June 21, 2024 • 24 mins
Do you often feel exhausted or burnt out?
Are you struggling to manage your stress levels?
Today, Jay talks about exhaustion, burnout, and stress, highlighting their prevalence with statistics showing that a significant portion of young adults and women report feeling drained. He introduces a practical approach to tackle these challenges, encapsulated in the "triple A" formula—Accept, Action, Attention—which encourages acknowledging negative feelings, taking actionable steps to address them, and paying mindful attention to one's mental state
Jay also introduces the concept of "reset periods," whether it's an hour, half-day, or full day, to allow for complete mental and physical rejuvenation. The importance of self-compassion is also emphasized, encouraging individuals to replace inner criticism with supportive self-talk, which can significantly improve overall well-being.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to break negative thought cycle
How to manage your energy levels
How to use stress strategically
How to practice self-compassion
How to get out of stressful situation
Don’t let exhaustion control your life—take action today and start feeling refreshed and empowered. Listen now and share with someone who needs a boost!
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
01:06 Do You Feel Drained?
03:10 #1: Learn to Break Repetitive Thoughts
06:27 #2: You Don’t Need to Be on Full Energy All the Time
10:20 #3: Learn to Say NO
14:05 #4: Be Strategic with Your Time
17:02 #5: Have a Reset Day
18:35 #6: Be Kind to Yourself
19:59 #7: Allow Yourself to Vent and Let It Out
21:24 #8: Get a Restful Sleep
23:00 #9: Wash Your Mind the Night Before
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm drained.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
As a signal from your body to the mind, from
your mind to your heart, your body and mind are
trying to tell you something. Pain makes you pay attention,
but that attention needs to be followed by action.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Jay set Jay Sety Yet Hey, everyone, welcome back to
On Purpose, the number one health podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thanks to each and every one of you that come
back every week to listen, learn, and grow. I want
to take a moment to thank you all, whether you
joined the on Purpose community yesterday or whether you joined
us five years ago when we first started. I want
to say a big thank you to you for your support.
I love the fact that you're making Instagram reels. I
(00:49):
love seeing the tiktoks you all share, I love seeing
your stories. Thank you for making this such a highly
recommended podcast to your friends, your family. It means the
world to me, and I can't wait to keep bringing
you incredible conversations and content. Now this episode feels like
a really, really important one because I can't believe that
(01:12):
we're already this far into the year and it's natural
that a lot of people are starting to feel drained.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Maybe you have some time off.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Maybe you haven't had the chance to have some time off,
but maybe you've been working really hard this year. Maybe
you've been pursuing your goals health and wellness related and
also professional. How many of you, honestly are feeling drained,
how many of you are feeling exhausted, and how many
(01:40):
of you are feeling like you need some practical tips
and practical methods to actually find a way through this
busy time. Nearly half forty eight percent of eighteen to
twenty nine year olds said they feel drained, compared with
forty percent of their peers, AIDS thirteen up, while women
for six percent reported higher levels of burnout than men
(02:03):
at thirty seven percent. So this is a problem that
a lot of us are dealing with. We're not alone,
and we're highly challenged by it. And look, the podcast
is full of great advice from experts on how much
water intake, you need, sleep, and exercise. You can find
that here. But what I wanted to share with you
in this episode is what do you do when you
(02:26):
can't do all of those things right now? When you
feel like you've tried but you're failing, and now you're
starting to do nothing What are these small incremental shifts.
What are the little steps that you can take right
now to transform how you feel to stop feeling drained. So,
if you've been feeling drained lately, this episode is for you.
(02:47):
If you've been feeling exhausted, this episode is for you.
And if you're on the verge of burnout, please please
please listen to this. And if you have someone in
your life that you know is headed down that road,
send them there so they can actually keep it together,
keep the energy enough to get to their next break
and their next pit stop. I want to start off
(03:10):
with a really important principle. I've said this statistic before.
Study show we have sixty to eighty thousand thoughts per day,
and eighty percent of those are negative and eighty percent
of those are repetitive. Let me give you an example.
How many of you have ever started your day with
(03:30):
the words I'm feeling really drained. Now, think about how
many times you've said that in one day, in every conversation,
every meeting, talking to a friend or a family member. Now,
think about how many times you've said that over a week. Now,
how many times have you said that over a month,
(03:52):
And how many times have you said that. Over a year,
we keep repeating the same thought, the same feeling, oh
and over and over again. And it's so important that
we learn to break repetitive thoughts, that we learn to
disrupt that pattern, that we learn to intervene. We have
(04:13):
to have our own intervention in our mind. I'm going
to give you the triple A formula. Write this down,
Triple A accept and action. Usually we don't accept how
we feel. We're told to be toxically positive. Instead of
saying I'm tired, we say I'm energized, I'm feeling good.
(04:33):
Affirmations like that don't work. That isn't even an affirmation.
That's just telling yourself a lie and hoping you'll believe it. Now,
biology will reject that. You won't believe it. You won't
just believe it because you keep saying it to yourself
if you're not feeling any different. So accept and action.
