The Liz Moody Podcast - The REAL Reason You’re Burnt Out (And Exactly How To Fix It)

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Are you struggling with burnout? Is it even possible to not struggle with burnout in today’s world? I’m speaking with psychotherapist and author Israa Nasir about dealing with – and preventing ��� burnout. We’ll get into everything from building community to putting down your phone, and as always, leave you with actionable tips you can use now to improve your mental health.  2:16 Systemic Issues and Personal Agency 2:51 Tragic Optimism: Leveraging Difficult Circumstances 4:18 Practical Examples and Solutions 8:10 Cultural Differences and Burnout 10:14 The Role of Hobbies and Micro Habits 19:23 Balancing Productivity and Emotional Health 23:01 Perfectionism and Its Impact 32:00 Parenting and Emotional Regulation 38:09 The Myth of Multitasking 38:44 Retraining Your Brain 39:43 The Importance of Boredom 40:51 Consistency in Habits 43:43 Self-Talk and Positive Reinforcement 48:33 People Pleasing and Burnout 54:14 Setting Boundaries 56:55 The Role of Community and Reciprocity 1:02:45 Conscious Participation in Life 1:03:45 Cultivating an Abundance Mindset 1:06:05 Homework For more from Israa, you can find her on Instagram at @well.guide or www.israanasir.com. Grab a copy of her book, Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More, where books are sold. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome.  This episode is sponsored by: AG1: visit drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE welcome kit, Vitamin D, and 5 travel packs today. Pique: go to piquelife.com/LIZMOODY for up to 20% off plus a special gift. Birch: go to BirchLiving.com/lizmoody for 20% off sitewide. LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. IQ Bar: Text LIZ to 64000 for 20% off all IQBAR products plus FREE shipping. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 319. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it possible to not be burnt out in the current world? This idea that we are going to get to a place of good enough and stay there forever in this, like, magical land, that's a myth. And that's why people constantly feel bad. When the system is crumbling and your work sucks or your relationship sucks, you first have to acknowledge the pressure it's causing. Negative self-talk prevents us from so many things.

Positive self-talk has the same impact. We just don't access it. Shame, guilt, fear, comparing yourself to other people, not feeling good enough, perfectionism. They really drive our behavior. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Today, we are getting into burn out, something all of us know intimately, unfortunately. It seems like everybody is burned out and nobody knows what to realistically do about it. Today, we're going to learn what we can be doing every day to reclaim more of our time, our energy,

our emotions and overcome our burnout without having to move to an off-grid cabin. We're sitting down with Isranasar, a psychotherapist and the author of the new and fantastic book, Toxic Productivity, Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World that Always Demands More. There's a lot of information in this episode. So if you want some key takeaways when you're done listening, head over to lizmoody. Substack.com and sign up for our brand new newsletter, which has action steps for each episode as well as meal plans, workout plans.

We had an attention restoration challenge recently. We have bonus interviews. So much good stuff over at lizmoody.substack.com. Isra, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I'm so happy to be here. This is a long time coming. So this is really nice.

I feel like we're going to be addressing problems that so many people are dealing with right now. We're going to be talking about burnout. And I guess my first question to you is, is it possible to not be burnt out? in the current world with the economic climate, with the political climate, with the lack of community structures.

Is it possible to have a life that is free from burnout? That is such an existential question. We are starting deep. I think that it's possible to find pockets in your life right now where you can avoid burnout. Candidly, like in terms of all the systems and the structures, there is a lot of external pressure on people that we don't really have a lot of control over.

So when you think about, like, how can I feel less burnt out? I think it's about small pockets in different areas of your life. If you are feeling a lot of work pressure and you know you can't influence that because of what's going on, like economically and with the job market, see if you can focus your energy on finding and releasing some pressure in your personal life. I think it's about that right now.

