The phrase “burnout” gets thrown around a lot these days. It’s become so normalized that many don’t even try to escape feeling its effects. If you identify at all as an ambitious person who leads a team of people, you might even be avoiding the things that will help you get back to feeling alive and energized.

What’s interesting is, most ambitious female leaders I know don’t even know they’re burned out until it’s too late. Their ability to manage the stress, stay optimistic, and multi-task cons them into thinking they’re “fine” for much longer than they might be. If that sounds like you, that’s because you’re the type of high performer that even when you’re running at 60% everyone else is super impressed—until it all comes crashing down. Here’s how to achieve your best while prioritizing yourself and guarding against burnout.

1. Recognize your own burnout

Most people struggle to even acknowledge they’re burned out because they’ve deemed it a failure if they are, so the very first step to overcoming it is recognizing it. Below are some common signs of burnout before you know it’s happening:

• You’re feeling overwhelmed
• You start to regret things you’ve said yes to, even teetering on resentment
• You’ve said to yourself “I’m the only one who can do this the right way”
• You’re feeling emotional exhaustion
• You’re feeling increased irritability
• You feel short, cynical, or detached
• You’re slipping into coasting and asking yourself: “What’s the least I can do here to get by?”
• You’re starting to lack a lust for the things you used to feel thrilled doing
• You feel guilty because you “should” be loving doing what you only dreamed of doing years ago

Burnout doesn’t always show up like a mental/emotional breakdown. It can be a slow deterioration of the original fervor you had to go after crazy things.

I’m here to tell you that there’s a way out. But it will require you to slow down and take some hard looks at what we call at Novus Global the “systems” or beliefs you’re carrying around that got you here in the first place. 

Most people try to solve burnout by taking a vacation. But have you ever gone on a vacation feeling like you never got a chance to really turn off? I can’t tell you how many vacations, massages, and days at the spa didn’t actually get rid of the mental habits that keep bringing back my exhaustion. Sometimes the very first step is acknowledging you might be close to burnout or already there.

2. Say no with a purpose

As an executive coach who works with high performing leaders and teams, I often see people make one big first mistake: They overcommit. There are common concerns that drive this behavior:

• “I want to be a team player”

• “I don’t want to look like I can’t do my job”

• “I’m sure I’ll be able to do it during [fill in the blank un-sober time]”

• “What if I delegate it and I’m not valuable anymore?”

• “What if I say no and I disappoint them?”

People have common internal beliefs about saying “no” that prevent them from staying in alignment with who they are.

PRACTICAL ACTION: Interested vs. Committed

Get out a piece of paper and create two columns, one titled “Interested” and one titled “Committed.” You may end up doing a lot of crossing things out and moving things around, and that’s OK. Most people carry around the mental burden of things they think they’re committed to but that actually belong in the “interested” category.

For example, at our firm I was singled out as someone who would be great to lead one of our new internal teams. I didn’t even hesitate to say yes. Two months later, I found myself having a panic attack in the grocery store parking lot because I had too much on my plate and wasn’t enjoying the new responsibilities. The panic was created by the belief that “I already said yes, I should be able to do this, what if I ask to be removed and everyone stops thinking of me as someone they single out as capable?” But thankfully, even as a coach, I have a coach, and I decided to get clear on why I said yes in the first place.

Encouraging people to use the phrase “I receive it” is a crucial part of this practice. As humans, we often carry habits of wanting to deflect, feel guilty or make a joke to seem less arrogant when we receive a compliment. To “receive” is to “to seize, to take on, to take hold of” something. When people compliment you, I want you to practice letting it truly fill you up and create a spiritual, psychological, or emotional shift because of it.

Your brain is constantly looking for evidence to prove itself right for whatever it believes. If all you’re seeing is what’s not working, your brain will continue to confirm that. If you decide to start looking for the wins, your brain will find those as well. Learning to see the wins creates fire to continue exploring what you’re capable of and setting more and more ambitious goals—this is when you can shift from white knuckling your results to sustained mastery.

I’ll leave you with this last thought:

So many of us avoid doing these things because we’d rather be addicted to the mess or the busyness, so my encouragement to you today would be to begin practicing all these things.

What if simply recognizing and acknowledging when you might be burned out is the door to overcoming it? What if saying “no” is the door to getting more done and becoming more productive? What if learning to celebrate your wins was the door to getting more fulfillment?