Avoiding overwhelm & burnout

Our focus for this Season is ‘Fitting Life and Work Together’ and it is an absolute pleasure to welcome my friend, business coach and this season’s podcast sponsor, Karen Skidmore, as my guest. Today, we’ll be talking about putting work boundaries in place and ‘Avoiding overwhelm & burnout’.

A big thank you to Karen Skidmore: Business, Life & Leadership for sponsoring our second season. Karen and her team are on a mission to put a stop to midlife burnout by helping women to create a new rhythm and flow to their professional lives and are offering you a free easy-to-follow Energy Tracker to help you see how your monthly cycle contributes to your productivity levels. Download your free tracker here.

About this episode

Our focus for this Season is ‘Fitting Life and Work Together’ and I’ll be talking to some incredible women about their careers, work, family and how they juggle everything life throws at us.  It is a pleasure to welcome my friend, business coach and this season’s podcast sponsor Karen Skidmore, as my guest today. Karen is a business life and leadership coach and is also the author of a wonderful book 'True Profit Business: How to play bigger without burning out'. I’m delighted she is joining me today to share her own story, her top tips on putting work boundaries in place and ‘Avoiding overwhelm & burnout’.

Resources

Download your free Energy Tracker:  www.karenskidmore.com/theconfidenceconversation

This free easy-to-follow resource from our sponsor, Karen Skidmore: Business, Life & Leadership, will help you to see how your monthly cycle, hormones and seasons all contribute to your productivity levels throughout the year.

Karen Skidmore’s website: https://karenskidmore.com/

Karen Skidmore’s blog article: The top 4 work boundaries to increasing profitability and avoiding burnout

Karen Skidmore’s book: True Profit Business: How to play bigger without burning out

Episode transcript

Joy Burnford: Hello, Karen and welcome to The Confidence Conversation.

Karen Skidmore: Thank you for having me here, Joy.

Joy Burnford: It's so lovely to see you and your lovely office in your shed with your bookcase behind you. As you know, the theme for season two is Fitting Life and Work Together and this episode is all about ‘Avoiding overwhelm & burnout’, which is an area that I know you talk a lot about and is something you've personally had experience with. So, I'd love it if we could start and kick off with you telling us a little bit about your own burnout story. What happened? How and when did it happen? What caused it? What did you experience?

Karen Skidmore: It is a big, massive part of my story, to be honest. When did it start? Actually, I had children, I mean, that's probably a good starting point for a lot of for a lot of women to relate to as well. So I had two children fairly close together, juggling a business as I'd left corporate life. And I was doing all right. But I was very much a strong, independent woman for most of my 30s thinking that I could do it all. Then what really pushed me over the edge was my dad got lymphoma and we had 18 months of pretty brutal treatment. I was living in the Surrey Hampshire borders. My parents were down in Devon. So there were some days, I was driving down to Devon to have lunch with my dad and driving back home again. So shoulders were literally up by my ears. We lost him literally a week before my 40th birthday. You know, I mean, how do you deal with the grief of losing a parent, and he was only 70. So a lot of anger and frustration and two young children and the business. And I didn't deal with the grief very well, I bottled it all up. So of course, I cried and shouted and the rest of it, but there were things that had to get done, always, like two kids and a family and my husband and get back into work. So I literally, I did have one counselling session and hated it so much. So I literally zipped myself up emotionally. And it took about 18 months for the real cracks to appear. And it was the summer of the London Olympics actually and being really gutted that I had to admit that I could not go up to London with the family one weekend to join them because I just literally couldn't get out of bed. I was done. So that kind of led me into going okay, I haven't looked after myself very well, but I didn't you know. It took about another three or four years of really understanding and it triggered perimenopausal symptoms. So, whether it was burnout, whether it was adrenal fatigue, whether it was perimenopause, I mean, it was just a catalyst of hormonal, cortisol.

Joy Burnford: I was going to say, how does it manifest itself? You know, that not being able to get up in the morning. And, you know, I've had sort of elements of burnout, I think, but you know, sometimes it's difficult to know, actually, was it burn out? Or did I just kind of stiff upper lip and carry on and then I remember going away actually, I did a solo spa trip a few years ago, I just went away for four days. So it's like, I can't take it anymore. I'm just going to go away, run away and actually feel better.

