Step 2 in undoing burnout and anxiety: Identify what’s truly meaningful in your life
You might find out you've been neglecting many things that are meaningful to you, like I was
A few weeks ago, I talked about my 4 steps to undo burnout and severe anxiety. My last post went further into Step 1: Confronting your anxiety. This post dives deeper into Step 2: Identifying what’s meaningful in your life and doing more in service of that. I continue to use my own story to illustrate my process, and I hope there are parallels that can be drawn to your own.
Introduction to common values
Prior to therapy, I’ve occasionally thought about what my “values” are philosophically. I knew family was important to me, I wanted a good career, I wanted to be a good person, etc. But I never spent dedicated time really focusing on what I wanted out of life, what types of actions would really accrue to my “values”, and how all my aspirations would balance amongst one another. It’s funny because I spend so much of my headspace at work thinking about my team’s goals and OKRs, ensuring that we’re making progress every half and year. But I never thought about doing that for my life, which is way more important.
Early in our relationship, my therapist shared a Values worksheet with me that had a list of prominent life values from the Valued Living Questionnaire (a questionnaire originally developed as a clinical tool by Wilson, Sandoz, Kitchens & Roberts in 2010). It highlights prominent domains of life that are valued by most people. It served as a starting point for me to identify what facets of life are most meaningful to me and assess the extent to which I was living life in accordance with those values (ie. whether or not I’m putting energy in the most meaningful areas on an everyday basis).
When I did this process thoroughly with my therapist, my biggest realization was that I was spending the majority of my time on something that was near the bottom of my Values list and neglecting progress towards values that were much more meaningful to me. You’ll see how I arrived at that conclusion by reading this post.
Below are the 10 prominent values on the Values worksheet I was given. I’m sure this doesn’t capture every single value that could be important to someone, but it’s a great starting point. I could see someone easily defining other buckets for themselves if this doesn’t feel holistic.
My observations about this framework:
I was surprised by the breakdown between marriage, parenting, family and friends as 4 separate dimensions. I used to think of myself as someone who cared a lot about my family (Tommy, Mara, my parents and in-laws, brother, etc.) and friends. What I didn’t realize was that thinking about it in this simplified 2-dimensional manner (“family and friends”) disguised the fact that each of these groups are distinct, have different needs, and require time from me. So I likely conflated these groups of individuals at times and wasn’t as intentional with my time as I’d like.
There’s bound to be some overlaps. For me, a concept like “Recreation” could bleed into “Personal Growth” since I’ve always been passionate about self-improvement and generally find it to be a stimulating and relaxing topic. Something you do for “Recreation” could also become a facet of “Employment” (e.g. I used to love playing video games, and I coincidentally worked in video games as well).
My values and identifying actions that laddered up to them
After being introduced to these values, step 1 was to summarize my personal values and aspirations for each dimension and think about its importance to me. Here was my first pass of my personal values, leveraging the prompts in the descriptions. The “yellow” columns are what I filled in.
Once I articulated my high-level values and aspirations, my therapist suggested that I break them down into small, medium, and large ways I could invest time into them (small - quick/easy things I could do regularly; medium - still fairly low-lift activities but more time-intensive; large - activities requiring the biggest investment of time/resources).
The reason why this is important is to identify a list of active actions that can directly further your values. When I was burnt out last year, I spent practically all my time on what I deemed “critical” for survival: Employment/Work and Parenting. When I was experiencing anxiety, I would often make excuses for not investing in certain areas of my life that I deemed “not critical” (which tended to be anything on the Values list that was non-work or parenting related). Or I’d feel incredibly guilty if I were to do it. In highlighting smaller, lower-lift ways I could honor my overall values, it gave me perspective that maybe I could take a few minutes out of my day to engage in some quick, but important/energizing-to-me things. And doing so wouldn’t throw me that much off track from what I needed to do for work or Mara.
Below are examples of me breaking down some of these values into tangible actions. I only listed my “High” and “Medium” priority Values to focus on the aspects of life that are most meaningful to me.
When I was burnt out last year (and still likely adjusting to postpartum life), I was doing things in service of Employment and Parenting, mainly to survive. I didn’t even feel like I was always working towards a goal (let alone the values I articulated above). I was merely doing what I thought was needed to support my family’s financial needs and Mara’s growth, and it’d result in me feeling overly anxious all the time. During that time, whenever I had 20-30 minutes free between meetings, I used to just sit at my desk (doing nothing but worry) or scramble to get something done, all while being overly anxious about how behind I was. This usually made me feel worse and contributed daily to increased burnout.
