What I Did to Break Through Burnout | 314

The morning person who couldn't get out of bed. The podcast host who dreaded recording. The marketing lover who felt... nothing. After months of denying my burnout, I finally faced it – and what happened next changed everything. In this vulnerable episode, I'm sharing the exact steps that pulled me through, including an alarm clock hack that forced her to move, the #1 tool that helped me break through, and the hard permission I had to give myself to scale back. If you're feeling stuck, blank, or like you're just going through the motions, this one's for you.

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Transcript

0:09

Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast here to help you do better marketing so you can make a bigger impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 314. A few months ago, I got really honest with you here on the podcast and I shared something that felt pretty vulnerable, that I was in a funk, actually, more than a funk. Looking back now, I think it was probably full on burnout. And while this episode felt really personal, the response I got from sharing it showed me that the experience of burning out is absolutely not unique to me. It is something so many others have faced today. I wanna give you an update because for the most part, I'm on the other side of it now, not completely, because I don't think burnout just disappears overnight. But I'm feeling so much more like myself. My energy is back. My excitement about work is back. My optimism is back, and I've learned a lot in the process. So in today's episode, I wanna share what actually helped me break through this burnout. This is not mental health advice, and I'm not a mental health expert. This is just an honest share about some of the things that I believe help me move forward. My hope is that if you're in a similar place, or you feel yourself heading there, that this gives you some practical tools and permission to take care of yourself. Now a spoiler alert before we get started, one of the biggest breakthroughs in getting out of burnout is to take things off your to-do list, and a great way to do that is through automation. I've been using Xero for my bookkeeping since day one of my business, and honestly, I'm so glad that my bookkeeper recommended it. When I started out way back in 2017, Xero is an accounting software built for small business owners like us, and it handles so much of the tedious stuff automatically. Bank feeds that make reconciling transactions effortless. Invoice reminders that go out without you having to lift a finger, A dashboard that shows you exactly where your business stands without the hours of spreadsheet work. When you're trying to break through burnout, every task off your plate matters. Xero helps you stay on top of your finances without the overwhelm so you can focus your energy on what actually needs your attention. If you wanna see how Xero can help lighten your load, check out making good podcast.com/zero. That's XERO. It's one less thing on your plate, and that makes all the difference. Huge thanks to Zero for supporting this podcast. Okay, with that, let's get started. So the first and possibly the most important thing I did to get to the other side of burnout was this, acknowledge that I was burned out. Stay with me here because I know that sounds like a duh moment, but the reality is that I really, really, really, really didn't want to be burned out. So I told myself that I just wasn't for a long time, months, many months. At the time, admitting that I was burned out felt scary because I knew if I really was burned out, I was gonna have to make some big changes. So instead of facing it, I spent months promising myself that I was just having a few hard days, and that next week I would bounce back. I've shared openly about my mental health struggles, and for me, that was a piece of it too. I was having a hard time getting up in the morning, despite being a morning person who loves to be the first awake in my house, I was procrastinating on everything. Even things I normally enjoy and have been relentlessly consistent with like this podcast and just generally, it breaks my heart a little bit to say this, but I had close to zero excitement about my work, which if you know me. Is so far from the norm. I love marketing. I love small business, but I just felt blank. I did the bare minimum to keep things moving, but I really wasn't showing up the way that I wanted to. And the only way that I was able to start to move forward was to finally look myself in the mirror. And. I was burned out badly and things needed to change. If you're wondering what brought me to that point, here's some context that might help because maybe you'll see yourself in some of this. For me, the burnout came as a result of a bunch of things kind of co-mingling at the same time. First Overcommitting myself during Black Friday 2024. I sold a bunch of offers for 2025 workshops, courses, digital products. At the time, it felt exciting and ambitious, but I basically planned my entire year without leaving myself any breathing room. I went off my antidepressant medication in January after being on it for five years, and I really don't think this is the sole cause, but I'm sure it impacted my baseline. I had