 What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And today I'm going to be discussing why I'm trying to research burnout, all right? Burnout is something that you hear about all the time. There are constantly articles all over the place about burnout. There's this book called The Burnout Generation which has like over 12,000 reviews on Amazon. There's a bunch of other books about burnout. And this is just a topic that I'm so fascinated with because it doesn't seem like there's too much research on it. But I'm trying to figure out why some people experience burnout and others don't. And I think I may have found one of the answers, all right? So one of the reasons why this intrigues me so much is because I am so busy. And when I share this, just trust me, I'm not here to toot my own horn. I am nothing special. A lot of what I do, I try to figure out, like for example, my addiction. I'm like, how did I get sober and stay sober and other people did it, right? How have I learned to manage my depression and anxiety? What lessons can I pull from my own experience to help others? So the only reason I use my example is because I try to reverse engineer it because hopefully I can help some people out there. So anyways, I'm extremely busy. All right, every now and then I get some comments out there like, your YouTube channel's dead. Why don't you get a real job? So I actually have two jobs, all right? I have a full-time job and a part-time job. So not only am I working 40 plus hours a week for my full-time job, I'm also putting in about 20 hours a week for my part-time job. All right, my part-time job, I do that work from home. Schedule is much more flexible. I just put in the time, get that work done, right? Aside from that, aside from that, I have this YouTube channel. I took a little bit of a break just to get my head straight and everything like that, but I've been back to uploading pretty much daily videos. Aside from that, while I was kind of taking a little step back from YouTube, I started writing a lot on Medium, all right? And I was writing daily on Medium throughout the entire month of January. And aside from those things, I have a son, so I'm a father. I live with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan, so I'm a boyfriend, right? I read a ton of books in January. I finished 18 books, you know what I mean? So my time is just packed, right? But two things, I don't experience burnout and I find a lot of time for like leisurely activities. I play a bunch of video games, reading, like I like to educate myself on psychology, mental health, philosophy, and just all sorts of other things. So it's a mixture between educating myself and also leisurely time, you know what I mean? I just got back from seeing birds of prey with my son. So not only am I extremely busy and not burned out, but I have a lot of me time, you know what I mean? So when I see all this stuff popping up everywhere about burnout, I'm like, how, how, what's going on here? So anyways, I've been thinking of a few different ways to research this. And I've been doing some research just online, seeing who's talking about this stuff and everything. And a lot of it is like, oh, find balance, make sure you're not working too much and everything like that. All of the normal things, but I think it goes deeper than that. Because like I said, I'm not special. I'm not special in any way, shape, or form. I have the exact same 24 hours as everybody else on planet Earth. But anyways, I'm currently reading this new book called Barking Up the Wrong Tree, or yeah, Barking Up the Wrong Tree. But anyways, it has all sorts of stuff and all sorts of psychological research in there and everything, but anyways, it said something and it clicked for me, all right? So anyways, let me pull out my handy dandy phone here because I took some screenshots over on Instagram. But by the way, if you're not following me on Instagram, follow me on Instagram. I love doing polls, I love asking you all questions, all that stuff. So first I asked, do you experience burnout, all right? 86% of people said yes, okay? So I had a second question. Do you struggle with setting boundaries? Like if you struggle with burnout, do you also struggle with setting boundaries? 79% of that 86% said yes. And that's something that came up in this book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, was that a lot of people get burnt out because they over commit and they're givers. So being a giver isn't a bad trait, right? Like I keep making videos and I keep writing and everything like that, even though I have my other jobs because I love helping people, right? Like I try to give, you know? Like during my active addiction, like I was a taker, all I did was take, take, take, take, take, take. If you were somebody in my life, the only reason you were in my life is so I can get something from you. So part of my sobriety is turning that around and just trying to give, you know what I mean? But the reality is, is that there's this threshold that we cross where we give too much and we become burnt out. So as you see from the poll I just did, it seems like there's a correlation, not a causation that we know of, but there's a correlation between burnout and problem-setting boundaries, okay? So we need to start looking at, if you're struggling with burnout, we need to start looking at setting boundaries at work, at home, with friends, whoever it is, you know what I mean? And this can be difficult and it's something that takes practice. But when I'm trying to analyze myself and say, Chris, how are you so busy but you're not burnt down? It's because I am ruthless with my time. And I'm a people pleaser. Like I was a people pleaser for a long time. So if you struggle with setting boundaries because you're a people pleaser too, trust me, I get it boo, it is difficult. But as with anything, it gets easier over time. Like I used to just say yes to everything. Like bosses asked me to do extra, asked me to stay late. You know, whatever it was, yes. Friends invited me out, asked me to do this. I would just say yes. You know, every single thing I was asked, I would always say yes. And like it was just way too hectic. Like I have a generalized anxiety disorder so I can get overwhelmed really easily. And being overwhelmed is also linked to burnout. So what I had to start doing, I had to say no. So just check this out. Like at work, I go above and beyond in both my jobs. I go above and beyond, right? With my YouTube channel, with my social media, with my writing on medium, I try to go above and beyond. There's a lot of