Returning to Work Starts with Who You Want to Be

Coming back to work after burnout isn't just about resuming what you did before with better stress management techniques.

It's about reshaping how you choose to live, work and lead yourself.

In today's episode, we're exploring how recovery is often a wake up call, a chance to reconnect with who you are and what matters most.

And how living more in line with your values can help you build a work life that is sustainable, fulfilling and burnout proof.

When I ask people who've taken time off to recover what's going to be different this time, I'm often struck by a pattern that's not often talked about.

Usually the assumption about burnout recovery is mostly about resting and learning to be more resilient against stress.

But many times there is a realization that part of the burnout trigger was due to a values gap, that their lives or their work were no longer reflecting what they considered to be important.

For many, recovery becomes a deeply reflective period.

They begin to realize, I don't want to spend my days doing work I really don't care much about.

My ambitions have changed.

I'm not wanting to chase after the next big career step anymore, or I don't want to go back to being that person who worked late every night.

Recovery becomes a time to reconnect with who we are and what matters to us.

In doing so, we learn to live in greater alignment with our values, leading to a fulfilled life.

The truth is, returning to work isn't just about what you do.

It's about who you are becoming and the choices you make to stay true to that.

I came across a quote from the Sainsbury center for Mental Health in the uk, which I just absolutely love.

And it goes like this.

Recovery at its heart is a set of values about a person's right to build a meaningful life for themselves, with or without the continuing presence of mental health symptoms.

At the foundation of this, I think, is a reconnection to our values, the things that we say matter the most to us.

If we take a moment to audit our values, we will notice that some of them we've inherited from our childhood upbringing.

Some we've actively chosen as we gained life experience.

Some will stick with us forever.

Others will shift as we grow and develop over time.

Part of this next phase of recovery is about asking, which values do I say I have?

And which ones do my actions actually show?

If someone were to quietly observe how you spend your time in a week, what would they say you value?

What would your family or friends say they see you prioritizing.

This kind of reflection isn't about judgment, it's about awareness.

And once you have that awareness, you can start to make more conscious choices.

Let me take this into a personal example.

I have a very high work orientation.

I grew up with the mindset that it's important to have a well paying job in order to live a decent life.

My definition of success was tied to my status and reputation at work.

Once, after having done a values exercise, of course, things like work, financial security, and ambition showed up on the list.

But so did health and fun.

I was confronted with a How much time over an average week do I spend on health and fun?

Not much.

Today my work orientation remains high.

It's probably one of those that won't really go away, but I know now how to act on it in a way that gives space to other things that matter too, like family and health and fun.

If your burnout arose from a disconnect between your lived reality and what you say you value, I do hope that your recovery time has been able to act as a reset for you so you can come back to a life that you've intentionally chosen.

I want to spend the next part of this episode speaking about two things we tend to confront about our values during recovery.

The first one is diving deeper on the value of ambition, and the second what to do if our values don't align with our jobs or workplaces.

Let's begin with ambition.

It's one that comes up a lot in burnout stories.

For many of us, ambition is deeply ingrained.

The drive to achieve, to succeed, to be recognized, to build something successful.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Ambition per se is not wrong.

But it's what happens when ambition becomes untethered, when the pursuit itself replaces the purpose, or when the goalposts keep moving and the work stops being in service of the life we wanted in the first place.

If this speaks to you, here's an don't have to give up on your ambition.

Perhaps you just need to be more clear about what you're ambitious for.

What is it in service of?

If ambition is the means, what is the end?

More importantly, how do we make sure that the things we are ambitious for have our time and attention as well, and not left to someday in the future?

Another tension we find as we get more connected with our values is the realization that perhaps our jobs or our workplaces don't necessarily represent the same values that we hold.

Even in the healthiest, most progressive organizations, we values Misalignment can feel like friction that depletes our energy and engagement over time.

Now, we have to distinguish between two scenarios here.

The first one would be a scenario where your job or your workplace values are in clear contradiction to your own, that it creates a sense of impossibility for you to show up every day and feel any sense of pride or motivation in your work.

For some people, this could mean working for an employer that produces products that when used irresponsibly, could lead to addiction or harm to the environment.

It's not that the work or the employer is bad per se, but for some it might represent something more personal or nuanced that the personal conflict is too high to negotiate.

In this scenario, the effort to try to find a connection one way or the other might end up being a futile exercise, and maybe leaving is the path to pursue.

Here a second scenario, one that probably most will relate to, is working in a company or for a job that is decent and reasonable, yet you just have a lack of personal meaning to Trying to find a company or a job that matches your personal values 100% is not an easy task, and for some it's considered a luxury.

But that doesn't mean we give up trying to honor what's important to us.

Start by connecting the dots.

If your company values something like customer focus and you value caring for others, try to find what you can do that overlaps with customer focus.

If your workplace values efficiency and you value innovation, consider how your skills can help solve others efficiency challenges.

In doing so, leaving doesn't become your only option.

Trying to find a way to express your values within a system or environment can reduce this friction, and even small shifts can make a difference over time.

This matters because when you work in alignment with your values, three things you reduce the need to suppress or downplay your emotions, you manage stress better, and you feel more engaged with your work.

Remember, for most of us, we spend most of our waking lives at work, and so being able to work in alignment with our values is especially crucial.

So as you move from recovery to reintegration, back to work, or shall we say, back to life, consider what your evolved values are and how you can shape your activities, your days, and your weeks to represent those.

An overhaul probably sounds like a stretch, but think about small shifts and adjustments you can make to achieve greater coherence.

As we close this episode, I want to share something I came across that hit quite powerfully.

Bronnie Ware is the author of the book the Top five Regrets of the Dying in which she talks about her work caring for the terminally ill.

In the book, Ware shares what these five regrets are and I I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

I wish I had let myself be happier.

She also says, and I quote, the dying people I cared for helped me understand how irrelevant the opinions of others are in the end.

And my courage has set me free of such cares before my deathbed days arrive.

Being free of regret, she says, is the ultimate freedom in life, including her own.

So let me ask you what's going to be different this time?

Let this next chapter be the one where you get to live a life that feels like yours, rooted in your values and not in regret.

Thank you for joining me today.

I'll see you next time.