How To Change Careers When You Are Exhausted
Exhausted? How do you change careers or start your own business when you are exhausted?
One of the most frustrating scenarios you can find yourself in, as an aspiring career changer, or as an aspiring entrepreneur, is having the job you want to escape from making you so exhausted that it becomes impossible to do so.
Now, if that’s you right now, and you are exhausted and you’re wondering how your transition is ever gonna happen, then I want you to know that I can help you. It is an area I’ve got an enormous amount of experience with.
In this video, I will share 3 specific areas you can focus on right now to generate energy.
A lot of people think that exhaustion is a sign to stay put and just see what happens. No – That’s not the case!
Exhaustion is a sure sign that you need a change.
No job is worth killing yourself over, especially if you don’t enjoy it.
So let’s talk about how we can get you out of there.
Your day probably looks something like this:
You wake up, you probably didn’t sleep very well. You commute to work, you sit down at your desk all day. You probably don’t move very much, you probably don’t eat very healthily. You probably don’t get very good quality sleep. You might go to the pub after work, you might be drinking quite a lot of alcohol, eat quite a lot of sweets. Then, there’s politics and bitchiness.
Overall – The result is exhaustion.
When you are exhausted, you feel like everything is out of your control, especially when you work for someone else.
So what I want us to look at is what are the areas that are within your control and that can also give you energy straightaway?
Energy is something you generate.
It’s not just something that exists out there.
So let’s look out how you can start generating energy – Because what that means is that you don’t have to put your transition on hold.
You just have to do it in tandem with some very specific interventions.
What I have learned over the last 12 years working with clients who are exhausted and who want to change career or start their own company is that there are 3 specific areas that you can address straightaway to get more energy.
We are going to talk about physical health in this particular video, but mental health is equally as important and there’ll be another video about that.
Physical health, as in what you eat or drink, how much you move, and how you sleep, that is something you can start addressing straightaway.
What I’ll share with you in this video are the physical strategies that have consistently worked best for my clients, in terms of giving them energy back the fastest, so they could make that change, they could start that business, they could create that dream career.
Ready?
Here’s how: Listen and then identify the one area you can start addressing straight away
Generally, what I recommend is picking the one that will be easiest for you to implement and then pick that one area, get it up and running and then add the other 2, one by one.
#1 Eat & Drink
What I’ve noticed is that a lot of people who are unhappy in their career or who are very exhausted tend to drink a lot.
Now, we’re not necessarily talking about alcoholics, even though for some that’s the case, and you know what to do.
Often, especially with private clients who want to make a change and they want to do it now, I ask them to cut out booze for three months.
Tip: Cut drinking alcohol for three months.
Now, I want to say up front, I’m not against drinking. I love a good glass of full-bodied Argentinian red. But when you are going through a lot of stress and you’re very exhausted, the last thing you want to do is drink alcohol excessively because it depletes your energy, it makes you get really bad quality of sleep, and it also makes you depressed over time.
What I suggest you do is cut alcohol for the next three months.
Your energy levels will go through the roof if drinking is what you normally do a lot of.
Tip: Cut down on or eliminate your sugar consumption.
Sugar drains you and kills you slowly. What all the scientists are realising now, is the new killer is sugar. It’s a killer of your energy for sure.
Often people use these two (alcohol and sugar) as a crutch for staying stuck and for comforting themselves, so once you pull them you’ll get more energy and you will have no choice but to change.
Tip: Eat Healthily Consistently (Identify what works for you)
I don’t need, I think in this video, to talk about healthy eating. You know how that works.
Find the right diet for you and especially prep ahead.
# Movement (aka exercise)
This brings us to number 2, which is all about moving, as in sports, exercise. I prefer to call it movement because it just sounds so much nicer.
A lot of people don’t have time for exercise, I totally get that, but people also have this idea they have to do an hour or they might as well not bother.
Tip: What tends to work really well for people in transition is to just do 20 or 30 minutes, several times a week, and do it from home.
So whether you use an online provider, like Yogaglo or Barre3 (my personal faves) or any of the fitness downloads/apps out there, just do it at home, and just do 20 minutes or 30 minutes, rather than nothing. But do it several times a week, that will make all the difference.
See if you can get a stand up desk at work or get a nice chair.
Go for walks throughout the day.
Get off a Tube stop before or a train stop before work.
If you live in America, you might be using your car a lot. If you’re like a lot of my clients and you work in San Francisco or Nee York, there are plenty of chances for going for a walk.
Here’s why it’s so important to move your body:
When you are exhausted, and especially when you’re a smart person like you, you spend so much time in your head. That exhausts you.
The brain requires an enormous amount of energy, so get out of your head and get into your body, and move.
That will generate energy like there is no tomorrow.
#3: Sleep
The third one is sleep. Now, I personally have a lot of experience with this one! I’ve been an insomniac for years and know how much of a difference it makes when I get proper sleep.
There are many things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep.
A lot of people who work in professional environments think, “Sleep is for suckers,” right?
But, actually, research shows that sleep is one of the key indicators of high performance. How well you sleep, both in sports and the business and the career world, so do whatever you can to really prioritise your sleep.
Get the quantity of sleep that you need and the quality of the sleep that you need.
If you give up things, like booze, for a while, you’ll notice that the quality of your sleep will get a lot better.
Tip: My clients and myself have had really good results with CBT-I, that’s Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, specifically for Insomnia.
CBT-I addresses the psychological issues of why you might not be sleeping. So if sleep is an issue for you, you need to address that straightaway. You will get so much more energy.
The above are the 3 areas that my clients have most consistently found gives them the energy that it takes to keep that career transition going or to start it.
Identify the strategy you can most easily start addressing now and then start implementing it – You will get so much more energy!
Remember: The kinds of things that can give you energy are totally within your control.
Pick either the eat drink/sleep, or the move, or the sleep one, and you will feel so much better.
Give yourself three weeks to see the results and then add another one
Important: It can be really hard to know what to focus on when you are exhausted. Come over to http://www.rikke.me/kickstart to get a 1-pager with 3 things you can start doing straightaway to figure out what the right career or business is for you.
I’ll see you over there.
Thank you so much and take exceptionally good care of yourself x
On Own Business