Let’s Cut To The Chase. To Avoid Burnout, Your Emotions Drive The Bus, Not Fancy Apps.
“There are no un-resourceful people, only un-resourceful states”.
This is a basic presupposition of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP).
My coaching philosophy centers around this. It underpins the work I do as an Executive Coach for high achieving executive women struggling under high pressure and overwork addiction.
If you are a successful woman trapped in a vicious cycle of stress, overwork, and toxic overwhelm, understanding how to attend and befriend your emotional state is vital. It is THE KEY to your personal wellbeing, time freedom, and ultimately, career success.
It’s not time-management. It’s not an app. It’s not Brene Brown.
It’s about changing your emotional state. Period. End of sentence.
Below are the 3 critical tenets of the coaching philosophy we operate under at Teresa Vozza Coaching that help our clients enjoy more time freedom, personal autonomy, and emotional wellbeing.
Basically, a happier and much more fulfilled emotional state…
They are:
- All Procedures Should be designed to increase Wholeness & Choice
- Behaviour and Change are to be evaluated in terms of Context and Ecology
- Transformation starts when we make a decision to live on the side of Cause rather than Effect
1. All Procedures Should Be Designed To Increase Wholeness & Choice
“I have no choice but to work late….”
Baloney. Sorry, but it’s not true.
I hear this often with clients. The truth is we always have choice. One of the first outcomes women experience in The Crucible is we increase both the quality and the quantity of choices women have available. We also help women distinguish between what is truly a fact vs what is an opinion. “I have no choice” is an opinion. When a client is in a severe state of distress, choices don’t come easily. Our neural pathways haven’t been practised enough to start seeing alternative options. So, it’s not your fault that you feel that way. But, let’s call it what it is. Not true.
Here’s another one: “My personal life has nothing to do with my career”.
Oh yes it does.
Eradicating burnout among corporate women (and people everywhere!) involves the whole self. The definition of whole self is described as “the interrelationship between the various aspects of life”. In short, all aspects of what makes you, YOU.
To treat each area of our life as separate doesn’t yield optimal results. The most positive outcomes occur when we treat all parts of us — personal and professional — as integral to success. For instance, if a client shares with me they are having personal problems in addition to stress at work, there is no doubt that will impact their effectiveness (and happiness!). So yes, your personal life does matter and will come up.
2. Behaviour and Change are to be evaluated in terms of Ecology.
“I don’t want to let my colleagues down”.
In NLP, ecology refers to the study of consequences. There are four levels of ecology that I watch for when coaching clients.
- Self to Self
- Self to Others
- Self to Society
- Self to Planet
We make every attempt to look for win-win. How do the actions of the client affect all four interrelated parts — self, others (family), society, and the planet. So, in the case of the burnt-out executive who repeatedly says that she “doesn’t want to let her colleagues down”, she is potentially violating Self To Self (she is exhausted). She may even be violating Self To Others (she feels guilty for not having time for her kids). That choice is not ecological, nor does it increase her wholeness. When you are thinking ecologically, you are looking at all aspects of a situation.
3. Make a Decision to Live on the Side of Cause rather than Effect.
The universal law of cause and effect states that for every effect there is a definite cause, likewise for every cause, there is a definite effect. I am not going to get into the law of attraction because I feel that it is so misrepresented by most people.
It’s not a short-cut to Mansions, Maseratis, and Millions.
Your thoughts, behaviours, and actions create specific effects. Therefore, when we make a decision to live on the side of cause, we are taking personal responsibility for what happens to us, the effects. Therefore, we are consciously accepting responsibility for what happens in our lives. This cuts away the noise and distraction of what “other people” are doing “to us”. Instead, living by this law places us directly in charge of our thought life.
To be clear, toxic workplaces, toxic leaders, and toxic cultures DO exist, and they DO contribute to burnout. That’s not being disputed. However, in the coaching relationship, we focus on creating resourceful emotional states. Once our physiology has reached a state of coherence, ie. I feel less anxiety and distress, THEN we can get to work on leaving the toxic workplace.
Burnt out women can google time management apps and calendaring software. True transformation starts with a desire and willingness to change your emotional state, confidently and consistently.
If you like this post, you will love my emails. I share practical, science-backed advice on how to create and maintain a high vibe, low stress, highly successful, and low toxicity life. All with a hint of humour and sarcasm. Join me!
