In this episode, Brandon Laws interviews Charlotte Wiseman, leadership and wellbeing consultant, about her experience with workplace burnout and her eventual path to mental fitness. Charlotte redefines self-care and provides insight for listeners so that they can experience genuine, long-lasting work-life balance.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Charlotte Wiseman knows what it means to be exhausted by the intensity and expectations of her career. About 10 years ago, she found herself on the brink of mental collapse, so she enlisted help to wade through the questions about what went wrong and where she needed to make changes with regards to her career and personal life. Years of work and study on these critical topics led Charlotte to make a career of helping others on their paths to mental fitness and wellbeing.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
TOP TIP FROM THIS EPISODE
Burnout, a diagnosable condition, is classified using three core symptoms.
The first is a sense of emotional exhaustion —- it’s more than physical exhaustion from overexertion or fatigue due to sleep deprivation. Instead, according to Charlotte, this kind of exhaustion shows itself in “a lack of energy and enthusiasm for life.”
The second symptom is “a sense of cynicism about the quality of your work, the purpose of your work, or the purpose of your specific role.” When we ask ourselves “what’s the point?” or when we feel that the values of the company we work for don’t align with our desires or our definition of success, we become cynical.
Lastly, a common sign of workplace burnout is “a sense of inefficacy.” This means that you could feel as if “you’re not doing your job as well as you could, should, or word.” It could also be an actual reduction in productivity and performance.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
When work takes over
“I worked in the fashion industry for many years, and it was about 10 years ago that I’d had a series of quick promotions. I was suddenly managing a team and traveling internationally. And from the outside, you know, I had the dream job.
But at the same time, really thought that my work was the only thing I needed to keep going with. […] I carried on working harder and harder and found myself one day walking out of a factory in Indonesia, just suddenly feeling like I couldn’t go on another day, like I simply couldn’t keep living.
It was a real moment of confusion more than anything. What did I need to change? What had gone wrong? […] I’d really just let five days a week become six days a week.”
Unintended consequences of remote work
“It’s harder to switch the computer off at the end of the day, or it’s easy to just pick up that bit of work on a Sunday so that Monday is a little bit easier, but it just keeps going and it just keeps going.”
A vicious cycle
“[We say] ‘I’ll just get by another day. I’ll just get by another season. I’ll just get by another week. It’ll be better when this happens. I’ll have the time to look after myself when that happens.’ And that moment when we’ve got the time to look after ourselves is never going to happen until we prioritize it.”
Work as part of the problem AND the solution
“I was advised to take time off work by my doctor, and I refused to. I really, really think that —- for me —- that was such an important step because my work was very much a part of my recovery. It was learning to have a better and healthier relationship with my work. It was giving me a sense of fulfillment, a sense of motivation, a sense of values, a sense of growth. But I still wanted to understand what had gone on, so I started to study psychology, the science of resilience, and the science of leadership.”
Following a different path
“Years later, I decided that all of this stuff that I’d been learning was too important. So I decided to quit my job, get a masters in positive psychology, and focus on leadership, wellbeing, and positive psychology within the workplace —- how we can optimize our mental fitness, and how that then can impact positively on our work, on our performance, and on our productivity.”
Who comes first?
“There’s been such a push for servant leadership over the last few years —- the idea of putting your people first. Well, you can’t put your people first if you’re stressed out and exhausted because you are going to be snappy. You’re going to be less compassionate. You’re going to be less patient. You’re not going to appear to be available if your teams need you.
So, yes, the idea of putting your people’s wellbeing and performance first and supporting your people is so important. But to do that, you need to look after yourself first.”
A world out of our control
“The people I talk to think they’re supposed to do more because there’s so much out of our control right now. They want to fix a problem which they cannot fix. But there’s a huge benefit from being able to accept that you can’t fix it all for people, but you can listen, be honest. be open, and be vulnerable. […] Just being available is really powerful.”
We’ve got it all wrong
“I think there is, to a certain extent, a challenge with leaders as they are progressing through careers —- that they believe that as you [progress], you should suddenly know all the answers. […] And actually the absolute opposite is true. That as you progress into more senior roles, you need to be learning more. You need to be taking more time to consider your own well-being and your own mental fitness.
LEARN MORE
According to Charlotte, our work lives support our personal lives and our personal lives support our work lives. “And when we get that right, […] it leads to improved quality of life, improved performance, and that has a ripple effect throughout society.”
So, how can you find this work-life balance that Charlotte talks about in this podcast? Go to charlottewiseman.com. There you’ll find a wellness blog and some resources that can help you avoid or overcome burnout.