Karen Skidmore: Exactly. Because burnout in my, in my experience, it wasn't until I literally couldn't get out of bed that I stopped and went maybe I need to get some help. But you know, again, it took me a long while and then going to see the GP and you know, that takes me down on my menopause journey of having GPs telling me that I couldn't possibly be going through menopause at my age at 42, 44. And was I still having my periods? Yes, I was well, then it's not the menopause.

Joy Burnford: We could do a whole episode on that couldn’t we!

Karen Skidmore: So I had probably from the age of getting over the grief and then spent from about 41, 42 to about 45 really confused, absolutely exhausted and frustration, so much frustration in myself. I couldn't do what I wanted to do. And started putting on middle weight and couldn't sleep for about two or three years of really bad not being able to sleep. And of course, the knock-on effects.

Joy Burnford: Yeah, I mean, sometimes I get that feeling of being restricted. And not being able to, you know, when you're young, free and single, and you've got no family, and you can do what you want, when you want. And I sometimes I get this feeling of, I'm so trapped. I can't actually do what I want to do sometimes. Even you know what your needs are. But you can't actually do that or get what you want, because you just haven't got that ability anymore. So obviously, you've talked about the symptoms. So, once worked out there was a problem. Now, what did you do and what changes did you make?

Karen Skidmore: Well, I have this strong independent woman background. So, I decided what I needed to do was to fix myself, which of course added to the burnout problems, because I thought I could. I wasn't disillusioned, I didn't think there was one pill I could take, but I went down a very logical pragmatic route of right, I have a problem, who can fix it, who can sort it. And I look back on my journey now and what really made the changes was dealing with the emotions, and dealing with the unblocking. My body had disconnected from the head. And I remember it was on a leadership training programme that we both met through One of Many. And I remember in a session, they had a pelvic floor specialist come in, and I literally lost it in the middle of this room of 60 other women who I'd never really known before, because she was telling us to connect with our pelvic floor, and I couldn't, there was no wiring. So my brain had lost the connections. And so it was then I recognised, and it was probably about four or five years on from there, to recognise that actually, I needed to do some healing, and it was an inside out job. And that really is what has made a huge difference to my journey, and embracing everything I was going through. Recognising that you can fix your hormones, and you can take some multivitamins, and change your eating and look at your exercise. For me, it was I had to deal with everything that was bottled up. And that whole grief that sits in your pelvis area and unravelling that. Yeah.

Joy Burnford: And that's hard. I think when you've been, kind of quite strong women and know what we're doing, we think we can fix it, we can find a solution. And I know when I've met you at the One of Many things and quite a lot of it is quite..

Karen Skidmore: woowoo!

Joy Burnford: Yes, woowoo.

Karen Skidmore: I spent my 40s thinking about talking about all this woowoo rubbish. And of course, now I totally embrace it.

Joy Burnford: Yes, and I still haven't quite got it.

Karen Skidmore: You’ll come over.

Joy Burnford: So I think if there are people listening who think, what a load of rubbish you're talking about!, bear with it.

Karen Skidmore: Yes, it’s spiritual, emotional. It's connecting to oneself, that intuitive in a woman that actually has this, and this is the power that I see with so many midlife women, we fight it because we live in a very pragmatic, logical, particularly business environment, where we get measured successes or measured on facts and figures. And I had to literally do a 180 on how I viewed life. So you know, it's going from that and doing this and embracing our beingness. So that really was the thing that I fought it, I fought it for a long time and that’s what really made the difference.

Joy Burnford: This season is all around fitting work and life together. So looking at that and how you now operate in terms of how you manage to fit your whole, your family, your life, your work together. Now have you got the balance right? Are you still working on it?  