How do you avoid just getting, angry at the systems. You're like, these systems are supposed to support me and they are taking me in the opposite direction. They're contributing to my stress. They're contributing to my burnout. And they're putting the burden on me to solve these problems that they're creating. How do we not get angry about that? So that's one of the biggest scams in the burnout world is that burnout sometimes comes from like a systemic issue, but it's framed as an individual solution. So as a therapist, like I'm like super aware of that. But in terms of like finding, a sense of agency in all of this without anger. I really think about Victor Frankl's work, who is a psychoanalyst

from like the 30s and the 40s, and he's a survivor of the Holocaust. And after coming out of the concentration camp, he wrote this like incredible book called Man's Search for Meaning. It's about like how do you find resilience in a difficult situation. So even when he was in the camp, he noticed that some people were able to survive it at an emotional mental level and some people were not. And that intrigued him because he's a, you know, he was a scientist. He ended up doing a lot of research on it. And he talks about this concept called tragic optimism, which is essentially benefit finding in a difficult circumstance, which is not the same thing as toxic positivity,

where we ignore the difficult things and say, let's just look at. at the bright side, tragic optimism is acknowledging the limitations of a circumstance and looking for the benefit within it. So when the system is crumbling and your work sucks or your relationship sucks and all that stuff, you first have to acknowledge the pressure it's causing. And then the people who are successful, they don't wallow in it. They acknowledge it, they regulate their emotions, and then they try to find a benefit or an optimistic perspective on it that they can pull out. And then you really double-click on that. Can you give us an example that might be something you commonly are seen in your practice these days where we

could begin to apply that? One of the things that I see a lot of people struggle with right now is work is so busy, I don't have time for a community and I'm feeling very lonely. Now, that's like a very specific circumstance that someone can be in. and loneliness is a very real thing. Once you recognize that, you process those difficult emotions. Like, that's a first step. You can't skip that step, right?

What that tells you is how valuable community is for you as a value. When everything is difficult and work is very challenging and all you're thinking about is community, you will think about how in the past you might not have actually valued your community. You might not have invested in building a community outside of work. And so it's an indication of what's important to you. And that can become a starting point for shifting some of your habits to bring that back into your life.

Oh, I love that. It's like, how can you start a sense of community when work is really busy? So you become intentional about maybe committing to calling a friend once a week. Maybe you become intentional about doubling up an errand with your friend. Maybe you become intentional about sending extra baked goods to your neighbor. We don't really do that. You know, it's very common in other cultures, but in like North American culture, we don't really do that, especially in urban environments.

It's telling you what's important to you when you're pushing up against a wall. And then you can kind of springboard into some aspect of gaining agency back. And I have seen people's entire outlook on life transform when they start. start clicking into the thing that really matters to them. But it takes like six months minimum. And finding microagency. I do think that that is a big part of it is we feel disempowered by a lot of these situations.

If we feel like things are happening to us, we feel like we don't have power in those situations. And you're saying find the little tiny places that you do have power and really lean into them. Yeah. So it's shifting the statement of this is happening to me, to a perspective of this is happening for me. That is so interesting that you say that because I loved everything up into that moment.

And then there's something about that that shapes me where I'm like, it feels on the edge of toxic positivity. You know what I mean? How do we not let that go to like, yay, I'm so grateful for these shitty, shitty circumstances? Yeah. So that's not what we're saying at all. Yeah. We're not saying we're grateful for the shitty circumstance. We're saying the shitty circumstance is shitty.

And I'm going to leverage it for myself in this way. So it's less like gratitude and vibes. and it's more like what can I utilize in this? How can I make this beneficial for me? Because if you're going to be stuck in a shitty circumstance, you might as well leverage it for something, right? So that when you process it in the future and you look back, you're like, wait, you know what?

I did take this one thing out of this. Evan in work situations that have been very bad. You could probably call it like a toxic work environment. And it was affecting my mental health. It was affecting, it was just affecting everything. And there was a visa situation involved. So like it makes it very precarious, right? But I really worked on it with my own therapist and trying to see, well, if these people are

going to be really shitty to me, how can I utilize every single benefit that they offer me to make it beneficial for myself? Can I get them to pay for courses? I don't even need acupuncture, but I'm going to go and do it, right? What can I just take from this situation? because the situation is taking so much from me. So it's like less gratitude and more utilitarian. Oh, I love that.