(04:54):
The acceptance has to be followed up by an action.
So for example, I'm really drained and so I'll go
to sleep early tonight. I'm really drained, and so I
will cancel my plans this weekend. The and so changes
that thought. See, that thought is a signal I'm drained.
(05:14):
As a signal from your body to the mind, from
your mind to your heart, your body and mind are
trying to tell you something. Pain makes you pay attention,
but that attention needs to be followed by action, and
that's often what we don't find we see the signal.
It's almost like you're driving your car. You see one
of the lights pop up, and you keep ignoring or
(05:37):
avoiding it. You go, I don't really know what it is.
I'll figure it out. I'll take a look right. How
many times have you done that? Mentally?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
How many times have you ever done that? Physically?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You're feeling a real niggling pain in your knee or
in your back, you keep ignoring it. Stop ignoring your
repetitive thoughts, stop ignoring your petitive feelings, stop ignoring your
repetitive emotions. They're repeating for a reason. They want you
(06:09):
to pay attention. Pain makes you focus and pay attention
so that then you can take action, break your repetitive
thought cycle, break that spiral so that you can actually
shift into taking action. Principle number two. One of the
things I find that has really helped me, and I
(06:30):
practice this often, is recognizing that I don't always have
to be at one hundred percent energy. How many times
have you ever gone to an event, you've gone to work,
you're with your family, and you constantly think that you
have to be at one hundred percent all the time.
(06:51):
I'll give an example. I was at a dinner recently
and I had to give a speech the next day.
I just got off a flight. So I just got
off a flight. I'd been trying for around twenty hours.
I had gone to the opening night dinner, and the
next morning I had to wake up and give a
keynote presentation. I wouldn't say I was drained, but I
was exhausted. The interesting thing to me was that dinner,
(07:14):
everyone was chatting, it was opening ni, everyone was, you know,
being their best self. And I very quickly realized that
if I wanted to give a great presentation the next day,
which is why I'd been brought in, that I wouldn't
be able to be one hundred percent energy the whole night.
So I was probably at about fifty percent energy. And
(07:35):
I could tell that people could sense that even if
they didn't know me, and I shared with them. I said, hey,
I'm really tired. I got off a plane. Today after
twenty hours of travel, I have a presentation tomorrow. I
really wanted to sharpen meet everyone, but I'm going to
be a bit more reserved tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Being able to vocalize that, being able to communicate that
helped me feel better about it. I want to be
at one hundred percent. I want to be able to
give my best, but after my travel schedule, the demands
don't allow me to be that way. And I'm guessing
it's the same for you as well. And I realize
that being able to say to myself and communicate to
others why I'm out a seventy five percent, why I'm
(08:13):
out of fifty percent, people are going to be able
to sense it. Often we want to act our way
through these things. We want to hope that no one realizes,
people recognize, people feel it. But actually, when we can
communicate our limits, when we can communicate our challenges, when
we can communicate why we're feeling the way we are,
(08:34):
why we're acting the way we are, what is happening
behind the scenes. Right, No one there had a badge
that said the travel time it took them to get in.
Some people had come from thirty minutes away, and like me,
some from twenty hours away. And so the idea that
we should just assume that everyone should be one hundred
percent all the time doesn't actually make sense. And I'm
(08:56):
hoping that this actually gives you the capacity to be
compassionate to others. I think often we're so quick to
judge as with others, well like, oh they didn't show
up with their best energy. Oh they seemed off tonight.
I'm going to recognize what people are carrying, what people
are dealing with. So I want you to take that
on board. When can you be at fifty percent energy?
(09:17):
And what does that look like in communicating that? Now,
there are times when I have to be at one
hundred percent energy and I know I've got a sharp
off as in my best self, I don't have the
excuse to say, Okay, our sharp is fifty percent. I
don't feel comfortable to communicate that. I find that might
(09:38):
be difficult. So one of the things I've realized in
this is to cap the time in order to preserve
my energy at one hundred percent. The time I can
be one hundred percent is different. I may show up
to a dinner for thirty minutes. I may make the
meeting ten minutes. I may make the presentation fifteen minutes.
What can I do to do what I want to do?
(10:01):
To do what I need to do? But how do
I time box it in a way that I can
give my best self? Often what we try and do
is say, Okay, if the meeting's an hour, I'm going
to be there in shop for an hour. Actually can
I solve that in thirty minutes with my best energy?
Is that actually more plausible than possible? Step number three,
(10:23):
This one is important if you are on the verge
of exhaustion. We have to learn to say no, it's
okay to cancel social events. And ideally what a lot
of us do is we try and cancel it last minute.