Karen Skidmore: I always find balance is an interesting word because it means balance in an innate state, in that moment, isn't it and work life balance is something that I got thrust down my throat by the Daily Mail in my 30s and the sort of thing that we can't attain, we can only have it for that moment in time but it’s moving. Yes, I do, right now, I have really lovely play. I say that with a caveat that my children are now 19 and 21. They are young adults, and they're moving on. So I have this wonderful time in my life now, where I am not, even though they're both currently living at home, they both have their own careers and my son's about to leave home shortly. I do have a lovely way around to my life for work. And I love it. Absolutely love it. I was really looking forward to this time. I love my children. I have loved every single stage of their life but I really love this when they're young adults, because it means I can do what I want when I want.

Joy Burnford: Yes, and you've got your lovely potting shed, as you call it.

Karen Skidmore: Yes, and so that's made a difference with my husband. He’d been going into London for many, many years and then from last year, he was forced to work from home, and we had a big house extension during lockdown. It all worked brilliantly. And it forced me to be able to get my office in the garden, which I never thought was needed, because we've got a perfectly good office in the house. So he's moved in there. I have this lovely space, sort of mini yoga studio, if I ever wanted to turn it that way. It's just gorgeous. Love it.

Joy Burnford: Absolutely. And that brings us on to thinking about boundaries and creating those boundaries. You typically work with female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, not necessary female. And I know you've written a blog recently on The top 4 work boundaries to increasing profitability and avoiding burnout and I think even though people who listen to this, are more likely to be people working in corporate organisations, it's still absolutely fantastic advice. And I wondered if you could talk through some of those.

Karen Skidmore: Yes, thank you for picking up on that blog article. It was well overdue because even though now, the majority of people are still wanting to stay working from home, we're starting to open up and we're starting to be able to have these choices. The work boundaries, I've actually seen get more and more blurred even though people work from home because the thought of no travelling, I don't have to go anywhere. But then you open yourself up to when do you stop working when you work from home? The thing for me is always being able to have firm boundaries. So now I don't have the school run to do. And that's the thing that changed for me is that I was able to finish work and then go and pick the kids up. And obviously, as they got older, I don't have that anymore. So being able to think about some clear boundaries, and they're basically rules that we need to set ourselves wherever we work. But there were four areas, one is making decisions about what hours we want to work. Now I appreciate, when you run your own business, you have that choice. Most of the time, if you're working for somebody else, you are obviously, you know, you're going to have set hours, but it's pushing back and understanding what you do in those hours, rather than thinking, Okay, so I'm working 8:30 to 5. If you were in an office, you would still go out for a coffee, you would still have a lunch break of some sorts, and making sure those decisions are being made just because we're working from home. And actually, I think when you start to challenge yourself and your thinking, you think you're constrained by other people, but actually, we're just agreeing to other people's rules and boundaries. And it's coming back and having that more partnership relationship and go, No, I need this, I need to make sure I'm transitioning between things. If I need that space, in my diary, when I'm not on a team call, on a zoom call, then I'm not not being productive. And it's making sure that we are claiming that for ourselves. Because if we're not in an office and we're not seen at a desk, then that's the old school view of productivity, isn't it? But when we're at home, do we have to keep being on a zoom call or team call to prove that we're productive? No. And we need to challenge that.

Joy Burnford: Exactly. I try and go into the garden, and sit for 10 minutes, drink a cup of coffee, and even if you're reading something to prepare for a meeting, you can change your environment and change that space you're in as well.

Karen Skidmore: And we do have these choices. We think we don't because, you know, that's what we kind of live in this cultural business paradigm. But actually, when we start going on the outside, if we were like an alien coming in, an alien would go, Why? Why are you forcing yourself to sit at the desk, because you don't have to, you could be in the garden and do this perfectly well.

Joy Burnford: or the hairdressers or anywhere, that’s what I do!