Yeah. I also love that you said, we don't reach out to our neighbors. We don't bring them baked goods and we do that in other cultures. I know that you didn't grow up in the U.S. You grew up in Saudi Arabia, correct? Yeah. Which is so interesting. Yeah.

Are there other things that you see is differences in our culture that we might, because we're inside of it, not notice, that are contributing to this feeling of being burnt out and disconnected? Yes. North American culture is centered on work. So your entire life and the schedule is built around your work schedule. That's not the same in other places. Like the way we design our child care, for example, like in Europe, the work day and the children's

like school or daycare, like it's the same time. So drop off and pickoff is a pickup is like matching. It's not the same here. So we center everything on work. our relationships are often built with the people we work with. And so it doesn't leave a lot of time for other things. And that contributes to burnout because it makes your life very singular. And so if your life is just one dimensional, you're not getting the fulfillment from creativity, from joy, from playfulness, from having nothing to do. Like that is very taboo in this culture of just like,

lason around. You can't just sit and look out your window. But people do it in other cultures. If you go to Europe or if you go to the Middle East, like, people will take lunch and they'll just like sit and not work during the work day and just have an hour or sometimes an hour and a half lunch, right? And so I think that contributes a lot to our burnout here is because it also makes your identity very singular. You lead with your job title. People are very salary conscious here. And, you know, so it makes your identity very singular. And so that makes us very, honestly, kind of boring. Are there any little pragmatic steps we could begin to take to shift that relationship, like tiny things we could do? Absolutely, there are. So I'm a really big hobby girl. And last year was my

year of mediocre hobbies, where every three months I dedicated myself to a completely useless hobby. Like when I was not going to monetize, when I was not going to get better at, and when I was not going to share with the world, like I took up needlepoint for three months. I did improv for three months. I want to do improv so bad. Oh, my gosh. You must. It seems so fun. You absolutely, I think everybody should do improv. It just feels so what I feel like I'm missing in my life is play. And improv feels like play. Completely. Yeah. It's also like so unstructured. And our lives are so structured. you're just like on stage and you have no idea what the other person's going to say and you have to go with it, right? So it's like this exercise and like breaking out of this like limitation. But I think that's a really important like micro habit that people can change to diversify their life a little bit is to engage in a hobby that they don't want to get good at, that they don't want to monetize or create an Instagram account about that they don't want to share with the world. that is just purely for the present moment, like for the process of making that pottery,

coloring that thing, doing that dance, whatever it is, right? Okay, so I'm going to push back a little bit. Somebody's listening and they're like, okay, but Isra, I have no time for all of the other stuff in my life. How am I adding a hobby on top of that? I am burned out because I have no time and energy. Yes, I love that question because it's so true, right? Two things.

One is research has shown, that if we engage in like two to five minutes of creative doodling, it has an impact on our nervous system to regulate it. So we believe this myth that our hobbies need to be extremely time-consuming, that we need to do it for 60 minutes, that we need to do it every day, right, for 60 minutes. That's not true. So we need to break out of that mindset. You can pick something up for a 15-minute interval once a week. That's okay. It doesn't need to involve another person. It doesn't need you to leave your house. So that's how I would shift that mindset is we're taking micro breaks.

And we're trying to infuse it in that way in your life. The second thing I'll say is we are also often chronically busy, but we think we're being productive. So that's a really big mindset shift. Because when you actually take time out to start doing things that give you joy or playfulness and you get that positive feedback, you realize that you actually do have time for things, but sometimes you're spending time on the things that are not giving back to you.

