Reconsidering Burnout Using the Third Option
By: Kendra Patterson
Tags: Self-awareness, Recovery, Burnout, Hope, Personal Development

The reason changing your life is so hard is because it always involves a loss of some kind.

Have you ever tried to empty a full dryer in one go, and every time you lean over to pick up a dropped sock or washcloth, you lose another? Not only are you trying to hold everything together, but you’re struggling to scoop up all the items falling to the wayside as well. That’s what life feels like when you have burnout. Like all your energy is used up just trying to scrape through the day, cleaning up messes. You have nothing left over for the things that feed your soul — and worse, activities that used to bring you joy no longer do. They become chores just like everything else. That’s no way to live.

When burnout becomes extreme, it’s marked by a feeling of being trapped by the circumstances that are causing the burnout. The emotional exhaustion constricts your perception of options. It’s like being in a deep hole. Your world becomes black and white, either/or, with choices whittled down to their starkest binary: stay in that hole, or get out (somehow). But “get out” is rarely a feasible option, because it involves blowing up life as you know it. This is what burnout is: feeling totally, hopelessly stuck, your brain stumbling back and forth between two equally unworkable options. Yes or no, stay or go. And here’s the worst part about burnout: you don’t even know which option you want.

The good news is that this is a false set of options created by your burnout brain. Both are the same thing, two sides of a coin: reactions to being stuck. Both live inside that hole with you. What you need is a third option, one that exists outside of this hole that will crack open the mental constructs keeping you stuck in that either/or existence. The third option lives beyond the boundaries of your current perception.

At this point I know you’re thinking, so get on with telling me how to find the third option already! I’m not going to pretend that there’s some kind of life hack for this. One of the most challenging aspects of being stuck in burnout is that we usually have subconscious reasons for wanting to stay stuck. Changing our lives involves confronting difficult emotions: grief, failure, fear. The reason there’s a perennial market for life advice is that while it gives the illusion of being useful, it mostly fails. The only thing that works is changing your perception of your own reality, and this is no easy task. We cling to our way of seeing things because letting go feels like launching ourselves into chaos and insanity. To our subconscious, it feels like death. But it’s the only way to truly change your life.

Here’s the secret to the third option: it’s not actually a singular choice, but a way of seeing. You can begin to broaden your field of options by opening yourself to the idea of other options. They are real, they are out there, you will find them, and it can happen quickly, seemingly overnight — if you are ready. Wanting to change your life and being ready to change it are two different stages. We all start with wanting to change, but many mistakenly believe wanting it is enough. It’s not.

So how do you prepare yourself for change? Amazingly, it’s pretty simple — not easy, but simple. You have to consider that what’s holding you back isn’t a lack of options but rather your inability to accept other possibilities for yourself. The third option always involves a loss of some part of the vision you have of yourself and your life. That’s why it’s not easy. In order to be ready for change, you must ready yourself for loss. But you will ultimately end up gaining so much more. I say this as someone who has come out on the other side of burnout. Getting through it sucked, there are no two ways about it. But the rewards are well worth it.

Kendra Patterson is a writer and creativity coach based in north-central Florida. She works with fellow creatives to help them work through blocks and burnout and to reconnect with their creative spark. You can find her at www.kendrapatterson.com.