Karen Skidmore: Yes, it’s remote working, we have our phones. And I think that nicely takes us down the communication channels as well and recognising how accessible you're making yourself to other people, because of course, we're now so digitally focused. If we are constantly having our phones, on our hips and our hands. How are we every time something pings our phones? Are we behaving thinking, Okay, oh, ping, I must respond to the email. Actually making those decisions about well, when are you going to respond to email? Are you going to allow WhatsApp messages? Are you going to be allowing yourself to Facebook message, probably more relating to people who run their own businesses, suddenly, you start to recognise those umpteen numbers of ways that people can start reaching out, LinkedIn, Instagram, you know, there's so many different channels. And actually, it's being able to make those decisions. I think in in a corporate environment, or you're working with a company it’s probably a little bit more clear cut. But how often does it go into somebody pinging you a message on LinkedIn for example, when actually, it's not an email? Where does it all fit? So again, setting some clear boundaries about when are you going to respond, and which platforms are going to suit you. And if it's more client driven, well if you don’t want to be there, who can support you in managing those channels, but again, it's just taking a step out again, and going, I'm falling into the trap of assuming just because everybody else runs their messages off WhatsApp, text, Facebook, LinkedIn, and email, I have to do that as well. No, this is how I communicate and these hours and this is what I need to stick to, to maintain my work life relationship.

Joy Burnford: Yes and I think asking for what you need. And actually I was chatting to Sonia Astill who is the HR director at Wickes the other day for another podcast episode. And she was saying, her big tip was to ask for what you need. Because if you don't ask you don’t get. I think a lot of people in corporate think, Oh, I can't ask that. Because it's not the way it's done around here. And actually, just be brave. And I think people who are who are older as well probably have a bit more in the way of courage to ask those sorts of things. But if you don't ask you don't get at the end of the day. And actually, it might benefit other people and maybe get a few people together. And then approach, you know, managers to try and think about how you might be able to change things.

Karen Skidmore: I mean everything has changed so much, hasn't it? The rules have just been, you know, not just broken, they’ve been smashed up and, it's like coming in and going, No, why do we have to go back to normal, this whole phrase just triggered a great opportunity to be able to create new paradigms and how we work. This Monday to Friday, nine to five, Victorian, I mean that's how it all started it was to help people work in factories and then come over to our business culture. Why? Why do we fix the system? There's some really great thinking now with four day working weeks. The New Zealand government are now rolling it out. There's been organisations already here in the UK that are successfully doing it. And yet you mention it, and some people think it's like asking them to work naked! No, it's really strange how people can respond to that, I couldn't possibly pay somebody five days a week for working four days, we’d need to reduce their pay. No, I think your productivity in the workforce will go up.

Joy Burnford: As you know, I'm writing a book at the moment and one of the things in there I want to talk about is this model I'm calling the ‘corpreunership’ model which is taking experience from being an entrepreneur and also from working in corporate life, and actually changing the way corporates behave around that sort of self-managing teams and also allowing people to thrive and sort of run their own business in a way and actually do it when they want to do it. Go to the hairdresser's and prepare for a presentation if they need to do that and make them not feel like they're skiving. Because they're probably going to be much more productive. So that was number two on communication channels.

Karen Skidmore: The other one was holidays and time off. I mean, you know, you say that so glibly, I mean, I'm sure my husband won't mind, he won’t be listening to this, but you know, even he, he has good holiday. But even he won't take the holiday off because, he thinks well if you can't go anywhere, there's no point taking time off. And so we've had a little sort of you know, moments of saying you still need to switch off from those two meetings and be away from the desk. So we've been in the last 18 months of not being able to take holiday, because we literally couldn't go anywhere. This year, we're least able to go somewhere even though the weather's quite rubbish in the UK. And it's like learning these habits back again, about we do need to take off time away from our business. And actually, and this is what I teach my clients, particularly when we look at productivity and working in a work life schedule, is that holidays and time off goes first. You know, they don't go after you've worked out what deliverables or what projects need to go in the diary. Holiday or time out. So whether that's I want Friday afternoons off, or I want an extended lunch break over Friday, or I'm only going to do a four day week, I'm going to do a four day week, every third week, for example, is thinking about those first of all, and then work fits in around that because you know, me and you both know that actually give ourselves 24/7 we'd fill it. Work just seeps in, it's like oil seeping in everywhere, so if you give it a container and go right, it's only going to fit in that time, you still end up getting the same stuff done, and probably be more productive, because you've got that time off. So holidays and time off. Again, really good boundary setting. And it means that you can block it off and work doesn’t seep in, you have to be strict with yourself. And this is where boundaries, it's with yourself first of all, before you can be bound with other people.