It's actually so much better if you cancel it in advance,
if you give someone notice, if you let someone know, hey,
(10:43):
I'm feeling really rough this week, I'm kind of under
the weather. I'm worried that I'm going to get sick,
and I don't want to come ruin the party. I
don't want to come ruin the event. What we often
do is we wait till the last minute, We're going
to force ourselves to go, and then we realize we
really can't go, or we force ourselves to go and
then we're bitter it or we're upset about it. It's
so important to just get that RSVP out the way,
(11:07):
let the person know, let the event know it's okay.
Things will go on. Yes you'll experience fomo, Yes you
might miss out on something cool, but guess what. Burnout
is not worth it. Exhaustion is not worth it, Feeling
drained is not worth it. Let me say that again.
(11:30):
Feeling drained is not worth anything, Feeling exhausted is not
worth anything, and experiencing burnout is not worth it. Now again,
there have been times when I have to turn up,
I have to be there, and what I've found is
that usually in social settings it's overwhelming thinking you've got
(11:51):
to talk to twenty thirty, forty fifty people. I did
this again the other night, and I love it when
you find someone who's trying to do the same thing.
So I ended up talking to someone who is also
feeling the same way as me. They were tired, they
were feeling slightly drained, and they said, I just want
to find one person to connect to meaningfully. So instead
of trying to feel like you've got to work the room.
(12:12):
You've got to introduce yourself to everyone. You're going to
miss out. Literally find the other person, have a beautiful
meaning interaction or exchange, and just feel connected and experience
what it feels like to actually just allow yourself to
be I think that a lot of this draining feeling
actually comes from stress, and the stress is where we're
(12:33):
demanding too much of our body and mind. That's how
I look at stress. Stress is when I'm demanding too
much of my body and mind. My body and mind
is trying to tell me it's limit, and I'm pushing
it further. Sometimes that can be brilliant. Kelly McGonagall, in
her book called The Upside of Stress, talks about how
we can deal with more stress when we experience purpose.
(12:55):
We can deal with more stress when we have a
clear intention. There's one thing to think about when you
are experiencing stress, ask yourself, if you need to push through,
what's my intention? What am I really trying to achieve?
Let me focus on why it's so important for me
to experience this, and actually we become better at dealing
with it. We deal with it more gracefully. It doesn't
(13:17):
have that negative impact that stress often does on our lives,
So find a way to think about that. Take a
moment to say, what is my intention here? Why is
it necessary for me to tackle this stress and take
it on right now? Going back to the social event point,
I have a friend who's amazing at this. She'll always
(13:38):
message me and she'll say to me, Jay, are you
going to this? And I'll say yes, and she'll be like,
can I just let you know that I'm really tired
today and I'd love for it if we could just
hang out and talk.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
But I don't think I can do big groups. I go,
I'm all.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
In write that kind of strategy and approach. When you
know someone coming, it's a safe space. They trust you,
you trust them, You can give them a heads up
they can do the same, and now you're supporting each
other in that environment. Sometimes I actually think that stress
or feeling drained makes us more strategic. Yep, I said
(14:12):
that right, Stress can actually make you more strategic. Feeling
drained can make you more dynamic. Here's a really interesting
thing to think about. Which one of your meetings could
actually be emails?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Think about that right now.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Look through your schedule and ask yourself which of those
can be solved with an email. Which of those could
actually be solved in an email exchange? We don't need
to do a call. The call will actually tell into
an hour. It will be far more draining, I'll exert
way more energy, and actually I can solve it in
far less time. I can actually get to where I
(14:49):
need to get to. So sometimes what you find is
stress releases your strategy, and I want you to think
about that. When else have you been stress recently? And
how could you have used that stress to become more strategic?
How could that stress create a better idea, a better option,
a better solution, Because now you're actually thinking, well, how
(15:11):
do I do that with less energy and less time?
And if we looked at life like that, we may
be able to solve some of those things that create
more stress, create more pressure in our lives. And I'd
really consider where and when in your life being more
strategic will save you from that added stress. Definitely something
(15:33):
to look at, something to consider, and something to think about.
Now that also applies to phone calls over zooms. I
find that when we're listening sometimes I find that when
I'm on a phone call, I'm actually more present than
when I'm on a zoom meeting. On a zoom meeting,
you're on your screen, which means most people have emailed up,
emails popping up. You're now looking at yourself, and I
(15:55):
think you have to turn yourself off. I mean, I'd
actually argue that the amount of time and energy and
presence that's drained in looking at your own appearance on
a meeting is so high, and most of us have
been doing it since the pandemic. Turn your screen off.
Just look at the other person, even pin the person
that's speaking, because when you're looking at nine boxes, when
(16:17):
in a meeting room, would you be looking at nine
people at the same time, all at the same time,
It would never happen. You look at the person who's talking.
Maybe you flip over to one or two, but generally
you're not looking at nine people all at the same time.
And sometimes you're on a zoom call with twenty people
and you're now looking at everyone. Someone's scratching their head,
someone's looking at their phone, someone's taking notes, someone's talking.