With the above framework built out, I tried to make a more active effort in doing things that could fill my cup and honor my values. The next time I had 20-30 mins free and was anxious, I had an arsenal of ideas I could reference to give myself a break and momentary relief. I wanted to see if these activities could energize me so that I could go back to work with a tiny bit more positivity. When I really thought about it, I didn’t have much to lose in giving these activities a shot because I already felt like crap every single day. Clearly whatever I was doing wasn’t working. As I started dabbling in these activities, I saw that when I took 10 mins to do something for me (e.g. grab a cup of tea, step outside, or curl my hair), I usually returned to work feeling slightly better that I did something for myself despite still feeling behind. I gradually learned that self-care didn’t need to be this huge thing where I needed to take an entire day off to get a massage or week off to go on vacation, etc. It could be simple things built into my daily life.
Getting to my stack-ranked list of Values through trial and error
With my list of values, its relative importance to me and some ideas around activities, part of my weekly therapy homework was to partake in activities that honored my values. The purpose was to see how they made me feel and attempt to start balancing my life, which only revolved around work and parenting at the time. I ranked many things as “High” priority above, and my therapist challenged me to stack-rank the list further because we inevitably won’t be able to allocate time to everything. When needed, it’s helpful to have a ranked list of values to help with prioritization.
What I found through this process is that you may think your values are one thing (e.g. I had my rough “Priority” indicated above), but I found that actually doing some of the activities challenged some of the assumptions about myself and revealed a more accurate priority.
Here are real-life examples of some things I tried week over week (mostly in the “small” and “medium” camps so they didn’t feel as overwhelming or make me feel as guilty for spending lots of time/resources) and how I felt about them. Being really honest about how I felt about these activities was key to identifying how big of a priority something was to me. Trial and error was a necessary part of this process. Some things deviated from my perception of how meaningful they were to me, while others were clear in the value they provided. I’ve called out some of those “Deviations” below.
Recreation
Curling my hair: I’ve somehow mastered curling my hair in about 10 minutes, so it’s a small lift to me. Whenever I curled my hair, I liked how I looked and it generally made me feel more confident and positive about myself. With a 10-15 minute investment that had the ability to make me feel that way, it definitely was something I wanted to occasionally build into my life more frequently. I could even do this between meetings if I really wanted to.
[Deviation] Reading a book: I picked up “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” (since I loved the Netflix movie) and tried to read the novel for about 30 mins. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t feel the urge to want to do it more. So I decided to drop reading from my list of regular ideas that’d bring me energy.
Taking a break to make a cup of tea: I used to have tea every day when I went into the office, and I loved it. I dialed back when I became pregnant and started working from home (lol prob mostly because I had to pay for my own tea). But I started to do this a bit more often at home, and I found that it helped start my day on a more positive note despite the anxiety I felt about work.
Family
30 mins to 1 hour phone call with my brother: Despite our 10 year age gap, I’ve always felt close to my brother. Due to our busy lives and the slight distance between where we lived, I didn’t catch up with him as much as I wanted. So we decided to have a catch-up phone call one day, and I really enjoyed it. It was something I valued and felt really good about after. I knew I wanted to do it more often. 30 minute calls every week weren’t that scalable, so I also found that a text catch-up felt nice/energizing too (and was way better than not communicating at all).
Taking my parents out for a lunch without Mara: This one was definitely a “large” item on my list since I’d need to take a couple hours off during my work day (while Mara was in school), but I wanted to give it a try. Ever since having Mara, I never spent quality time just catching up with them without the distractions of watching a toddler. When we got a chance to do it, it felt so nice and valuable to me. This activity required effort from me, but it ended up being so worth it, and I wanted to carve out time to do it more regularly.
Friends
[Deviation] Going out to lunch with a close friend during the workday: This one was also a “large” item on my list since I’d need to take time out of my workday to do this. When I did it, I really enjoyed it, but I also found myself sometimes preferring “me time” to do other things. Or to catch up with family instead. So I aim to do this about once/month on the weekdays. Friends are still really important to me, so I try to text, catch up via social media, or hang out with them on the weekends instead.
[Deviation] Catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in over a year/few years: I did this through FaceTime calls and also in-person meetings. They were definitely nice, and I always really enjoyed our hangouts. But I found myself questioning if it was worth it for me to do with more regularity when I was already used to not speaking to them often. Where I netted out is that for some folks, seeing them once/year or every couple years was sufficient. I enjoyed my time with them; however, due to my finite amount of time/mental capacity, honoring my other values (e.g. spending time with Tommy or Mara, my parents, etc.) was more meaningful to me than squeezing in a couple more catch-ups with certain people a year.
Personal Growth
Therapy: Last year, I did therapy weekly (1 hour each time) and spent time between our sessions doing the exact work that I’m sharing with you now. I found all of it incredibly fulfilling, helpful, and clarifying. And I knew it was a huge priority for me that I wanted to regularly invest in.