Joy Burnford: Brilliant. And we’ll put in the show notes a link to that blog (The top 4 work boundaries to increasing profitability and avoiding burnout) so you can read more about that if you would like to. And then finally I'd like to talk a bit about, which is something that's specific for women, which is around monthly cycles and the menopause. Well actually more about monthly cycles, really, and how you structure your time. And this is coming back to some of the things we're talking about in terms of boundaries. But it's easy when you're running your own business, because you can have a bit more say in terms of what you do. But I was chatting to somebody yesterday who worked for a corporation, and we were talking about you know, knowing and being aware, and this is something I didn't ever know, but being aware of your cycle and knowing when you're more productive, and when you're less productive, and actually just then planning things around that. Tell me a little bit about that. And you've done a lot of work in this area.

Karen Skidmore: I've done a lot of work around this area, I’m teaching a programme Ebb and Flow, on this very thing. I’ve always been very in tune with my menstrual cycle so I used to track it right back as a teenager but it's not been until recent years, certainly when I got to my 40s, how I recognise our productivity levels change. Now, I think there's a lot more science now. But there's so much more. I mean, there's plenty of books out there that you can read now, this is not some woowoo spiritual emotional stuff. This is real practical things that when we recognise that a woman's body is designed differently than a male's body because of our hormone cycles. And when we look at how work, in a work context, that is done very linear 12 months a year, five days a week nine to five, it's very linear, you're expected to perform the same way on one Monday week one as you are Monday week four. Because work is designed very much around the masculine. It’s a Roman calendar, for goodness sake, you know, we even have to add in an extra day every four years to make the calendar work around Mother Nature, so we need to think about it and when you sort of step away from it, and you realise that actually, as women, we work around 28 day cycles. So men will typically work around a 24 hour hormone cycle. And that's why they can tend to stereotypically work more linear. Whereas women typically work around a 28 day hormone cycle. And if you experience your cycles, and you start to really connect, and something I teach, when you start looking at this, the very first thing to do is to start tracking, get a diary and track your moods, how you wake up in the morning. I track things like my hair, for example. So sometimes my hair, I look like something out of a Vidal Sassoon advert, and then slowly enough, two days before my period was due to start, I mean, I'm now in the menopause so it's all a bit all over the place, I'd look like someone who’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. So I used to track how my hair would perform, because that was always a good sign of where I was in the cycle. But it's also about what's happening with the weather outside, we tune much more into the seasons than we let ourselves in for. But if you think about the menstrual cycle, our flow and so we will, typically, everyone, you know, when we talk about menstrual cycles, it’s often the focus around the first one or two days, you know, when you feel well, that PMT, the two or three days running up to it. And then you bleed. And actually, there's a big release that happens there. But if we try and push through, if we're working on any finance projects, or detailed work, our brains find it very difficult to work with spreadsheets with numbers. And that's when often women would try and push through, because that's what's expected. Because we've got a finance meeting on Tuesday morning, and you might be day one or two of your period. And actually, what your body wants you to do is to take off to bed, you want to be able to relax. So there's these certain tasks that we look at. Now, if we go to our ovulation, midway through the cycle, that actually is a very creative time, because that's when the egg drops, and that's where Mother Nature is. And that's when we're supposed to be most fertile. So we are really creative. So the power that we have in the mid part of our cycle. And when we start to recognise this is actually picking the projects. So doing things like sales presentations, or creative team meetings, or anything like that, when we do that in the second to third part of our cycles, Oh my goodness me, the female power, when we can harness that is extraordinary. But we try and do that two or three days before our cycle starts. Yeah.

Joy Burnford: And then you feel depressed, because you're thinking, that really felt like hard work.