(16:42):
It can be overwhelming and it can be draining, which
zoom calls can turn into phone calls. Really important question
to ask, important to think about all the meetings you have,
the events you have, the things that you're going to,
the things you're traveling to. How can you streamline? How
can you make it simpler. One of my favorite ones,
(17:03):
which requires a bit more planning, but it's been a
huge asset in my life, is called a reset day,
a reset half day, or a reset hour. Based on
how busy my schedule is, I'll make sure that during
the weekend I get to have a reset hour, a
reset half day, or a reset day. What this is
(17:26):
that it's almost a rehearsal of my most perfect day.
It's a day where I get to live how I
wish I could live every day, how I want to
live every day, how I aspire to live every day.
But the realist in me that I've worked on being
when I used to be a perfectionist is saying, let
me at least have one hour, let me have half
(17:48):
a day of that, let me have a day of that,
Let me invest in that. And how incredible would that be?
How powerful would that be in my life if I
allowed myself to do that. I love the perfect amount
of meditation, the perfect workout. I'll eat really well, even
if it's for an hour. That reset hour or reset
day is like what we do when our phone's starting
(18:10):
to jam up and we just switch it off and
we've reset it. We can't do it with an on
and off button with ourselves, but we can if we
take some time out to reset. And I think we
often think, Okay, no, tomorrow morning's my reset, It's going
to be a perfect day. Tomorrow morning's my reset. And
it's almost like we have to carve out time that's
fully under our control in order to do that effectively.
(18:33):
Think about that. One thing that we really need to
start learning to ask ourselves when we are failing drained
is how can I be kinder to myself? A lot
of what's draining us is happening within our mind. You're
not good enough, you're not fast enough. Did you see
what they did? Look how behind you are? The way
we talk to ourselves when we look in the mirror,
(18:55):
you look in overweight, you don't look great today, you
look tired, you look drained. Can't you do better than that?
The voice in our head constantly pushing us to be better,
do better, but not in an encouraging way, not as
a cheerleader, but as a critic and what's really interesting
about that is if we're encouraging and empowering ourselves, we
(19:17):
can achieve great things. But if we're stressing ourselves, we're
draining ourselves from within. How can you be kinder to
yourself when you know you need to push yourself more.
You didn't get to do everything today on your to
do list, That's okay, you got seven out of ten
things done. You didn't perform exceptionally well this week at work,
(19:38):
It's okay, we start.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Again on Monday.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Maybe you didn't feel like you were the best around
your kids this week or the best around your partner.
It's okay. You can improve and take accountability and let
them know what's going on. How can you be kinder
to yourself? If you were kinder to yourself, what do
you believe you would achieve?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
This next one?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Slightly harder? When something stressing us out, There's two things
we can do. One is we can either talk about
the stress the whole time, and if you talk about
it with the right people, it actually gets lighter. When
you talk about your stress with the right people, it
becomes more light. People who help you carry it, people
(20:20):
who help you make sense of it, people who help
you think about it. People who just agree with you
and let you vent are useful too. There's a need
for you to let that stress out. Being able to
talk about it to a friend, a therapist, a colleague,
a person who understands you can be huge. Now. The
(20:43):
opposite also works distance from the stressor. So you may
not have distance from the stressor verbally, but you want
to have distance from the stress so physically, if you can,
don't be around them, don't be around people who are
around them, don't be around people who know them. It
solves your issue when you can distance yourself from having
(21:05):
to deal with that stressor up close and personal, face
to face. You don't have to put yourself in that position.
So ask yourself, can you do that? And if you
can't do that, then allow yourself to vent, allow yourself
to have space and time to let it out.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I'm bringing this up because I found in my life
I was sleeping right, I was drinking the right water,
I was eating right, and I still felt drained. And
I realized a lot of it was because of a
lack of vitamins and supplements.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I wasn't getting enough vitamin D.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I had others that were low, and as soon as
I got checked out, it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I highly recommend that you go and.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Get checked out, because so often we're trying to solve
something in our mind when actually we need to solve
it in our body. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I always say to people like, if you're struggling with your.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Mind, figure out what you could change about your body,
and if you're struggling with your body, figure out what
you could change in your mind. So many of us
are only looking at one aspect when we need to
focus on both. This also applies, as I said earlier,
to the quality of your sleep. Obviously, feeling drained a
big part of his sleep, diet exercise. Are you drinking
(22:15):
over three liters of water a day? Are you eating
healthy proteins, healthy fats in good proportions, getting your carbohydrates right.
We've got some brilliant episodes on that. Make sure you
check out our Gut health episodes. And of course, so
you're getting good deep sleep. We've had sleep experts on
the show before and study show you need seven to
(22:35):
nine hours of sleep, ideally starting before midnight.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So if you're.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Sleeping seven hours from midnight to seven am, it's different
from sleeping from ten pm to five am. Those hours
before midnight are with the human growth hormone HGH is
most activated. Our ability to have deeper, more quality sleep
is better when we're doing it before midnight. Now, I
want to leave you with one last thing, and I
(23:02):
want to leave you with this idea. If you wake
up in the morning and the dishes aren't done, how
does it feel waking up to dirty dishes? That's what
it feels like, waking up when you didn't clean your
mind before. Ask yourself at the end of every night,
when you're drained, what do I want to leave behind today?