you who reach out to me in DMs and everything like that. I try to get back to you as much as possible. Like everything I do, I try to go above and beyond but I set boundaries. Like there are days at work where I'll stay late. There are times when they ask me to take on additional tasks but I figured out a way to set boundaries. Like let's just say for example with work. You know, I will say like I can't. Like I am at my capacity. So first we need to recognize what our capacity is. You know what I mean? Like we need to know how much can we take on before we freak out. Like my full-time job, the guy I ended up replacing, there were a lot of things that he didn't do and we outsourced them. So in an effort to try to save my company money, I was like, oh, I can handle those things, right? But I did them bit by bit to see how much of it I could handle. You know what I mean? Because I didn't wanna overextend myself like I used to do at previous jobs because that pretty much leads to resentment. You start hating your bosses or your supervisor or whoever it is but the reality is we caused it. We caused it by setting this expectation of ourselves. So although there are times when I take on additional tasks or I'll stay late or anything like that, there's some days when I'm like, no, sorry, you know, I gotta go pick up my son. I'm hanging out with my kid. Oh, sorry, you know, I gotta go home. You know, whatever it is, I apologize and most bosses fully understand that. But let me tell you this, if you are searching for jobs right now, you gotta make sure you nip that in the butt immediately. I know we all wanna impress our new bosses, supervisors, whoever it is, but if you start out in a new job and you set zero boundaries, they will take advantage of it. I have done that many, many, many times before. So go above and beyond within your own capacity. Now, when it comes to friends, family members, all these other things, right? We need to learn how to say no. I know so many of us struggle with that FOMO, that fear of missing out. So we wanna go out, so we don't miss anything, yada, yada, yada, all these other things. I just want you to take a look at some of the things that you've done in previous weeks. If you've gone out, if you've partied or gone to a bar mitzvah or whatever it is, look back at it and say, wow, like what would have changed in my life if I didn't go? You know what I mean? Because a lot of us, especially those of us with anxiety or low self-esteem or whatever it is, we fear that if we don't go to the event, like it's gonna destroy a friendship and all these other things, right? But like, I realized a long time ago, like I used to have a friend that, oh my God, she would invite me to everything and she was constantly going out and I'm like, I'm an introvert, but I would say yes, just because I was trying to be a good friend. But there were so many things she invited me to where she didn't even notice that I was there the whole time, right? So I look back at that, I'm like, oh, I need to start setting boundaries and just say no. Now I'm making an excuse to say no, I'm not really interested in doing that or hey, I'm busy doing other stuff. But part of the balance with burnout, the last thing we'll talk about that I think has helped me as well, is finding things that you're passionate about to fill up that time. Because when we just take our free time and we mindlessly scroll through Twitter or Instagram or just zone out, binge watching Netflix and don't get me wrong, I love binge watching some Netflix, baby. Like Tristan and I, we have been binging shameless. So many people told me to check out Shameless and I finally have even though they're on like season 10. So we started from season one, maybe a week or two ago and we're already on season four, right? But, but I still have the things that I'm passionate about that I work on, like making this video right here, like writing articles over on Medium, like replying to your DMs if you reach out to me and you have questions or need me to point you in resources that might help you with your mental health or addiction recovery or if you know somebody who does, I try to do all those things because that is where my passion is. And I don't have enough time to discuss it in this video, but one of the best things you could do for yourself is find meaning, all right? Like one of the things that this book, Barking Up the Wrong Tree is discussing, I forgot what it was called. It was some sort of priorities and then like eulogy priorities, right? And something I think about a lot because my addiction almost killed me is I ask myself like on a regular basis, like if I die tomorrow, what do I want my legacy to be? What do I want people to say at my eulogy? And when we find some kind of purpose or meaning, like I'm not saying you gotta start a YouTube channel or write or anything like that, but when we find something that gives us meaning and we think about how we have this finite time on this planet, it helps us fill up that time and give us something worthwhile because not all of us are working like these jobs that we're like extremely passionate about. Like the jobs I'm doing right now, I love them. I have great coworkers. I'm good at what I do, but it's not that same fulfillment I got when I was working at the rehab. You know what I mean? Doing this kind of stuff brings me that fulfillment so I make time for it. So if your thing is animals, you know, like go volunteer at shelters or raise money or whatever it is, if your things aren't like do that, like whatever it is, find something that brings you meaning and purpose to fill up that time and you'll start to find this balance because you'll see that when you start setting up boundaries not only will it help you with burnout but it'll make you a hell of a lot happier. All right? So anyways, talk to me down in the comments below because I'm gonna keep looking into this. I was thinking about creating a survey in like a Google forum and sending it out to people like all of you beautiful people and seeing just different things. Like how old you are? Are you a student? Are you working? All these other things, right? But let me know down in the comments below. Do you think some or part of your burnout is because you are struggling with setting boundaries? Let me know down in the comments below. All right, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books at the rewiredsoul.com as well as the rewiredsoul merch like this cozy little sweater with the rewiredsoul logo on it. All right, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.