Karen Skidmore: Yes, it’s like I was on fire two weeks ago, oh my gosh. And now I just feel like I've dragged through a hedge backwards and I can't remember numbers, and I'm crap. But it’s our hormones. And actually there's a lot of bad press, you know, that's been given over the years is that don't give a job to a woman, because she'll be emotional, you know, and you see it with the top politics. And you think of the, you know, the patriarchal view of women leaders. But actually, when you flip it on its head, you go, oh, my goodness me the power that we have, to be able to harness that. And when we're able to flow into it, we will, you know, we excel at those moments. We actually excel in the moments, as long as we give ourselves the opportunity for retreating and doing different tasks, it doesn't mean that we have to go to bed, it means that we might just take things more quietly, it might be that you start finding and you choose a work at home day, and you do things that are a bit more, you know, tidying up and looking at things, you know, the sort of the couple of days before and during your menstrual cycles are really good days for reviewing, and processing and mulling and looking at things because you're reflective you go within, so it's actually really good task to do is around that reflection. So it's when you start to recognise this that anybody says, oh, my goodness me, it’s ridiculous, you would never do this in your work environment. I'm like, bring it on. Because when you bring that recognising of what you do, and you bring that into your fitness training into exercise.

Joy Burnford: And you don't have to tell people you're doing it either. I know some people can't manage their diaries but generally, you can say when you're available to do things.

Karen Skidmore: Yes and I think it's being aware of the conversations you have. So if you know you've got a difficult conversation, and it has to be in day one or two of your period, and it has to happen, then remember that actually go within and be more reflective during that difficult conversation rather than being triggered and using all your emotions. It's actually I need to be reflective, I need to do some grading work. Before I do that, you'll have that conversation.

Joy Burnford: And there are lots of apps and things out there now that you can track your periods if you don't want to just journal it. So as we finish Karen, it'd be brilliant, what I like to ask all of my guests is if you give our listeners one top tip for juggling everything life throws at us what would that be?

Karen Skidmore: It's really simple, but it's to breathe.

Joy Burnford: Excellent!

Karen Skidmore: Now I know some people will go, what a ridiculous tip, we all breathe. Of course, you know, if we're not breathing, we're dead. But what happens is that when we are juggling so much, we often take very short breaths, we will find ourselves at times we hold our breaths. And actually when you start to get conscious of your breathing, there are moments where you might even hold your breath for minutes during a meeting, or minutes when your kid is screaming being left at nursery and you're trying to catch the train, or whatever that might be. And when we take short breaths, it affects our stress levels. So whenever you get stressed, you go short breath it’s the body preparing you for fight or flight. And if you just stay in that for too long, that's when cortisol adrenal, that's when everything starts happening. So when I say breathe, actually taking the moment to properly breathe and be conscious of breath. And it's one of the tips, at any time my clients are getting worked up or finding themselves they’ve got a lot on, they've got a high level of delivery or they've got a big team meeting to prepare for. I ask them to put their hand on heart, hand on belly, three big breaths, and you transition between the tasks. So before you start the next team meeting, three big breaths, before you rush out the door and go and pick up your kids from after school club, three big breaths, and you use that to transition it will slow you down. And that will actually help you be more productive. So it means that you can keep up with the fast pace of life. But it means that you're keeping a track on how your body is supporting you. Rather than just getting faster and faster and faster and going, Oh my god, I’ve got the next meeting the next meeting. And that's where we as women can go really super fast. And that's where we crash and burn. So just take that moment to breathe between the transitions, between meetings, before going from a busy team meeting to maybe doing some solo work, just doing some writing, before we'd go from emails to being out the door. Breathe, stop, it takes 10 seconds. So yes, breathe.

Joy Burnford: What a fantastic piece of advice. And thank you again so much for joining me today. And we'll put in the show notes how people can can contact you if they would like to continue the conversation. Your website is https://karenskidmore.com/.

Karen Skidmore: Yes and I tend to hang out quite a lot on Instagram if anybody wants to find me on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook.

Joy Burnford: Amazing. Wonderful. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure as always and speak to you soon. And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.

And remember you can download a free easy-to-follow Energy Tracker to help you see how your monthly cycle contributes to your productivity levels at www.karenskidmore.com/theconfidenceconversation.

Thank you, and until next time, goodbye. 

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