What am I going to consciously intentionally leave behind today?
(23:25):
What am I going to wash away today? What am
I going to allow to just be today? Wash your
mind the night before and leave the draining behind. Thank
you so much for listening today. I truly hope this
helps you, and remember I'm always rooting for you and
I'm forever in your corner. If you love this episode,
(23:47):
you will also love my interview with Charles Douhig on
how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and
the secret to making better decisions.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Look, am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of
making the choice because I'm scared of doing the work,
Or am I sitting with this because it just doesn't
feel right yet
I'm drained.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
As a signal from your body to the mind, from
your mind to your heart, your body and mind are
trying to tell you something. Pain makes you pay attention,
but that attention needs to be followed by action.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Jay set Jay Sety Yet Hey, everyone, welcome back to
On Purpose, the number one health podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thanks to each and every one of you that come
back every week to listen, learn, and grow. I want
to take a moment to thank you all, whether you
joined the on Purpose community yesterday or whether you joined
us five years ago when we first started. I want
to say a big thank you to you for your support.
I love the fact that you're making Instagram reels. I
(00:49):
love seeing the tiktoks you all share, I love seeing
your stories. Thank you for making this such a highly
recommended podcast to your friends, your family. It means the
world to me, and I can't wait to keep bringing
you incredible conversations and content. Now this episode feels like
a really, really important one because I can't believe that
(01:12):
we're already this far into the year and it's natural
that a lot of people are starting to feel drained.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Maybe you have some time off.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Maybe you haven't had the chance to have some time off,
but maybe you've been working really hard this year. Maybe
you've been pursuing your goals health and wellness related and
also professional. How many of you, honestly are feeling drained,
how many of you are feeling exhausted, and how many
(01:40):
of you are feeling like you need some practical tips
and practical methods to actually find a way through this
busy time. Nearly half forty eight percent of eighteen to
twenty nine year olds said they feel drained, compared with
forty percent of their peers, AIDS thirteen up, while women
for six percent reported higher levels of burnout than men
(02:03):
at thirty seven percent. So this is a problem that
a lot of us are dealing with. We're not alone,
and we're highly challenged by it. And look, the podcast
is full of great advice from experts on how much
water intake, you need, sleep, and exercise. You can find
that here. But what I wanted to share with you
in this episode is what do you do when you
(02:26):
can't do all of those things right now? When you
feel like you've tried but you're failing, and now you're
starting to do nothing What are these small incremental shifts.
What are the little steps that you can take right
now to transform how you feel to stop feeling drained. So,
if you've been feeling drained lately, this episode is for you.
(02:47):
If you've been feeling exhausted, this episode is for you.
And if you're on the verge of burnout, please please
please listen to this. And if you have someone in
your life that you know is headed down that road,
send them there so they can actually keep it together,
keep the energy enough to get to their next break
and their next pit stop. I want to start off
(03:10):
with a really important principle. I've said this statistic before.
Study show we have sixty to eighty thousand thoughts per day,
and eighty percent of those are negative and eighty percent
of those are repetitive. Let me give you an example.
How many of you have ever started your day with
(03:30):
the words I'm feeling really drained. Now, think about how
many times you've said that in one day, in every conversation,
every meeting, talking to a friend or a family member. Now,
think about how many times you've said that over a week. Now,
how many times have you said that over a month,
(03:52):
And how many times have you said that. Over a year,
we keep repeating the same thought, the same feeling, oh
and over and over again. And it's so important that
we learn to break repetitive thoughts, that we learn to
disrupt that pattern, that we learn to intervene. We have
(04:13):
to have our own intervention in our mind. I'm going
to give you the triple A formula. Write this down,
Triple A accept and action. Usually we don't accept how
we feel. We're told to be toxically positive. Instead of
saying I'm tired, we say I'm energized, I'm feeling good.
(04:33):
Affirmations like that don't work. That isn't even an affirmation.
That's just telling yourself a lie and hoping you'll believe it. Now,
biology will reject that. You won't believe it. You won't
just believe it because you keep saying it to yourself
if you're not feeling any different. So accept and action.
(04:54):
The acceptance has to be followed up by an action.
So for example, I'm really drained and so I'll go
to sleep early tonight. I'm really drained, and so I
will cancel my plans this weekend. The and so changes
that thought. See, that thought is a signal I'm drained.
(05:14):
As a signal from your body to the mind, from
your mind to your heart, your body and mind are
trying to tell you something. Pain makes you pay attention,
but that attention needs to be followed by action, and
that's often what we don't find we see the signal.
It's almost like you're driving your car. You see one
of the lights pop up, and you keep ignoring or
(05:37):
avoiding it. You go, I don't really know what it is.
