Accept Help to End Burnout

Hi, I am so glad to have you here today. It is summertime. The East Coast, unfortunately, as you probably read in the news, we've had some awful effects from global warming, where the fires in Canada are causing air pollution. So that's been really eye opening to not really be able to spend time outdoors. And that being said, just expressing gratitude for clean air and when we can actually go outside, right? I'm not going to go on a tangent about global warming because that's really not the platform here to talk about stuff like that. Really here we are talking to high achieving moms, right? Who are exhausted and maybe even on the verge of burnout, having tried therapy, self-help books, all of the things, checking all the boxes, but still not happy. But with a little bit of work in 90 days or less, you can be out of burnout, enjoying your life again. Book a call with me, priancanaikmdcoaching.as.me to learn more about that. The link is in the show notes.

Today I want to dive into the topic of needing help or actually accepting help because so many type A high achieving moms, they don't. Are you feeling overwhelmed? And if so, why? Make a list of all the things that you need to get done right now. If you're driving, maybe make a mental list or commit to doing this later and then see how much of that list you actually need to do. So often there are things that other people can do for us, but we just will not allow them to. And then of course, the result of this is feeling exasperated, feeling overwhelmed. And of course, some things are too complicated for us to outsource, right?

But there are a lot of things that weigh on us and we could definitely let others help us with. I've talked to you about the never ending to -do list in the past. I have an episode on that. Episode number 37, how to deal with to -do lists. And we can really think about these to -do lists, right? Because they're never ending, they're always going to exist. And we really don't need to indulge in the stress of it. Things are going to get done and of course when we check boxes off, more tasks will make their way onto this to -do list. And that is the nature of the to -do list. I digress about the to -do list because what I really want to talk about is accepting help. When we don't accept help, when we do everything ourselves, we create our own personal hell. When we're not accepting the help of others. And this is because it just loads and loads onto our plate, on top of our heads, until literally we feel like we're going to be squashed into the ground or the plate's going to fall, right? And we don't want that because the consequences of that are serious exhaustion and maybe even for some people having a total meltdown.

To prevent this, we get to ask for help. Several months ago, I decided to say yes to most of the help that comes my way. What I have found that by saying yes to help, this truly creates ease and peace for me. Prior to this, I really used to feel bad accepting help. I would think so -and -so has so much going on. I don't want to burden them. But what I realized is if that someone offers help, I am going to assume the best that they sincerely mean it. That they would not, and really frankly should not offer help if they don't have the bandwidth to help me. They need to protect themselves and not take more on their plate in order to help me. Now, it's not technically my job, right, to protect or create a boundary for them. It is theirs. But my job is to protect my own mental energy, mental space, my time, create my own boundaries.

And getting help, having people help me is a huge part of that, which is why I'm talking about it today. Accepting help is so hard for so many of us on so many levels. Really depending on the stories maybe that we were told growing up or the example that we saw growing up. Maybe let's say you grew up with a mom who did everything, she never outsourced. So then the idea of doing that might be really foreign or crazy to you that something you just wouldn't want to do. And we feel bad accepting help and we really shouldn't because people honestly like helping, especially if they care about you.

I've had one person who's a friend of mine, that person said to me, listen, Prianca, anytime you need help, anytime, do not hesitate to reach out. And I believe that to be sincere. And I was in a pinch, I had to go to court, my daughter was sick, I needed child care, backup child care. This is before I had my au pair. And I did end up calling my friend, seeing if his nanny was available and turns out that she wasn't. And then he and his wife offered to care for my child. She ended up being fine and she wasn't sick. So everything was taken care of. But it was just really knowing that I could lean on someone in a pinch in a moment. And that in and of itself gave me tremendous peace. And I saw that when I actually did reach out for help, he was stepping up to the plate and he and his wife were more than happy to take care of my daughter, even though they themselves have a 19 and 20-year-old. So that is the power of really realizing that people do have our back and we can lean on people in tough times. It takes a village, right? It's not that we have to be on this journey alone all the time.

Another barrier that comes up is when we think we have to do everything ourselves in order for it to go just right. And this idea really needs work. We need to work on it and really need to work on letting it go. Letting go of this perfectionism, it is really hard. Believe me, I know because I struggle with it still. It needs work every day. And listen to episodes 28 and 46 during which I talk about perfectionism and how to let go of it. And I also of course have this work in my program Overcome Burnout for Good in one of the modules. But acknowledging that we have perfectionistic tendencies within us and when we feel the stress or anxiety of making a mistake, we can acknowledge it and just be present with that. Not judging ourselves for being perfectionistic and not necessarily also though indulging in the story that something has gone terribly wrong. So we don't have to marry ourselves to the perfectionism or we don't have to indulge in it. And that in and of itself can create tremendous inner peace and of course decreases exhaustion. Just truly being aware and observing. Then we can work on letting our perfectionism go, really labeling it when it's happening. That is the first step to overcoming that. And as we get more uncomfortable with being imperfect and more comfortable in being human, we can truly cultivate our peace of mind which as I said is the antidote to exhaustion and burnout. As we let go of things needing to be done and that's quotes like air quotes because that's not true, a certain way we can open up ourselves to accept help.

Outsourcing things that are low value in our own personal value system is a big one. For me, for example, I have a weekly cleaning lady. This has been non -negotiable for me since I began earning money and working. I don't want to spend my time in that way. It takes a long time to clean the bathrooms and it doesn't bring me joy. There's so many other things, right, that I could do in that time. Also, my au pair who's amazing does so much meal prep for my kids. That's a huge weight off my shoulders. It's a huge help and it buys me back time to do work or things for myself like exercise. So the next time someone offers help, take it. Also, consider, this one's a little bit more probably uncomfortable for you, but consider asking people for help, especially if they've offered it in the past. It does take a village to be a high -powered, mentally happy mom. We don't have to sacrifice ourselves in order to find joy every day.

Learning to create systems and get help, accept help, is a huge part of this. Maybe you don't even need or maybe you know that and you don't need me to tell you that, but you hear it now and you're thinking, yeah, I am going to get some help. And help can be in all different forms. Along with support from our friends and family or outsourcing, we sometimes need help to have a quicker solution to our problems. And that is what life coaching does. Book a call with me to take a deep dive into what's going on with you, where you are, see if you're a good fit for my coaching program, Overcome Burnout for Good, in which I will teach you streamline modern mindfulness techniques and so much more.

Solutions that take minutes only because nobody has time to sit there and meditate or do major exercises that take hours and hours. And this truly will help you be out of exhaustion, out of burnout in 90 days or less. priancanaikmdcoaching.as.me, book a call, let's talk, see where you are. And thank you for tuning in and I will talk to you next week.