For each of my values, I thought of different things, big and small, that I could do in service of them. I tried to do them regularly, working them into a routine or schedule as much as possible, increasing the likelihood that I’d get to it. Because being a good parent is my #1 value, I blocked mornings off everyday on my work calendar so that I could get Mara up from bed and get her ready for school, spending at least 30 mins to 1 hour with her in the morning before starting work. With marriage being my #2, I valued having quality time with Tommy, so I asked him if we could make weekly date nights a thing (on a specific day so it was predictable, even if it was doing takeout at home after Mara’s bedtime). On a smaller scale, we also spent at least 5 mins post-Mara’s bedtime talking to each other, our phones down/TV off, asking each other about our day. Because these things were worked into a routine, I was able to draw better boundaries to protect those commitments. If I ever have guilt about doing these things (rather than doing work), I go back to lesson #1 about identifying my beliefs around why I feel guilty, challenging the validity of them, and working past the guilt to do something that energizes me anyways (building confidence that I can recover if needed).

4. Learn to let go of control, overcome perfectionism, and accept help (especially for things lower on the priority list): This one is still hard for me, but I’m getting better at it. I used to want to control and perfect most aspects of my life. I didn’t ask for help often because I didn’t want to inconvenience others or have people think I couldn’t handle something. I felt this need and burden to do everything to keep my family afloat (being the primary one planning, cooking, handling finances, etc.), work my ass off at a demanding but unfulfilling job, and more. After I had a kid, these perfectionist tendencies and the need to be in control exponentially contributed to my burnout. When I started therapy last year, I finally acknowledged it wasn’t sustainable to actively control and perfect every part of my life without negatively impacting my own mental wellbeing and those around me. This was hard for me to overcome, but with a good understanding of my priorities, I slowly tested out the waters and relinquished control of things that were of lesser importance / lower stakes to me. Did I have to pour my 110% into work if I wasn’t trying to be promoted? Could I ask my husband to help me with some family and parenting responsibilities and be ok with the outcomes? I acknowledge that only you will know the true amount of flexibility and tolerance you have. For me, the more I practiced letting go of control, asking for help when needed, and being ok with a wider range of outcomes ultimately gave me confidence that everything didn’t need to be perfect. It also gave me confidence in others to support me.

I have more to say about the process and work I did, so I’ll dive into each of these more in the coming weeks. If you feel similarly, I’m hoping that these are helpful tips that bring about more balance, like they did for me. Life is too short to be burnt out, to feel stuck, or to feel unfulfilled, so let’s change the trajectory. It’s never too late. <3

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