I'll figure it out. I'll take a look right. How
many times have you done that? Mentally?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
How many times have you ever done that? Physically?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You're feeling a real niggling pain in your knee or
in your back, you keep ignoring it. Stop ignoring your
repetitive thoughts, stop ignoring your petitive feelings, stop ignoring your
repetitive emotions. They're repeating for a reason. They want you
(06:09):
to pay attention. Pain makes you focus and pay attention
so that then you can take action, break your repetitive
thought cycle, break that spiral so that you can actually
shift into taking action. Principle number two. One of the
things I find that has really helped me, and I
(06:30):
practice this often, is recognizing that I don't always have
to be at one hundred percent energy. How many times
have you ever gone to an event, you've gone to work,
you're with your family, and you constantly think that you
have to be at one hundred percent all the time.
(06:51):
I'll give an example. I was at a dinner recently
and I had to give a speech the next day.
I just got off a flight. So I just got
off a flight. I'd been trying for around twenty hours.
I had gone to the opening night dinner, and the
next morning I had to wake up and give a
keynote presentation. I wouldn't say I was drained, but I
was exhausted. The interesting thing to me was that dinner,
(07:14):
everyone was chatting, it was opening ni, everyone was, you know,
being their best self. And I very quickly realized that
if I wanted to give a great presentation the next day,
which is why I'd been brought in, that I wouldn't
be able to be one hundred percent energy the whole night.
So I was probably at about fifty percent energy. And
(07:35):
I could tell that people could sense that even if
they didn't know me, and I shared with them. I said, hey,
I'm really tired. I got off a plane. Today after
twenty hours of travel, I have a presentation tomorrow. I
really wanted to sharpen meet everyone, but I'm going to
be a bit more reserved tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Being able to vocalize that, being able to communicate that
helped me feel better about it. I want to be
at one hundred percent. I want to be able to
give my best, but after my travel schedule, the demands
don't allow me to be that way. And I'm guessing
it's the same for you as well. And I realize
that being able to say to myself and communicate to
others why I'm out a seventy five percent, why I'm
(08:13):
out of fifty percent, people are going to be able
to sense it. Often we want to act our way
through these things. We want to hope that no one realizes,
people recognize, people feel it. But actually, when we can
communicate our limits, when we can communicate our challenges, when
we can communicate why we're feeling the way we are,
(08:34):
why we're acting the way we are, what is happening
behind the scenes. Right, No one there had a badge
that said the travel time it took them to get in.
Some people had come from thirty minutes away, and like me,
some from twenty hours away. And so the idea that
we should just assume that everyone should be one hundred
percent all the time doesn't actually make sense. And I'm
(08:56):
hoping that this actually gives you the capacity to be
compassionate to others. I think often we're so quick to
judge as with others, well like, oh they didn't show
up with their best energy. Oh they seemed off tonight.
I'm going to recognize what people are carrying, what people
are dealing with. So I want you to take that
on board. When can you be at fifty percent energy?
(09:17):
And what does that look like in communicating that? Now,
there are times when I have to be at one
hundred percent energy and I know I've got a sharp
off as in my best self, I don't have the
excuse to say, Okay, our sharp is fifty percent. I
don't feel comfortable to communicate that. I find that might
(09:38):
be difficult. So one of the things I've realized in
this is to cap the time in order to preserve
my energy at one hundred percent. The time I can
be one hundred percent is different. I may show up
to a dinner for thirty minutes. I may make the
meeting ten minutes. I may make the presentation fifteen minutes.
What can I do to do what I want to do?
(10:01):
To do what I need to do? But how do
I time box it in a way that I can
give my best self? Often what we try and do
is say, Okay, if the meeting's an hour, I'm going
to be there in shop for an hour. Actually can
I solve that in thirty minutes with my best energy?
Is that actually more plausible than possible? Step number three,
(10:23):
This one is important if you are on the verge
of exhaustion. We have to learn to say no, it's
okay to cancel social events. And ideally what a lot
of us do is we try and cancel it last minute.
It's actually so much better if you cancel it in advance,
if you give someone notice, if you let someone know, hey,
(10:43):
I'm feeling really rough this week, I'm kind of under
the weather. I'm worried that I'm going to get sick,
and I don't want to come ruin the party. I
don't want to come ruin the event. What we often
do is we wait till the last minute, We're going
to force ourselves to go, and then we realize we
really can't go, or we force ourselves to go and
then we're bitter it or we're upset about it. It's
so important to just get that RSVP out the way,
(11:07):
let the person know, let the event know it's okay.
Things will go on. Yes you'll experience fomo, Yes you
might miss out on something cool, but guess what. Burnout
is not worth it. Exhaustion is not worth it, Feeling
drained is not worth it. Let me say that again.
(11:30):
Feeling drained is not worth anything, Feeling exhausted is not
worth anything, and experiencing burnout is not worth it. Now again,
there have been times when I have to turn up,
I have to be there, and what I've found is
that usually in social settings it's overwhelming thinking you've got
(11:51):
to talk to twenty thirty, forty fifty people. I did
this again the other night, and I love it when
you find someone who's trying to do the same thing.
