Steps you can take today to avoid career ‘burnout’

Megan Dalla-Camina was at the height of her career when she suffered extreme career burnout.
The author and leadership coach says oftentimes women don’t even realise they are in this dire state until it is too late.
She describes her own crisis as a feeling of “greyness” that left her merely going through the motions in life.
After coaching thousands of women each year Dalla-Camina has learned women who are struggling often think “we’re the only ones.”
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“We’re so busy doing all the things, taking care of all of the people, and burning ourselves out with all of that, that there’s nothing left,” the 53-year-old explains.
Most women know what to do to feel better, but simply “can’t get to them, because we’re so busy in the treadmill of our lives.”
When Dalla-Camina suffered career burnout 18 years ago, she was working as the head of marketing at a major corporate.
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”And I was a single mom to a young child. I was a new big executive … I was also trying to do my first Master’s degree.
“I was doing all the things I tell women that I coach now, ‘Don’t do that!'”
By the time she realised she was completely burned out and needed to change her life, it wasn’t a choice, it was imperative.
“I think so many of us as women have like mini burnouts. We have these little moments of burnout and then we pick ourselves up and we keep going, and I had done that for the decade before,” she says.
“But I finally got to the point where I was I was unwell, I was exhausted and the thing that comes with burnout which is that sense of I just don’t care anymore,” she describes.
“I am at that point of feeling quite apathetic about the work that I used to be so passionate about.
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“That’s one of the really key signs that something has to dramatically change, to be able to get on that path to healing.”
Dalla-Camina quit her job and embarked on a journey to transform her life and career, creating a purpose-driven path that has since impacted thousands of women globally with her global ed-tech platform Women Rising.
She has now released a book called Women Rising: The Forces That Hold Us Back, The Tools to Help Us Rise.
Dalla-Camina explains while there are systemic factors to women suffering career burnout, there are internal factors at play as well. She encourages women to take a good look at their lives and think about the vision they have for their lives.
“It is the hardest question for women to answer,” she says.
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By considering this question women can think about what their goals are, what makes them feel purposeful, the work that gives them meaning and how they want their lives to come together.
“I find that about 95 per cent of the thousands of women I work with every year cannot answer that question.
“And it can take us quite some time to figure that out,” she explains. “Then we can start to ask the follow-up questions which are things like, ‘How do I feel in my life right now? How do I feel in my body?’
“Often we are so in our heads and disembodied from how we feel that we don’t realise that until we hit the wall, until we get sick, we are completely burned out and we can’t push ourselves any further do we step back and ask those questions,” she says.
“But if we can get out of our heads and into our bodies, out of our cognitive processes and into our hearts, how we feel, then we see the signs of burnout.”
While this process can take some time, Dalla-Camina says there are steps women can take today to feel better about their place in life.
“My message to women is always, you don’t need to turn your life upside down to start creating positive change. And one of the favorite questions I like to ask women is, ‘What’s the smallest thing that you could do today that would give you the biggest power?’
“So, for example, that could mean you’re going to really focus on your sleep. Your one thing could be, ‘I’m going to go for a walk outside for 10 minutes every day after lunch.’ So you stand up, you get away from your screen, you leave your device and go outside and get some fresh air, go touch a tree, walk in the park, whatever it is to have a mindful moment.”
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