Wellness & Burnout Workshop Notes

Hosted by: Emm (@emmbodiment) <> Developer DAO

• There is a distinction between: Stress vs. Burnout

  • Stress —> excessive feelings of responsibility, imposter syndrome

  • Burnout —> excessive feelings of tired, drained, low energy

• Signs of burnout:

  • Physically: look for…

    • Change of sleep habits

    • “Unable to turn brain off”

  • Behaviorally: look for…

    • Headaches

    • Lowered immune system (i.e. sniffles)

    • Loss of appetite/hunger (Solar Plexus Chakra)

  • Emotionally: look for…

    • More cynical

    • More irritable

    • Lack of satisfaction

• Internal check:

  • If you are feeling confident - you’re the first to answer that email/call

  • If you feel like a burden - you will push off those emails, push people away

    • Maybe you’re so exhausted, feel so bad about yourself, push people away…it affects how you act (how you think about yourself)

• Overwork - leads to burnout

  • Things get better/easier as time goes on

  • As long as you feel like you’re getting better - that’s the metric to track

  • If you’re clocking in 50 hours a week and feels good…that’s good

    • Just check in with yourself on how you’re feeling

    • Listen to your feelings

  • Remember: “one day, you can take things easy and try again tomorrow if you aren’t feeling it. That is OK!”

• Perfectionist/Perfectionism - burnout can take hold faster

  • Internal check: are you…

    • Committing more times to things?

    • Only feel success when doing things to this high level of unachievable level of perfection you expect?

  • Remember: Are you…coming in with a beginner’s mindset?

• Burnout —> Pay attention to your job, role, company

  • Lack of resources — overwhelm

  • Unclear job expectations — if you have no idea what you’re doing

  • Lack of social support — easy to feel lonely

    • Virtual only, picking up tickets, or with virtual communities and doing a lot of that

  • Everyone wants to feel successful, independent

    • When you feel like a burden, uneducated, or under utilized/understaffed — this blocks/prevents you from getting where you want to be

• Fear of FOMO

  • Feel like you’re always missing out on things

  • Feel like your life is going way to fast

  • Social media

    • Need to be plugged in / communicate BUT…

    • Someone is talking about some project I missed out on…

  • Think inward and share successes with team

    • Celebrate our wins in person for the actual success of it rather than posting to Twitter first.

• Burnout is a cycle

  • if you’re successful today, that doesn’t mean you will tomorrow.

  • If you aren’t successful today, that doesn’t mean you won’t be tomorrow.

  • Experiment with time management systems

  • Change never happens and stays if you force it

  • You NEED compassion + kindness, NOT a place of judgment

    • You HAVE to be kind and compassionate to yourself

    • You have to come back

    • Allow ourselves to be beginners —”a series of experiments”

    • Look at a place that’s out of our element

• The idea that humans can show up and provide 40 hours of quality work a week, year-round, without fail is unattainable

  • Our brains are physically not wired to be ON all the time

  • On days you aren’t feeling productive, lean into that

  • Check in with our emotions

• Burnout hacks

  • Color-code — 1 for work, social, exercise, free time

    • If one color stands out more than the others…show that you need to make space or say no to one commitment

  • Bucketing time management — for dealing with being in multiple communities

    • Look at your purpose for showing up

      • Bucket #1: CHILL/SUPPORT: are some of them because you bought an NFT or like the project

      • Bucket #2: PRODUCING/WORK: are you producing something for a company

    • Better prioritization:

      • maybe pick top 3 than trying to do everything

      • If work is more/less enjoyable, add more to “case load”

      • ID what is creative/chill vs. work/producing

  • Paradigm of choice — divide things

    • We create the environment we want to work in