276. If You’re Burned Out

Recently Nora recognized that she was burned out when it came to her work. It’s a hard life lesson to learn, and today she shares how she got to the point where she took things off her plate to take care of herself. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

 Nora: I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay. We’re here Monday through Friday to put a little bit of okay in your day and help you deal with the fact that we live in a really tough world.  I made an announcement in February, um, that I was going to pause making another podcast that I’ve made since 2016 called Terrible.

Thanks for asking.  I have been working on this show for, I mean, about eight years.  Everybody who works on it has  felt pretty tired, pretty exhausted, pretty crispy. We’ve made hundreds of episodes and we made them, uh, eventually at a pace that was just too much. So I put the show on indefinite hiatus. I stepped away from something that was truly the biggest success of my life, um, for I’m not sure how long because, you know, an indefinite hiatus is by definition in Definite. 

Um,  I announced this after I did a eight month tour in 2022, 2023, where I got on stage and told thousands of people about my suicidal ideation. Just this latent hope that I could be struck by a car while walking and maybe spend about six weeks in a light coma. Long enough to emerge hydrated and rejuvenated, not long enough to develop any complications or bed sores. 

I was burned out. I am still burned out. And I struggle to even say that sentence because honestly, I’m a podcaster. I’m a writer. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a social worker. I’m not a housekeeper. I’m not a, I’m just a person tapping at my computer screen.  I’m just a person  is the key part of that sentence.

And for a long time I treated myself like a machine. Put in the bare minimum, expect maximum output, expect maximum output.  And I measured my success by stacking up accomplishments and ticking off things on my to do list. I did two live shows with a concussion, and I thought that was a good thing. I spent over 30 days in Marriott brand hotels alone in the year 2023.

That’s an entire month of my life. That is both sad. and the mark of a woman with gold bonvoy status, which must count for something and will certainly be remarked upon at my funeral,  which will be held at a Marriott brand hotel.  I worked and worked and worked and worked and worked until it didn’t work anymore, or maybe it never worked, I don’t really remember.

But, um,  your body does, unfortunately. And so does the internet, because a year before I announced the hiatus, I apparently wrote a draft of my newsletter that I found. It’s dated April 4th, 2023. Um, the subject was, I’m so burned out, I could die.  That’s all I wrote. I never got past that, that headline, that subject.

And my question for that version of me and this version of me and whatever version of you is listening to this is, how bad does it have to be?  Do you have to collapse? Do you have to physically or mentally collapse? Do you have to die?  Most Americans are living on the knife’s edge right now, holding on to the end of a rapidly fraying rope while alligators snap below them. 

Their burnout is not mine, and I can’t compare the two because mine would lose, and I hate losing.  And also as a woman, I know I have to balance my honesty with my gratitude. I must ooze appreciation for everything I have, and I am grateful. What a gift to be burned out doing jobs I love instead of the job I hated.

Red. which was working in advertising.  Because I would have burned out no matter the job and no matter the industry. The only game I play with any dedication on my Nintendo Switch, which I bought for myself because I didn’t want to share one with my kids, is a game where I primarily just work. I’ve told you about it, Stardew Valley.

I tend animals, I get in the mines, I am a multifaceted career woman even when I’m just a little cartoon on a gaming console.  That’s how I am. That is how I am.  And I read, um,  something in, in, in a memoir called Ambition Monster by Jennifer Romolini. And she wrote, Like many addictions, workaholism is cumulative.

Over time, sufferers become dependent on the fleeting, drug like euphoria that comes from accomplishment. The positive, secure, confident feelings, absent in the rest of their lives, that come with a pat on the back from a boss or a good performance review.  Over immersion in work acts as a kind of anti anxiety, a controlled space to fully submerge in and calm an unquiet mind. 

Workaholics like these develop a dependency on their own competence, an outsized need to be efficient, productive, to do things right.  That’s me.  And maybe it’s you. 

So after the addiction, um,  comes recovery.  I hope,  I hope, because you should not be praying for coma via minivan. You should not have a Pavlovian response to your inbox alerts. You should not be so deeply wounded by the criticisms of strangers that you internalize them as facts.  You should not be cutting yourself down to the nub for the sake of something you can’t define. 

But maybe you are.  And if you are, if your life feels like a runaway train, if you don’t know how to slow down the carousel, if there is a third metaphor for a rapidly moving piece of machinery operating outside of your control, I want you to know that you deserve peace and stillness and a life that feels restorative,  that you are more than what you do.

Even if what you do is good, or mediocre, or meaningless, or meaningful.  You deserve to enjoy your life.  I’m Nora McInerny. It’s going to be okay. 

Uh, what was I going to say? I’m Nora McInerny, and it is going to be okay. Slowly. Surely. somehow.  Our team here at It’s Going to Be Okay and Feelings Co., which is our production company, is Marcel Malikibu, Claire McInerny, Grace Berry, and myself. This episode was mixed by Amanda Romani, and our theme music is by Secret Audio.