How to cure your burnout and figure out your next step in one short sabbatical
All it takes is this one weird trick 🪡
When I say that all it takes to cure your burnout and figure out your next step is this one weird trick…
I’m kind of kidding, but I’m kind of not.
Because you might be surprised by how far you can get by JUST doing this.
So here’s the one weird trick—
Follow the thread 🪡
What I mean when I say that is:
Look inside to see what you feel like doing.
Get still. Get quiet. Ask yourself:
“What do I want to do right now?”
Once you have an answer, go do that thing.
I don’t care if it’s “attend the opera” or “call that friend” or “eat a croissant” or “watch brainless TV.”
Go do that thing.
Now, here’s the most important step.
The one that most people miss.
The one that is crucial to get right, if you want this to work.
That step is—
KEEP asking yourself: “What do I want to do right now?”
Minute to minute. Hour to hour. Day to day.
Don’t take the very first answer your brain gives you, lock in, and do it for the entire day without thinking.
Stay alive to the latest heartbeat of your instincts, moment to moment.
Because here’s the thing about the thread that you are following…
It doesn’t travel in a straight line.
You can’t extrapolate where it’s going to go from the little bit of it that you can see right now.
It twists and turns of its own accord.
It updates itself as it interacts with the world.
Which means that it is crucial that you stay alive to the latest direction that thread is turning in.
If you follow the thread, your brain will show you the path to clearing the burnout out of your system.
If you follow the thread, your brain will show you what you want to do next in your career.
I’m not saying that the complete answer to those questions already lives, fully formed, inside your brain. That’s not quite it.
I’m saying that your brain already knows enough to get started…
And that your brain will figure out the rest as it goes — as its instincts make contact with the real world and continually get updated with all the new data it’s receiving.
In the same way that your car’s headlights can’t illuminate the entire pathway from New York to Boston…
But they can illuminate 200 feet in front of you.
And if you start driving — if you start following that light — they will continue to show you the next turn you need to make until you’ve arrived all the way in Boston.
This is also why I tell you to stay alive to the latest heartbeat of your instincts, moment to moment.
If you just take the first thing your instincts tell you to do and lock in for the whole day without checking in again…
That’s like seeing that there’s a straight road when you first turn on your headlights and then closing your eyes and driving straight for an hour.
Following the thread works, in the same way that following your car’s headlights works.
But high performers can find it a little challenging to follow the thread…
Because our default operating model can often be to go top-down and execute plans…
Rather than going bottoms-up and letting the path emerge through exploration.
This is especially true when the thing we’re trying to figure out is so freaking important to us.
Your career. Your purpose in life. How to feel fully alive and engaged and in flow at work again.
How to find a sense of meaning and fulfillment in your work while also making enough money to support your life.
These are really important questions.
When the stakes are so high, the temptation to take control and MAKE it happen can be very, very high.
But when you try to go top-down and execute…
When you haven’t yet gone bottoms-up, followed the thread, and gathered enough data to have conviction about what to execute ON…
That’s when you end up feeling stuck.
You might find yourself having conviction in a new thing every day and wondering why the heck you can’t just make a decision and commit to it.
Or you might find yourself feeling “meh” about everything and wonder why you can’t drum up excitement about any of your possible paths.
Or you might find yourself fantasizing about going off-grid and living on a farm because this puzzle doesn’t feel possible to solve.
In all these cases, the solution is the same.
You’re not stuck because the answer isn’t out there, or because you’re not capable of figuring this out.
You’re stuck because you’re trying to push yourself to execute when you have insufficient data to execute with confidence.
So don’t spend your sabbatical executing a top-down plan…
Or putting pressure on yourself to decide which top-down plan to execute.
Spend your sabbatical following the thread 🪡
And let the top-down plan emerge on its own.
Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.
And if you want a thought partner as you’re doing this, come talk to me anytime :)
Swing by for a coffee chat ☕️
No strings attached.
It’s just an opportunity for us to discuss whatever’s on your mind, and I’ll be as helpful as I can be.
Or book a consult call and let’s talk what a full coaching engagement could look like.
To take you through not only the early days of your sabbatical but all the way through the middle, through the end, and into your next career step.
What my clients have to say…
“Trust the process and within a few sessions, you'll see results.
This is not something where you have to wait six months or a year before you expect to start feeling better.
It happens pretty quickly.”
—Client | Head of Business Development at MedTech Company
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