So I ended up talking to someone who is also
feeling the same way as me. They were tired, they
were feeling slightly drained, and they said, I just want
to find one person to connect to meaningfully. So instead
of trying to feel like you've got to work the room.
(12:12):
You've got to introduce yourself to everyone. You're going to
miss out. Literally find the other person, have a beautiful
meaning interaction or exchange, and just feel connected and experience
what it feels like to actually just allow yourself to
be I think that a lot of this draining feeling
actually comes from stress, and the stress is where we're
(12:33):
demanding too much of our body and mind. That's how
I look at stress. Stress is when I'm demanding too
much of my body and mind. My body and mind
is trying to tell me it's limit, and I'm pushing
it further. Sometimes that can be brilliant. Kelly McGonagall, in
her book called The Upside of Stress, talks about how
we can deal with more stress when we experience purpose.
(12:55):
We can deal with more stress when we have a
clear intention. There's one thing to think about when you
are experiencing stress, ask yourself, if you need to push through,
what's my intention? What am I really trying to achieve?
Let me focus on why it's so important for me
to experience this, and actually we become better at dealing
with it. We deal with it more gracefully. It doesn't
(13:17):
have that negative impact that stress often does on our lives,
So find a way to think about that. Take a
moment to say, what is my intention here? Why is
it necessary for me to tackle this stress and take
it on right now? Going back to the social event point,
I have a friend who's amazing at this. She'll always
(13:38):
message me and she'll say to me, Jay, are you
going to this? And I'll say yes, and she'll be like,
can I just let you know that I'm really tired
today and I'd love for it if we could just
hang out and talk.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
But I don't think I can do big groups. I go,
I'm all.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
In write that kind of strategy and approach. When you
know someone coming, it's a safe space. They trust you,
you trust them, You can give them a heads up
they can do the same, and now you're supporting each
other in that environment. Sometimes I actually think that stress
or feeling drained makes us more strategic. Yep, I said
(14:12):
that right, Stress can actually make you more strategic. Feeling
drained can make you more dynamic. Here's a really interesting
thing to think about. Which one of your meetings could
actually be emails?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Think about that right now.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Look through your schedule and ask yourself which of those
can be solved with an email. Which of those could
actually be solved in an email exchange? We don't need
to do a call. The call will actually tell into
an hour. It will be far more draining, I'll exert
way more energy, and actually I can solve it in
far less time. I can actually get to where I
(14:49):
need to get to. So sometimes what you find is
stress releases your strategy, and I want you to think
about that. When else have you been stress recently? And
how could you have used that stress to become more strategic?
How could that stress create a better idea, a better option,
a better solution, Because now you're actually thinking, well, how
(15:11):
do I do that with less energy and less time?
And if we looked at life like that, we may
be able to solve some of those things that create
more stress, create more pressure in our lives. And I'd
really consider where and when in your life being more
strategic will save you from that added stress. Definitely something
(15:33):
to look at, something to consider, and something to think about.
Now that also applies to phone calls over zooms. I
find that when we're listening sometimes I find that when
I'm on a phone call, I'm actually more present than
when I'm on a zoom meeting. On a zoom meeting,
you're on your screen, which means most people have emailed up,
emails popping up. You're now looking at yourself, and I
(15:55):
think you have to turn yourself off. I mean, I'd
actually argue that the amount of time and energy and
presence that's drained in looking at your own appearance on
a meeting is so high, and most of us have
been doing it since the pandemic. Turn your screen off.
Just look at the other person, even pin the person
that's speaking, because when you're looking at nine boxes, when
(16:17):
in a meeting room, would you be looking at nine
people at the same time, all at the same time,
It would never happen. You look at the person who's talking.
Maybe you flip over to one or two, but generally
you're not looking at nine people all at the same time.
And sometimes you're on a zoom call with twenty people
and you're now looking at everyone. Someone's scratching their head,
someone's looking at their phone, someone's taking notes, someone's talking.
(16:42):
It can be overwhelming and it can be draining, which
zoom calls can turn into phone calls. Really important question
to ask, important to think about all the meetings you have,
the events you have, the things that you're going to,
the things you're traveling to. How can you streamline? How
can you make it simpler. One of my favorite ones,
(17:03):
which requires a bit more planning, but it's been a
huge asset in my life, is called a reset day,
a reset half day, or a reset hour. Based on
how busy my schedule is, I'll make sure that during
the weekend I get to have a reset hour, a
reset half day, or a reset day. What this is
(17:26):
that it's almost a rehearsal of my most perfect day.
It's a day where I get to live how I
wish I could live every day, how I want to
live every day, how I aspire to live every day.
But the realist in me that I've worked on being
when I used to be a perfectionist is saying, let
me at least have one hour, let me have half
(17:48):
a day of that, let me have a day of that,
Let me invest in that. And how incredible would that be?
