How to Avoid Fall Burnout: Stop Reacting! Start Responding!

"Reactionary life flow" is one of the key culprits of sickness, stress, and exhaustion. It’s a dangerous loop that we all get sucked into from time to time yet never really question what it’s about until its too late.

Here’s a post about what it means, and what to do about it.

Reactionary Life Flow Prevents Whole-hearted Living:

Do you respond to emails as soon as you get them? Do you feel compelled to write back to a text the minute it hits your inbox?

This is what Scott Belsky (author of Making Ideas Happens) calls “reactionary work flow”. It’s when you respond immediately and automatically to day-to-day work stimulus that are thrown your way (emails, memos, phone calls, and other work-related tasks).

After reading Belsky’s book this summer, I began to realize that we also live in a world dictated by what I call “reactionary life flow”.

In reactionary life flow we react immediately and unconsciously to whatever demands, crises, requests, or even opportunities get thrown our way. For better or worse, we are, most of the time, acting on a default setting that ceases to question what’s coming in and automatically leaps to a patterned response or action on the way out.

We have a constant stream of this stuff each and every day. To help manage it, we have designed a way that works for us to filter it all out. However, acting on default prevents us from living a whole-hearted, fully conscious life!

Do you Seize or Shut Down Opportunity too Quickly?

Here's a very simple example. Imagine an old friend emails you up to have a “catch up” coffee date this week. Do you drop what you’ve doing to write back “yes!” right away? Or do you write “no” without even considering it?

Most likely, you respond in less than 24 hours and you have your default reaction that doesn't take time to consider all the options. Either you think you are too busy and don’t want to even consider the idea or how to make it work, or you may be too excited and say yes even if it means cramming your schedule even more.

In both cases, you are making a decision based on a patterned behavioural response that doesn't pause and ask what’s good for YOU right now. Rather it might be a decision based on initial excitement to see that person, or a feeling of not wanting to make that friend unhappy. Alternatively, you feel you can’t cope with another thing on the menu and react with a “no”. Either way, taking more time to respond could be beneficial.

A more recent example from my life, was when a young couple asked if I could teach them an in-home yoga class once a week. I was so excited that I said, “yes” immediately without thinking twice. I later realized after a class that it wasn’t going to honour my schedule or my needs by taking this on. I simply dealt with the request as it came because I was excited by the opportunity and didn’t want to give it up.

I realized that my patterned reaction to new opportunities has always been “seize them right now because they won’t be around later”. But this is false.

Opportunities are not always there to be seized right away. Sometimes they are there to be considered in the moment and to plant the seeds for more opportunities to come later.

Just because I CAN do something, doesn’t mean I SHOULD do it (at least, not right now).

What I am learning is not to live in reactionary life flow, but in “response-ible life flow”.

Time to Pause and Prioritize:

Just like with work, we need periods of non-stimulation in our lives where we can re-group and prioritize our next steps. Even if this means taking a day or even a week before making a big decision.

We’re so accustomed to responding in real-time that even pausing to take 10 deep breaths before giving an answer seems like eternity.

When we’re being carried along a current of stimulus that is outside of ourselves, we just want to deal with the flow of life situations, demands, requests, and opportunities RIGHT NOW so that we feel some control over what’s going on.

I’m learning to avoid this reactionary-ness that can either shut me off from opportunity right away or fill my glass so high that I drown.

I’ve learned that first and foremost, it’s about looking at what’s important RIGHT NOW.
Try pausing, taking a breath and deciding: what is important to pursue RIGHT NOW, what CAN WAIT, and what IS JUST NOT FOR ME.

Despite the culture of urgency we’ve created since the rise of mobile technology, you never need to decide on the spot.

Sometimes drawing a mind map helps me to illustrate everything going on in my life. When faced with the flow of things coming my way, I’m more able to discern how full or free “my stream” really is.

Time to Harvest What You Have:

I think being aware of reactionary life flow is particularly pertinent for fall, because in this season we get bombarded by all sorts of “newness” – new opportunities at work, opportunities to reconnect with friends after the summer, and chances to take new courses or start new projects.

Maybe it’s the crispness in the air that whisks away the summer heat and makes room for autumn, or maybe it’s the feeling leftover from years of being programmed at school that September signifies a new beginning.

But in reality, fall is actually the time to “harvest” what you’ve already started. It’s the time to reflect on what you have and use it over the winter before planting new life seeds in the spring.

It’s no wonder so many people get sick or exhausted by November; they falsely (and maybe unconsciously) take on way too much in September/October.

By being more aware of the life flow, and knowing that you have the ability to pause, reflect, and decide what’s important now, later, or never.

This applies to everything. It can be as simple as assessing what to do with an email from a friend who wants to catch up with you this fall, to larger decisions around work, relationships, money, or family.

Please remember, fall is the perfect season to be practicing the art of responding thoughtfully, living in “response-ible life flow”, not automatically in “reactionary life flow”.

This will ensure a healthy and happy few months!

All the best!
Court



 

Is your car a vegetarian?

Mine is. I swear it's true. My sister and I had an hour conversation with my car on the weekend confirming that it likes lettuce, spring rolls, beans, onions, and for dessert, strawberry ice cream! But hamburgers? Absolutely not. Yuck.

I have no idea how the conversation started - I think it had something to do with my brake pads not working properly and my poor car shuddering every time I tried to slow down or stop. For some reason this was hilarious to my sister. She has a sort of infectious laugh that is impossible to ignore.

With her giggling in the passenger seat, I had two options - get even more worked up, start yelling at her to shut up, and outwardly curse the god damn autoshop that just replaced my clutch and told me my brakes were fine (bullshit!!) OR I could laugh along with her.

Laugh? How could I laugh with her when I could momentarily smash into the car in front of me? How could I make light of this situation? There is only one answer...imagination.

And so it was: my car was farting.

Yes, my car was having a severe case of car farts, hence the jerks and the shuddering. That was the only "logical" explanation. My poor baby, I decided, had a bad case of upset stomach because he ate bad onions last night.

"Bad onions?" my sister asked.

"Why yes, he normally doesn't eat onions...I think he's allergic, but he got pretty greedy last night and overindulged in some oniony Indian food."

A puzzled but intrigued look from my sister.

"My car is a vegetarian you know. He really likes salads. Sometimes soups but not in the summer, too hot for him. What else does he like? Oh yes, chickpeas..HUGE fan of chickpeas. Sometimes he's in the mood for pizza but not usually...."

"What else does he like" she asks.

Hold on, I'll ask him....

And on and on I went until my sister was convinced my car was talking to me, answering my questions about his diet, and then she too got into the convo - just to be sure I wasn't lying...about the fact that he doesn't eat ribs.

So for the next hour or so, while I could have been having a panic attack knowing my brake pads were wearing thin, my sister and I made light of the situation using a little dose of imagination.

It got me thinking about when else we can tap into this ultra cheap, quite natural, and always accessible tool to help guide us through life's challenges. When things just don't go our way and we can't do anything about it in the moment, what can we do to alleviate the pain? Can we make a game? Can we talk to the problem as if it were a person (insert body part, car trouble, iphone crisis)? Or can we just try and have a laugh about it, see how it feels? I found by talking to my car, I suddenly had a greater appreciation for all that it does for me. I actually started to convince myself that my car had a unique personality and I should treat it like a friend. Maybe I should treat my next injury in this manner - talking to a twisted ankle might not fix it, but it sure would make me more grateful for having body parts that work. If nothing else, imagination certainly helps us change my perspective and makes things go a little more smoothly.