How To Avoid Burnout and Prioritise Your Health As A Hyper-Achiever

Your Dream Business

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Ailish Lucas, where we are talking all about why the old way of working through and hustling till you burnout doesn't work.

In this episode, Ailish shares her personal experiences of burnout and the strategies she now uses to prioritise her health, whilst still building a successful business. Ailish is a Mindset + Business Coach who has extensive experience helping female entrepreneurs + high achievers train their brain to change their life, transform their business and make a life not just a living without getting burnout.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. How to identify the signs of burnout and prevent it from happening
2. Using Positive Intelligence to reduce burnout and improve well-being
3. How to manage personal and business challenges with a positive mindset

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Ailish on Instagram Check out Ailish's website Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript

Teresa: Hello and welcome to your dream business podcast. How are you doing? I am good, except I've just messed up about four takes of this episode, which is funny because I'm normally pretty good. I mean, you would think after 330, I think this is going to be 335 that I would actually know how to start a podcast, but apparently not. We're all learning. Today. I have a lovely, lovely friend with me and I am so grateful that she's decided to join us on the podcast. Her name is Ailish Lucas. If you've been in my world, you'll know I talk about Ailish and she is a mindset and business coach who works with female entrepreneurs. She helps them to train their brain, change their life, transform their business and make a life not just for living, but without getting burnt out. So today we're going to be talking about the key things about burning out. What is it? How do we know we're doing it? And how more importantly, do we stop it? Because apparently, She's written, when we are happy, we perform 13 percent better and when we are coached, our productivity increased by 66%. Is that true? Amazing. Welcome to the podcast, Ailish. Ailish: Oh, thank you so much for having me. Teresa: Thanks for putting up with my terrible starts to the vodka. Uh, you know, we've been here for about five minutes trying to start this podcast, but we're here now. We're doing it. And I am really glad to have you here. Ailish: Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I love chatting with you. Teresa: And well, this was the problem because we got on this call about 20 minutes ago and we just started chatting and then we're like, Oh God, I've got a podcast to record. But yes, Ailish has been in my life for some time and I'm very, very blessed to have Ailish as a friend. Because, When you are a coach, and Ailish knows this because she's a coach too, you, I spend so much of my time being the coach and being the expert. And everybody needs not just a coach, but a peer group in which you can be honest. And Ailish is one of those for me, BizPaul's another one, Roseanna's another one. Like, I need that peer group that I can go, what am I doing? My life is falling apart. So that we don't do it when we're out in the world to the people we coach. So I'm so grateful that I get to do that with you, Ailish. So let's kick off by, I just want to go back just a little bit and talk about what you not used to do, cause you still kind of do it, but like you didn't start off life as a coach for female entrepreneurs. So let's go back and start when you started your business. Ailish: Yeah. So I have had quite a few iterations of my business. I would almost say I've looked multi passionate entrepreneur. I've had a theme throughout it, which has been the beauty industry. And I started off. Being a natural and organic beauty blogger, probably like 10 years ago, probably more than that actually. And then I moved into doing and running online summits. Before the world and his wife decided to run online summit and know how to do it. And then I moved into my business, which was helping indie beauty brands to learn marketing and social media so they could grow their e commerce businesses. And I've done that for like the past few years. And I've had some great successes with it, it was a successful business, it won loads of awards, some sponsored by Google, where they were the judge on it. And what I found throughout a lot of that was, I can give you all the marketing strategy in the world, but if your mindset isn't right, then you will never get the stuff done. And what transpired through that was that I loved coaching one on one with my clients. I could help them with the marketing strategy, but that was like 20 percent of it. The most amount of time that I would spend with them would be on the mindset work, in terms of working through those limiting beliefs, dealing with any burnout that they had, dealing with any issues that would come up for them. And I fell in love with that part of it because I think it was Tony Robbins or somebody very famously said, success is 80 percent mindset and 20 percent strategy. And I really fundamentally believe that. So what I did was then I went and retrained whilst I was still doing my business. So I could get the best skills that I could possibly find and then be able to coach really effectively. And what then transpired was my new business, which is coaching female entrepreneurs. It's not necessarily new, it's, it's definitely a few years old, but fully stepping into that role. now help incredible women to be able to break through those limiting beliefs and to be able to fulfill that true potential for success and happiness without burning out. And that's where I feel my true calling is. And I'm just really excited to do it now. The reason burnout is in that is because it's really common for female entrepreneurs to burn out. I had a very sustained period of burnout because I had lots of personal things going on, as well as like trying to run my business, as well as all of that through COVID. And it's, it's just really common for that to happen. I want to make sure that my clients can have this sustained success and that sustained growth without the burnout. It's really, really important to me and to them. Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So let's just touch on the burnout thing, because I think, and obviously I've known you throughout that whole time. And I, like, I think in the early days, there was a few, few things that you were like, maybe I'm burning out, maybe this is happening, but I think lots of people don't realize, A, what burnout is and B, that they're in it when they're in it. So talk a bit about what is burnout, because it's a term that everyone uses, but, and I think people are, yeah, I'm burning, I think I'll burn out, I've got to be careful, but I don't think anybody knows what they actually mean by it. Ailish: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And there's a, there's a very big difference between needing a bit of a rest where people are like, Oh, I'm burnt out. Going for a walk or having a couple of days off like mental health days or having a good sleep will cure so then you're back to your bright bubbly self the next day. Burnout is a lot deeper than that and it can be a physical type of burnout, it can be a mental type of burnout, it can be a spiritual type of burnout, it can be an emotional type of burnout, so there's four different types really. And what that means is you tend to be, depending on what area you feel most burnt out in, say for example it's physical, that means that you've got no energy in your body consistently over a period of time compared to what you previously did. Like if you think back to the time when you were happy, happiest with your most energy and then compare it to now and how long have you been feeling that for, then you can start to gauge a little bit where you're at. Say for example, with, uh, burnout from a mental perspective, if you've got your business and you've had lots of success with it in the past, and now you're looking at taking that next step up into a, a, another level to push it, but you don't have that excitement, you don't have that energy to go right, okay. Like this, these strategies worked in the past and I know if I just double down on them, I can go a bit further. But you're just like, oh, you're finding the negatives in it rather than remembering all the positives. But consistently, because we know that entrepreneurship is a complete roller coaster all the time. Teresa: This is what something I was going to say and thinking about, like, sometimes we just, I'm not going to say can't be bothered because it's deeper than that. But sometimes we're just like, no, I haven't got the energy for this. I don't want to do it. And how do we know when we need to kick up the ass? And how do we know when We genuinely need to go "Now I need to take that rest." Like this morning I was telling Ailish that I was so proud I did yoga again. And, and in fact, this is the first time I've shared that I was doing yoga and only because by the time this comes out, I don't know whether I'll still be doing it. I really hope so, but I've done it for 10 days in a row and I didn't want to do it this morning. And in, as I sat in bed, like, cause I'd already done my meditation. And the next thing is I get up and I go and put my face in ice water. not entirely sure why, but I'm doing it. There are reasons. But anyway, and then I do yoga and I was like, I think I'm tired. I think I need to listen to my body today. And my body is telling me, because there's that kind of intuitive bit of listening to ourselves and being kind to ourselves. But then sometimes we just need to go stop your excuse, just get on and do it. And that, I think that's a hard thing to know which one of those things you do. Ailish: Yeah, it is. Because. The narrative that we have heard previously in the online space has been hustle until you die, then, and then hustle some more. And then the reaction to that was, no, actually you need to stop and listen to your body and so you don't get burnt out. And now what we're having is this confusion between, well, we know if we want a successful business, we have to work. We've got to put that work in, but also we don't want to do it to the level where we have nothing left for our personal life. We have nothing left for our relationships, for our kids, for fun, for creativity, for health, because health underpins everything. So where is that balance for us? And I think this is about checking in with ourselves and There's, there's a training that I've done and I coach my clients through called positive intelligence, which T, I know you've trained them as well. Yeah, and what that tends to do is talk about your saboteurs. And we have these different types, we have 10 different types of saboteurs, like everybody has varying degrees of some. And on the flip side of that, we have our SAGE responses. Now, with our saboteurs, just to give you an example, we have different ones like, say, People Pleaser, or Hyper Achiever, or Victim, or Avoider. And if we say we choose Hyper Achiever, because I know T, you and I are both in that category, and a lot of entrepreneurs are. We tend to flip flop between I have to hustle or die, and I'm going to work really, really hard, and I'm going to put in all the hours until I'm then so exhausted that I then need to stop for a couple of weeks and my motivation goes down, or we're, or then we end up flipping to the other side, which is like, I'm just not going to do anything. It's about just checking in with ourselves going, okay, and I, again, I'll draw from another therapy called internal family systems, which I'm very, very passionate about and positive intelligence has with severe and it's all quite similar. Now, when we are on this entrepreneurial journey in this roller coaster, what tends to happen is particularly we say with hyper achievers, we go all in and we, we believe our success is dependent on how hard we work. And, and whilst it is, in a certain respect, like don't get me wrong, you do have to work hard. It's also about, not identifying that our self worth is connected not only with our net worth, but also with how hard we work. And so in that moment, if we're