Episode 13 | What Every Burnt Out Service-Based Entrepreneur Needs To Hear

 Today, I'm sharing with you one of the biggest barriers that I have seen over the past three years that keeps entrepreneurs stuck in just a never ending burnout cycle. That's coming up next on Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle Podcast. So stay tuned. Welcome to Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle, your go to resource helping service based entrepreneurs break free from burnout.

Each week, you'll learn how to identify and eliminate subconscious habits so that you can create a thriving business with greater income, greater impact, and the freedom to live life to the fullest while having your time, energy, and health. This is Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode on Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle. Today I have a [00:01:00] great episode for you because I am sharing with you one of the biggest barriers that I have seen tends to keep entrepreneurs stuck in burnout. This was inspired because the other day I had gotten off a few calls with my one on one clients and after every call I usually take just a few minutes to reflect on how the call went and just kind of what we coached As I was reflecting, I realized that there was a common thread of what I was coaching them through.

Now, you may have heard me talk in previous episodes about a principle that I teach within my programs, and that principle is called Stebdar. But if you haven't heard me talk about it, no worries, I'm about to explain it because this is an acronym that I teach within my program that summarizes how our brains wire in subconscious beliefs and how those subconscious beliefs then [00:02:00] drive our decisions and our actions.

So the acronym stands for situation, thought, action. emotion, belief, decision, action, results. And so all that means is that what neuroscience has shown us is that a situation leads to a thought, and that thought is actually firing even just a millisecond before we feel a certain emotion. And so when those are repeated enough times, the thought and the emotion together become a belief.

And that belief drives the decisions and the actions that we make on a daily basis. And it's astounding because 80 to 90 percent of our decision making in order to conserve energy actually comes from our actions. Subconsciously. And if you think about that, on average, [00:03:00] humans make about 30, 000 decisions every single day.

That is a ton. And to have 80 to 90 percent of those be subconscious, that's even crazier. And so, as I was reflecting, I saw a common theme among all the clients that, Even though they had very different situations that they were getting coached around, they all had one common thread leading to similar burnout behaviors.

And that common thread was the emotion that they were experiencing. And that emotion was shame. And they were experiencing similar thoughts and internal dialogues that was triggering that emotion of shame and that shame was driving their decisions and actions and ultimately the results that they were getting.

And this inspired me to talk about this because I definitely think that this is something that not a lot of [00:04:00] people are talking about when it comes to burnout in entrepreneurship. And this is such a huge disservice because shame actually plays a huge role in keeping entrepreneurs stuck in burnout.

Before I even dive into how shame can keep you stuck in burnout, I think it's important to clear up a misconception that often happens around what shame is. And the biggest misconception that I see when it comes to shame is that people often get this emotion confused with the emotion of guilt. And the reason for that is because the two actually present very, very similar.

And to be quite honest, I actually didn't know the difference between shame and guilt until I read A lot of Brene Brown's work and one of the particular book that comes to mind that really helped me to understand shame versus guilt [00:05:00] was Atlas of the Heart and if you haven't read that highly highly recommend going to get that book because It was just astounding to see just how some of these emotions that we feel are so subtle because, you know, in school, they never really teach us how to decipher and how to really understand our emotions.

And I think that that is a very important skill to have, because as you heard, Let me talk about just a few minutes ago, right? The emotions can be a great guide to understanding what thoughts are happening that are triggering that emotion in the first place. And those thoughts are around situations. So it's going to be like a big neon sign showing you what You actually might believe about certain things and why it's being triggered in certain situations using the acronym of STEBDAR.[00:06:00] 

When I was able to finally understand what differentiates shame from guilt, I think Brene Brown summarizes this beautifully. And so these aren't my definitions, these are Brene Brown's definitions, so I want to give credit where credit's due. And she differentiates the two based off the thoughts and the beliefs that actually drive the emotion.

So how she describes the difference between guilt and shame, it comes down to guilt is a thought and belief of did I do something wrong or I made a mistake and that focus is on the behavior. When it comes to shame, however, it involves more of the person's self worth and more of the person's self identity rather than the behavior itself.

And the internal dialogue when it [00:07:00] comes to shame changes to become like a dialogue where you're saying things like, I should have known better. I'm so stupid. I am a bad person, and if you're anything like me and the clients that I work with, you most likely are a high achiever, um, who can tend to be extremely hard on yourself, where the minute that something does not go as planned, you start beating yourself up internally saying things like, I'm so stupid.

I should have known better. I should have done better. I should have done more. Right? You start shitting on yourself. And this becomes such a dangerous thing because words are powerful. And when we repeat these things to ourselves, it starts to create Stories and beliefs about yourself of the reasons why you're not worthy or why you're not good enough and [00:08:00] therefore why you don't deserve things like abundance, money, love, connection, respect.

And what I've seen happen because of this emotion of shame and these stories that are behind shame is that it tends to lead to entrepreneurs staying stuck in burnout because then they start to feel that there's a need to prove why they're worthy and they start to do the behaviors that drive burnout in the first place.

And as if that didn't make matters bad enough, what makes shame even more of a dangerous emotion is that it actually keeps you stuck in burnout for two additional reasons. Number one is that shame tends to create isolation. And the reason for that is because shame thrives on isolation. It thrives on secrecy and hiding in the shadows and hiding in the [00:09:00] dark.

In other words, what I have seen shame do to entrepreneurs is that it tends to create Behavior of self isolation, where because they're embarrassed or because they don't want to burden anyone with what they're going through, because part of it is they believe that they're the only ones experiencing this, is it just perpetuates the problem of burnout, because it starts to also allow the shame stories to just fester and perpetuate and it almost becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy where because you begin self isolating you start to believe that you're not worthy of belonging and that just perpetuates that problem of why you don't deserve certain things or why you're not good enough to have certain things like the income that you want or the love that you want or the clients that you [00:10:00] want.

And that's a very dangerous thing. The second reason why I see it also keeps people stuck in burnout is shame is actually the number one inhibitor of growth, of personal growth and healing. Because when we are in shame, We really are continuing to be in the, just this internal loop of beating ourselves up and it doesn't really allow us to see or hear the lessons that can really help us heal and grow from circumstances and struggles and mistakes that we've made.

All of that to say however, that there's nothing wrong with feeling and experiencing what you're experiencing because you're definitely not alone where. You have a choice and where you have the power to reclaim your power is that you have the choice of whether or not You allow shame to drive [00:11:00] the bus.

You have the choice on whether or not you decide to remain in shame or not. Shame actually has a way out because shame can be overcome with things like self compassion and self empathy and It can be healed with taking it out of where it loves to thrive, taking it out of secrecy and self isolation. And it starts with just acknowledging what you feel, but also choosing to find a way to be kind to yourself, the same way that you find ways to show kindness to others.

You can break free from it by finding a way to ask for help or to talk with someone rather than letting it thrive in the secrecy in the shadows. And so the choice is ultimately yours. You can choose to [00:12:00] continue self flagellating in a sense and remaining in your shame sandwich, or you can choose to talk to people about it, to find ways to be kind to yourself, to find ways to reframe.

what you believe about yourself. And if you'd like to chat about what you're going through, or you just like to be among other service based entrepreneurs who are going through what you're going through, I have a free Facebook group where I go live every week to support entrepreneurs like yourselves in breaking the entrepreneur burnout cycle.

And I help them to process some of these emotions such as shame in that group. And so if you would love to join us, I would love to have you and I will see you there. And as always, I am rooting for you and I'm rooting for your thriving life. I will see you guys on another episode. Until then, bye for now.