Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and contemplating a job change? We delve into the root causes of job-related burnout among women leaders and finance professionals.
We shed light on the recurring pattern of exhaustion plaguing many dedicated professionals and question whether a job change is the ultimate solution.
A vicious cycle
Many leaders find themselves in the cycle of devotion to their roles, where love for their work leads to over-delivering and taking on undue responsibilities. Over time, this can create a sense of tiredness, resentment, and eventually burnout.
The instinctual response? Change jobs.
However, the problem often lies not within the job itself, but within the cycle of how these roles are managed. A change of scenery might only temporarily address the symptoms but not the root cause.
exploring the cycle with Angelique binet
In a thought-provoking dialogue with communications strategist Angelique Binet. Together, they explore how the drive to overdeliver and take on responsibility often leads women down a path of constant fatigue and frustration.
It’s how you approach your work because you’re in that role because you’re an over-deliverer. You are a high performer. You are doing all the things, and start to feel a little tired.
There’s this part of you that starts to feel a little bit behind, a bit overwhelmed, especially as women leaders, you’re trained from a very early age to make sure that everyone around you is alright so you can be alright. It’s part of what makes women amazing leaders, but what happens is you try to overcompensate for this feeling of tiredness.
Burn out
You start to feel overwhelmed and rather than taking a step back and looking after our body and recovering, you lean more into your role. So that means that you start working later at night. It causes a little bit of stress at home. You get that guilt inside because you’ve missed dinner with the kids again. You start doing that sneaky email catch-up on the weekend, just so you can get ahead and so that you don’t feel so exhausted the following week. But here’s the thing.
If you’re catching up on your email on the weekend, what you’re actually doing is putting your self right back in that psychological space, which is triggering that fight or flight stress response in the first place.
And the thing is you don’t even know you’re in that stress response because you’ve been in it for so long that it’s become normal because your body is amazing at adapting. So that’s why that’s how it sort of comes about. It’s part of that side effect of being a woman leader.
recover from depletion
Recover from that burning through that adrenaline and that cortisol and the systemic inflammatory response that it’s creating in your body and all of the side effects that come from that long term inflammatory response. A lot of our, modern-day illnesses are in fact, inflammatory diseases, and there’s more and more research coming out that talks about the importance of getting that inflammatory cascade under control. Tracy worked with leaders, reducing inflammation, and they were getting better, but the behavior wasn’t changing.
The way that you are behaving in a role is still triggering that physiological cascade. Altering your behaviour in approaching your work is key.
It’s about stepping back and getting back into connection with the true essence of who you are.
taking a step back
Become the woman who actually doesn’t need to be a people pleaser. You become the woman that doesn’t need everyone else around you to be okay in order for you to be okay.
Allowing your true essence to come through, you become a more elevated leader.
Tracy’s insights are invaluable for any health-centred leader pondering a career shift. Before making a leap, consider whether a new perspective and toolkit for managing stress might rekindle the passion for your current job or guide you to a pathway that aligns more closely with your values and aspirations. Listen to this episode to learn how to reclaim your leadership joy and break free from the burnout cycle.