Burnout Tipping Point

And then 2020 came and everything was turned upside down. Actually, for my husband and I, everything turned upside down before COVID-19 became all-consuming. Early in January 2020, my husband decided to be completely honest about his feelings about adoption. He had been burned out in his career for years and unlike me, he admitted it. He basically said there was no way he was in a good place to adopt kids with significant needs and frankly, he didn’t think I was either. Our workdays were a 12-hour marathon with a two-hour round-trip commute. This usually included a stop on the way home for dinner because we were too tired to cook at the end of the day. We would get home between 7 and 7:30 at night and I would do a few chores and get a quick dog walk in if it was still light out while my husband collapsed on the couch for a couple of hours. Weekends were no better. We had a 4000+ square foot house on a 2-acre lot. House/outdoor projects and errands took up a good chunk of the weekend. We reserved Friday night and Sunday night for our extended family. There was no chance to recharge before Monday morning rolled around. Where would high-need kids fit in this picture? I was so upset by my husband’s admission about adoption that I took the next day off from work and headed to the foothills to hike, think and pray. At the end of the day, I had to admit he was right. I was hurting but perhaps more than anything I was mad. I was angry that our careers and lifestyle had contributed to our lack of being able to have children or adopt children and I was angry at myself for letting it happen. More than anything, I was DONE! This was my burnout tipping point. It was time for a massive change!DR

In my last article, I mentioned that I had a moment of clarity on my commute to work, but I didn’t completely admit that I was burned out. It took a complete shake-up at work and at home to get my attention. In 2018, the organization where I had worked for over 20 years went through a major reorganization. I was on PTO and was heading out of town when I got a call from one of our VPs requesting that I come in for a meeting that day. When I arrived at that meeting, my co-program manager, two VPs, and a director were already present in the C-suite office. No, I wasn’t fired but everyone above me (3 levels up including the VP I reported to) had been let go the night before and everything about our positions was about to change. This happened throughout the organization. Several VPs, most directors, many managers, and other staff members had been fired overnight as part of a massive restructuring. Honestly, I consider myself very fortunate that the two VPs and director took the time to talk to my colleague and me personally. This didn’t happen for a lot of people – they were just left adrift with ambiguous leadership and not much information about what was going on. The firing was indiscriminate in one sense. It didn’t matter how much you had helped the company or how hard you had worked. You were dismissed if your job title didn’t fit the new structure. This really shook me to my core because I had been under the assumption that if you worked hard and served your company well, they would have some sort of loyalty to you. Obviously, this assumption was false!

I had a lot of rethinking to do! After working overtime for years, I finally realized organizations don’t really care how much time you put in when it comes to layoffs – hard workers are just as likely to be let go as anyone else. About this time, I read the book titled “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and my New Year’s resolution for 2019 became to establish work boundaries. This was challenging but when my colleague and I were transferred to a new department, I told my new director that on normal work weeks, I would work 42-43 hours and wouldn’t go over 45 unless it was necessary to complete a non-negotiable deadline. I knew overtime would happen (and it did) BUT I did my best to start limiting overtime from this point forward. On the personal front, my husband and I were still slowly pursuing foster care and adoption after 5 years. We had been pursuing it for 5 years because I would get busy at work and abandon the process for months at a time. When I had time again, I would have to redo classes/paperwork that had expired or changed. I knew that if we did adopt, work could no longer be my first priority. I was going to have to change my perceptions of work and life balance if I was going to be a parent someday.

And then 2020 came and everything was turned upside down. Actually, for my husband and I, everything turned upside down before COVID-19 became all-consuming. Early in January 2020, my husband decided to be completely honest about his feelings about adoption. He had been burned out in his career for years and unlike me, he admitted it. He basically said there was no way he was in a good place to adopt kids with significant needs and frankly, he didn’t think I was either. Our workdays were a 12-hour marathon with a two-hour round-trip commute. This usually included a stop on the way home for dinner because we were too tired to cook at the end of the day. We would get home between 7 and 7:30 at night and I

would do a few chores and get a quick dog walk in if it was still light out while my husband collapsed on the couch for a couple of hours. Weekends were no better. We had a 4000+ square foot house on a 2-acre lot. House/outdoor projects and errands took up a good chunk of the weekend. We reserved Friday night

and Sunday night for our extended family. There was no chance to recharge before Monday morning rolled around. Where would high-need kids fit in this picture? I was so upset by my husband’s admission about adoption that I took the next day off from work and headed to the foothills to hike, think and pray. At the end of the day, I had to admit he was right.

I was hurting but perhaps more than anything I was mad. I was angry that our careers and lifestyle had contributed to our lack of being able to have children or adopt children and I was angry at myself for letting it happen. More than anything, I was DONE! This was my burnout tipping point. It was time for a massive change!

I came home that night and we looked at each other, looked around at our big house, and said, “Why are we doing this?” We scheduled our own week-long couples retreat in the mountains early in March to figure out what we were going to do knowing that we needed a full-life reboot. Our March retreat came, and we holed up in a penthouse apartment that overlooked a beautiful mountain lake. Armed with a whiteboard and markers we started to brainstorm. We didn’t settle on one specific career direction, but we decided that we were leaving the Denver metro area and would pursue very different career options that aligned with the life we wanted. We were planning to say goodbye to our typical suburban lifestyle by the end of that year.

When we returned to Denver in the middle of March, we realized the world had changed while we had been away. With COVID lock downs and uncertainty, our initial timeline of leaving Denver by the end of 2020 was no longer realistic. But in some ways, it was a good thing because we needed the extra time to process our future and come to terms with what our lifestyle change was going to look like in the immediate future. Our decision had been made but it wouldn’t be until December of 2021 that we finally sold our house, cut our work ties, and started on our journey of burnout recovery.