How powerful would that be in my life if I
allowed myself to do that. I love the perfect amount
of meditation, the perfect workout. I'll eat really well, even
if it's for an hour. That reset hour or reset
day is like what we do when our phone's starting
(18:10):
to jam up and we just switch it off and
we've reset it. We can't do it with an on
and off button with ourselves, but we can if we
take some time out to reset. And I think we
often think, Okay, no, tomorrow morning's my reset, It's going
to be a perfect day. Tomorrow morning's my reset. And
it's almost like we have to carve out time that's
fully under our control in order to do that effectively.
(18:33):
Think about that. One thing that we really need to
start learning to ask ourselves when we are failing drained
is how can I be kinder to myself? A lot
of what's draining us is happening within our mind. You're
not good enough, you're not fast enough. Did you see
what they did? Look how behind you are? The way
we talk to ourselves when we look in the mirror,
(18:55):
you look in overweight, you don't look great today, you
look tired, you look drained. Can't you do better than that?
The voice in our head constantly pushing us to be better,
do better, but not in an encouraging way, not as
a cheerleader, but as a critic and what's really interesting
about that is if we're encouraging and empowering ourselves, we
(19:17):
can achieve great things. But if we're stressing ourselves, we're
draining ourselves from within. How can you be kinder to
yourself when you know you need to push yourself more.
You didn't get to do everything today on your to
do list, That's okay, you got seven out of ten
things done. You didn't perform exceptionally well this week at work,
(19:38):
It's okay, we start.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Again on Monday.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Maybe you didn't feel like you were the best around
your kids this week or the best around your partner.
It's okay. You can improve and take accountability and let
them know what's going on. How can you be kinder
to yourself? If you were kinder to yourself, what do
you believe you would achieve?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
This next one?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Slightly harder? When something stressing us out, There's two things
we can do. One is we can either talk about
the stress the whole time, and if you talk about
it with the right people, it actually gets lighter. When
you talk about your stress with the right people, it
becomes more light. People who help you carry it, people
(20:20):
who help you make sense of it, people who help
you think about it. People who just agree with you
and let you vent are useful too. There's a need
for you to let that stress out. Being able to
talk about it to a friend, a therapist, a colleague,
a person who understands you can be huge. Now. The
(20:43):
opposite also works distance from the stressor. So you may
not have distance from the stressor verbally, but you want
to have distance from the stress so physically, if you can,
don't be around them, don't be around people who are
around them, don't be around people who know them. It
solves your issue when you can distance yourself from having
(21:05):
to deal with that stressor up close and personal, face
to face. You don't have to put yourself in that position.
So ask yourself, can you do that? And if you
can't do that, then allow yourself to vent, allow yourself
to have space and time to let it out.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I'm bringing this up because I found in my life
I was sleeping right, I was drinking the right water,
I was eating right, and I still felt drained. And
I realized a lot of it was because of a
lack of vitamins and supplements.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I wasn't getting enough vitamin D.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I had others that were low, and as soon as
I got checked out, it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I highly recommend that you go and.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Get checked out, because so often we're trying to solve
something in our mind when actually we need to solve
it in our body. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I always say to people like, if you're struggling with your.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Mind, figure out what you could change about your body,
and if you're struggling with your body, figure out what
you could change in your mind. So many of us
are only looking at one aspect when we need to
focus on both. This also applies, as I said earlier,
to the quality of your sleep. Obviously, feeling drained a
big part of his sleep, diet exercise. Are you drinking
(22:15):
over three liters of water a day? Are you eating
healthy proteins, healthy fats in good proportions, getting your carbohydrates right.
We've got some brilliant episodes on that. Make sure you
check out our Gut health episodes. And of course, so
you're getting good deep sleep. We've had sleep experts on
the show before and study show you need seven to
(22:35):
nine hours of sleep, ideally starting before midnight.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So if you're.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Sleeping seven hours from midnight to seven am, it's different
from sleeping from ten pm to five am. Those hours
before midnight are with the human growth hormone HGH is
most activated. Our ability to have deeper, more quality sleep
is better when we're doing it before midnight. Now, I
want to leave you with one last thing, and I
(23:02):
want to leave you with this idea. If you wake
up in the morning and the dishes aren't done, how
does it feel waking up to dirty dishes? That's what
it feels like, waking up when you didn't clean your
mind before. Ask yourself at the end of every night,
when you're drained, what do I want to leave behind today?
What am I going to consciously intentionally leave behind today?
(23:25):
What am I going to wash away today? What am
I going to allow to just be today? Wash your
mind the night before and leave the draining behind. Thank
you so much for listening today. I truly hope this
helps you, and remember I'm always rooting for you and
I'm forever in your corner. If you love this episode,
(23:47):
you will also love my interview with Charles Douhig on
how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and
the secret to making better decisions.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Look, am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of
making the choice because I'm scared of doing the work,
Or am I sitting with this because it just doesn't
feel right yet
Host
Jay Shetty
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