like, I, I have to be really busy. I have to do all of these things. And otherwise I am not going to be successful. It's like, okay, well, let's just break this down. There's a little part of me that says this thing. But then there's also a, there's also another part of me that can say, yes, we're going to work really hard and we're also going to enjoy our life whilst we do it. And it's about asking yourself those better questions. Now I know that's sometimes a little bit of a cliche, but when we can ask ourselves better questions, we get better answers. We can be more consistent with how we show up in the world. Therefore, our results start to improve because of our consistency. Now, I do have funny thing with consistency and discipline. I think they are two words that are very, very steeped in patriarchy. So I tend to flip them and use the word devotion instead. So it's like, because when we start to use the word devotion, it's like, okay, I'm devoted to myself and my health, but then I'm also devoted to my mission and my business. So how am I going to show up for those people? Because let's not make it about me all the time. We're, we're making it about those people that we can help. Cause that's why we're in business in the first place. If you're If you're not in it to make a quick buck, which I know most of your audience are. Teresa: Then like, you know, I think we'd all love to, that'd be ace if we could just get rich quick. However, we're all pretty much sussed that this isn't going to happen. And it does take a bit of work. And I think that's the thing, like, it's like when we talk about the seasons of life, some seasons in your business, you are going to have to work your bum off, like, there's no doubt about it. I am in a season of my business at the moment from January 24 to March, probably into April 24. I am stacked like I am trying to achieve some huge things. I'm trying to do some very exciting projects, but that's the thing. And as I just said, the word, I know I'm working my bum off at the moment and it is taking a lot of work. However, I am very excited about what I'm doing. And I know this is a season that I'm in come April, May, June, That will start to quieten down maybe, or maybe I won't feel like it. Maybe I'll just keep going and be like, where's the next big project? So I think it's, I think sometimes because there, the use of the word hustle has been associated with a, like, you've gotta kill yourself and everyone's got the same 24 hours in the day and Beyonce does this, this, this, like. you know, and like Tony Robbins has talked for an, and I go in and out of liking and not liking Tony if I'm honest. There are some things that I really do like, and I do think he's really motivating about and other things I think, Ooh, like just jars with me a little bit, but like, I remember hearing his story and he's like, I used to have four hours sleep. I would do this now do this. And almost to the point of, if you're not doing that, then you don't deserve that success in that business. So I think. I think sometimes because we're so anti the word hustle or so what's been attached to the word hustle, we almost then go, Oh no, if I'm not taking every afternoon off to meditate and do yoga or lunch with the girls, like, no, no, sometimes we do have to work hard. Ailish: Yeah, and I'd like to also preface that with, let's just nip back there for a second. You say, I don't know whether this is on the podcast or just before, but you wake up at 6am, you do your meditation, you've also been doing, you're on your yoga journey, and those are the things that are balancing them working really hard, because What if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. Let's just start with that. Like, I feel like a lot of us tend to particularly hyperachievers tend to work really, really hard, particularly, say, for example, like we're in a season of working really hard, or you might just carry on. It's like if we don't then pay attention to what's going on with our health first and foremost, then you might be able to get a really successful business. But at what cost? Yes, and this is where I'm not saying that you need to like meditate for two hours and then exercise for two hours and make sure you're only ever eating vegetables and that's it, but we do need to look at our health because otherwise we then spend like I'll take myself for an example. I hyper achieved in my business. I was providing an immense amount of support personally, uh, and in my personal lives, uh, with a particularly challenging situation over a consistent period of time. And what then happened was, I think it was January 2022, I was like, I can't do this anymore. And it took me a year to be able to, probably a little bit over that, to then be able to go, actually, I feel like my normal self again. And I had to go back to basics. Like I went to a functional medicine practitioner. I had to go back to all of the basic practices, like the yoga, like meditation, like the journaling therapy, as well as coaching to see what was going to work for me so I could then feel better. And the, the result is I'm, I'm back there again. But if, if you're that hyper-achiever and you keep going and going and going, then you might end up having like a year, a year and a half where you're like, I can't do it anymore. I mean, you're missing out on that year and a half. Whereas if you just put some intention into it, where you're like, actually. I, I want to work hard because I enjoy it and I love it, but also I need to pay attention to my health and I need to pay attention to all the other pieces of the pie because they are what make life interesting. Yeah. And they, and that's where you fulfill your true potential, because if you pour all the water into one cup and the rest of them are empty, then by the time you come out the other side and realize actually all of my water's in this one cup, everything and everything else is like awful, then you're, you, again, you've just missed out on the, the fruit of life. Teresa: But so we had Roseanna on, who is another dear friend of ours, a few weeks ago and, and obviously talked a lot about her health and the journey that she...