some big stuff happen in my personal life, including a bunch of travel that really threw off my routine. I was adjusting to some big changes in my business after selling my retail store in July, 2024. And then I had quite a tough time in February of 2025. I got my wisdom teeth out with that, had some complications to that, and then that was followed by getting Norovirus, and instead of giving myself time to recover, I just tried to push through and get back on my schedule. And then for me, also the state of the world just also contributed to this. The constant bad news, the tragedy everywhere, the weight of everything happening globally. It really added up for me. Any one of these things might have thrown me off even temporarily, but all of them together, no wonder I ended up burned out. I'll touch more on this later, but I have to say it again. If you're feeling anything like I described, lacking motivation, blank, struggling to get excited about things that are normally exciting to you. Please consider getting professional mental health support. I did. I'll talk more about it, and that has been a huge contributor to helping me get better. I'm gonna include some links in the show notes for places to look to get started. So let's talk about some of the mistakes I made in this experience that made things more difficult for me. First, like I said, I ignored the early signs. When I started feeling tired and unmotivated, I just told myself to push through. I didn't listen to my body or my mind until I literally couldn't ignore it anymore. Number two, I didn't build in really any wiggle room. When I planned my year, I packed it full without leaving space for life to happen, and life always happened. Number three, I underestimated the impact of being sick. I treated my health issues like temporary blips and did not recognize that they would affect me for weeks or even months afterward. And finally, number four, I acted like I had no control, but actually I had a lot of control over my schedule, my commitments, and what my work and life looked like. I just had to take responsibility. So let's talk about what actually helped me move through this. And again, I'll say I do feel mostly on the other side of this, but again, it doesn't go away overnight. So the first thing I did is I got my body moving in the early days of trying to tackle my burnout. I actually had to use an alarm clock that I physically couldn't turn off until I went downstairs and scanned a QR code. It was that hard for me to get up or out of bed. Otherwise, the app is called Alarmy, if anyone's wondering. And after getting up early, I would get outside and just walk aiming for 10,000 steps before I really did anything else. Now I really think that that was essential for me in the early days, getting up, getting outta bed, getting sunshine and moving my body first thing. Today I'm not still doing that with the super early alarm clock that I have to turn off with a QR code. Partially because I've been traveling a bunch and also I'm just not struggling to get out bed in the same way. But I do think that combination was super, super helpful. Secondly, besides getting myself up in the morning, I've also focused on physical basics now, so I try to get protein and fiber first thing in the morning. I try to drink enough water. I try to move my body consistently, I try to get enough sleep and to not overdo it with the sugar. Trust me. This has not been perfect whatsoever, but I'm more conscious of it than I was before. I realize that these things make a huge impact on how I feel, and I know that the more of these health supporting decisions that I make, the better my body feels, and then the better my mind feels. The third thing I did was I started talking about it. This was hard for me. I tend to keep my head high and try to be the optimistic one. It is part of my brand even so I hesitated to really share openly, but I started opening up on social media with my membership community, with my family, with my acupuncturists, letting people in, lifted a weight, and probably most importantly, I signed up for therapy again. It had been years since I had done therapy, but I found an EMDR therapist and I got on her schedule. I did a round of nine sessions of EMDR, which is a form of therapy, and now I continue meeting with that therapist every couple weeks. It has been such a gift that I can't recommend enough. Now, I'm not saying you need to do EMDR. There are so many different models of therapy and of mental health support, but finding a professional, a trusted mental health support is everything for me. So those are some of the big picture life changes I made. But let's talk about work specifically because there were some changes there too. First and most importantly, I accepted that I needed to scale back. I've always wanted to overdeliver for my members and clients, but the scope creep had gotten out of control. For example, I had been doing a daily private podcast for my membership for over three years, hundreds and hundreds of episodes every single day, and I finally admitted I cannot keep up with this pace anymore. So I talked to my members and we made some changes. I scaled back on the podcast. I cut out elements that weren't really supporting people. I gave myself permission to do less but better. The