Podcasts: I used to listen to a lot of self-improvement and entrepreneurship podcasts prior to having a baby, and I’d often use my commuting time to/from the office to do it. Once remote work started during the pandemic and I became a mother (July 2020), I stopped since I no longer commuted and I had less time. One day, I decided to listen to one of my favorite podcasts since I knew I really enjoyed them previously. What I found was that listening to a single podcast would give me so much energy and optimism. And it was definitely something I wanted to do more regularly.
Marriage and Parenting: I’m not going to go into detail about these because nearly everything I did in honor of these two values gave me immense fulfillment. From taking Mara to play at the playground to going out on a date night with Tommy, it was all worth it. And they all made me feel so happy. And I knew these values were at the very top of my list.
After a few weeks of partaking in some of these activities, I arrived at the stack-ranked list below of things that were important to me (based on how energized or fulfilled I felt after investing in relevant activities). It’s okay if your list is directional; this is an ongoing process. To this day, I still leverage this framework to ensure I’m regularly spending time on my values (or even reassessing if my values have changed).
My stack-ranked Values list:
Parenting
Marriage
Personal Growth
Family
Recreation
Friendships / Social Relationships
Employment
Physical Wellbeing
Citizenship
Spirituality
Just because something is lower on my list doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit about it or spend any time on it (e.g. my job, physical health, or giving back to the community). It solely means progressing in those dimensions are relatively less meaningful to me. For example, I want to work in a job that adequately provides for my family and that I enjoy, but I currently don’t have aspirations to become a VP or CMO despite my deep marketing expertise. I do what I need to honor my value around those lower-priority dimensions (what I indicated in my “Values/Aspirations” above) and maintain my progress.
Lower-priority values still play a very active part in my life (e.g. I obviously spend the majority of my weekdays working, I do weekly workouts to stay fit, I regularly look for opportunities to contribute to causes/society). And work specifically will always be something that occupies most of my week (unless I win a huge lottery) because I need to make money to support my family. At times, I spend even more time on it when I’m job searching to find something that’s a better fit / more aligned with my values. But once that baseline feels good enough, I try to allocate more of my free time to the values that are of higher importance to me. The ones that give me more purpose and meaning in life.
I feel like something lower on the list could also be an indication of how large the gap is between my current state and my ideal value/aspiration. For example, friendships have always been an integral part of my life. But I’ve done a decent job investing in my relationships over the years that the incremental gain doesn’t feel as meaningful as investing in my own Personal Growth (which I haven’t spent as much time on).
How aligned (or misaligned) was my life to my values?
Now that I had my list, I had to think about whether my priorities and values mapped to where I was putting my mental and physical energy on a day-to-day basis. My therapist made the analogy that I needed to water my entire garden for it to grow (ie. invest in my holistic values for my life to feel more sustainable/meaningful). When everything is unhealthy, I’m more likely to fall apart (like I did last year). When you tend to more parts of your garden, you’ll be more stable and capable of withstanding deficits in other areas.
When I experienced severe anxiety last year (and went on mental health leave), I reflected on the prior 6-12 months. I realized that I was spending 90% of my time and mental space worrying about work, which was 7th out of 10 on my Values list. And the nature of my job at the time didn’t even feel meaningful/valuable. The rest of my time was spent on parenting (which is my #1), but the imbalance of spending an outsized amount of time on something relatively low-value combined with ZERO time on 4 high-value priorities made me feel like shit. I was neglecting huge rocks in my life like marriage, my own growth, my family, etc.
It was a huge sign that I needed to shift the balance to start living a more sustainable life that didn’t burn me out. I needed to start living my life in a way that more regularly honored my values (Parenting, Marriage, Personal Growth, Family and Recreation) and in turn would make me feel more fulfilled. Thankfully, I now had a grid of my values and activity ideas at my disposal to help me slowly work towards a more balanced life.
The start of my journey to a more balanced life
Because work was 7th on my list (and monopolizing all my time), I slowly tried to dial back the time I spent worrying about it and use some of that time towards something higher up on my list, like doing something on my Recreation list. (Important note: Dialing back the time I spent worrying about work involved A LOT of confronting my anxiety about it from Step 1). Once I started engaging in activities in service of my big priorities (Marriage, Family, Recreation, etc.), I started to notice a shift in how I felt. I also realized I needed to find a job that was more aligned with my values, so I also started exploring new roles.
Values can always change, and that is 1000% ok (and in fact, normal). Having a working list of your values as a starting point can help you better align your current life with generally where you want to go, and you can always refine. This is what I’m continuing to do everyday. I’m just glad this process made me realize that my life was misaligned to my general values and gave me tangible direction on how I could work towards a more balanced, fulfilling life.
Next week, I’ll share more around my work to build routine around things that mattered to me and draw boundaries to respect them. Since repeated action in honor of your values is needed to change the trajectory in how balanced you feel.
Thanks for reading; your support means a lot to me! As always, feel free to ask me questions and I’m always happy to hear from you.