result, I think, is a better, more focused membership that is actually more valuable and it cuts out the fluff. And side note, if you join Making Good Happen, although I'm now releasing podcasts less than every single day, you can still get access to the to a backlog of podcast episodes, so you have a lot to work with. Scaling Back also meant giving myself permission to take a break when I needed it. You may have noticed that this summer there were a couple of breaks, one of them a month long in the podcast episodes coming out. That was hard for me as I have been so relentlessly consistent with this podcast. It's been a major point of pride for me and I have almost never taken a break, but I did take this break this summer, the longest one, yet I gave myself the breather and I'm so grateful that listeners like you were here and ready to pick back up where we left off when I was ready to return. Second, I acknowledged that I needed some help in my business. I've had a lot of different iterations of my business, and I've had a lot of employees over the years as my business has been in different forms. For example, when I had a retail store, I had a whole big team, but for the last year or so, I have not had very much support. After selling the store and having my podcast producer Corin going on maternity leave and then deciding to do parenting full-time, I realized that I needed help. I had been doing everything alone and I started the process of hiring because I realized I can't do everything myself and I shouldn't try to. The truth here is that I haven't quite landed on the right fit, but I am actively working on this one third, I invested in community. I went to an in-person mastermind event and then to a conference in June, and then another conference in late October, I joined a virtual mastermind, which I'm loving. Being with other small business owners, having honest conversations about the good and the hard stuff, there's really nothing like it. It reminds me why I do this work. So where am I now? Well, as I record this episode, it is early November and I am feeling a lot better, but it feels important to say this took me a long time to get here. Many, many, many months. I first shared about being in a funk in June. So that was five months ago, and it had already been going on for months. So it's been a long journey with absolutely no overnight solution, but it feels amazing to be solidly on the upswing. I feel excited about work again. I'm finding it easier to be productive. The ideas are flowing and the momentum is building. So what would I say to someone who finds themself in a funk or burned out? First, consider getting support from a mental health professional. I don't think you'll ever regret this, and it has made such an impact for me personally to absolutely start here. The second thing I would say, it gets better. The excitement will come back, the momentum will come back, the enthusiasm will come back, but you can't force it. For me, it was a matter of getting out of my own way, acknowledging that I needed to do some things differently, take some things off my plate, and then just being patient until the spark returned. Third, don't ignore it. If you start to feel the twinge of burning out, coming on, the sooner you can face it, the better. Don't wait till you're forced to stop because you literally have no motivation or energy left. Fourth, prioritize the basics. Sleep, movement, sunshine, food, water. It's so simple. But that doesn't mean it's easy, so don't be hard on yourself if the basics aren't easy for you. They are not easy for me. I've been working on these basics for a long time, and it's still work too. For example, making sure I'm drinking water and not just a steady stream of decaf coffee. Fifth, give yourself permission to make changes. Nothing is set in stone, and my guess is that you'll have more control than you think over your schedule, your commitments. Sometimes this means having hard conversations, like changing a commitment or readjusting a goal, but changing the plan doesn't mean you failed. It means that you're paying attention. And finally, sixth, be an imperf perfectionist. You don't have to do any of this perfectly. I think aiming for 80% is one of the kindest things you can do for yourself. Whether we're talking about work or eating and food or exercise or whatever it is, going a little easier on yourself will take you a long way. So that is how I busted through my burnout. I hope this episode is helpful for you. Whether you're here now or you've been here before, or you just wanted to get a better sense of what burnout is like, thank you for being part of this amazing community where I can share So honestly and transparently with you, it means the world to me, and I hope that this was helpful. You can find the show notes from this episode@makinggoodpodcast.com slash 3 1 4. If you enjoyed this episode, I would so love to have your support. Take a screenshot of your podcast player while you're listening and tag me on your Instagram stories at Lauren Tilden. I would be so grateful and excited to connect with you. Thanks again to Xero for making this episode possible. To learn more about how Xero can help take tasks off your plate, head to makinggoodpodcast.com/xero. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time.