So anybody who's listening, I would urge you to pick up your phone and check your screen time, right? And I'm calling myself out too. Like I had to change my phone to grayscale to prevent myself from constantly picking it up. But there were some seasons of my life where my app usage is like five hours a day. So I do have that time. Yes, it's incrementally split over the day. So instead of picking up my phone in between meetings, if I have a half hour in between calls, maybe I can just do like a 10 minute doodle

or a meditation or a coloring or put a puzzle together for 10 minutes. That's one thing. And the second thing is I'm a really big fan of audits. So anybody who feels pressed for time right now and is like, I cannot listen to this woman. I don't know what her life is. Maybe she's super privileged and doesn't have a job and now she's telling us all to pick up hobbies, I would encourage you to pick up your calendar and look at the last four weeks and write down everything you said yes to and then make a column and ask yourself if you really had to do it, like retrospectively. Do you have to go to every single social obligation you say yes to? Is it driven by fear? Is it driven by FOMO? Do you have to absolutely do all the things you do? You know, and then if

you start questioning that, you can start seeing a pattern that you might be doing things you don't need to do. One thing I struggle with is at the end of a long work day when I am tired, it's hard for me to get over the hump of doing something that's like a little bit harder than scrolling on my phone, which it is the easiest thing to do. Do you have any advice for that? Or is it just something I've been thinking about a lot recently is maybe I shouldn't let myself get so tired in the first place, that it's the only thing that I feel like I can do? Or is it about setting up? systems where the other things become easier. Do you have any advice for that? I first want to acknowledge that that is a very real issue for all of us right now. And honestly, like even me included, because

they've designed the app in such a way that it gives you this like really fast dopamine hit, which at the base level is what your brain is looking for. We're like Pavlovian dogs right now. So my instinct always is to be like, I'm going to pick up my phone. And so there are some systems we can't set up. So first is you can put timers on your app. Use the technology for you. I've gray scaled my whole phone because it prevents you from like that color attraction to pick up. And it's very disorienting. So that's been very helpful for me in the last four weeks actually.

So try it. The second thing is keep the alternative in your visual. That's the issue. So like when my journals are buried somewhere and the pen is on the bookshelf instead, I'm just like, nah. I'm going to sit on this couch because I can. reach my phone. Keeping like whatever you want to do as easily accessible to yourself is really important. So in my like puzzling season, I hate puzzles. I hate I don't. I'm like, yeah, the picture that you're trying to make is on the box. Like, why are we putting in so much effort to create a picture that

this is my own bias? I'm going to, I'm going to say why. Because it's in the process. It's in the moment of being. So I used to hate puzzles up until two years ago because I was like, this is such a waste of time. And then I was like going through this like difficult moment in my life. And I didn't want to just completely numb out on my phone. And I had this puzzle lying around in my bookshelf for years that someone had gifted me. So one day I was like, I'm going to do this. And I realized like from a neurological perspective, puzzles, whether they're like the ones you make or crosswords or the word searches, right? Any kind of puzzle is an optimal challenge for a tired brain because it requires enough processing for you to activate your brain, but it's not that challenging where you can't actually

think through or decompress. You could do a puzzle and think about your whole day. You could do a puzzle and process like a fight that you just had with someone because it doesn't numb you out. It's like the optimal level of challenge for your brain without completely engaging your brain or without completely disassociating. So scrolling is a very dissociative, passive activity. You're just getting the dopamine loop. Sometimes you're not even processing the information you're looking at, right? No, it's so, it's so, it's so disconcerting when you scroll, and you cannot tell anybody afterward one actual video that you saw. Yeah. But then I feel like so frazzled after. And then I'm like, especially this last week because I've been like just heightened a little bit more heightened anxiety because of like just

the world. And I'm just like, I don't know why I feel bad. But then I looked at my screen time last night and it was like off the chart. Off the charts. And I was like, ew, like this is so gross. And that's why I feel so frazzled all the time. So my commitment for the next three months for the quarter to if you want to be fancy, is to go back to doing like a slightly challenging hobby. Because I did fall off my own system. So that happens. You could read all the books in the world. You could write a book.

You could listen to everything, right? But ultimately, we are human beings. And our resiliency, like, goes up and down. So if you're having a really difficult season in life and you're feeling very, like, overwhelmed by the world or your relationships, it's okay to realize that you are going to to slip into some old habits. The sign of growth is that you recognize that this is not the best thing to do. And you can just make one small change, you know? I love the second step of keeping the habits that you want visible. It's a core rule of habits, but we forget it sometimes, is make the habits

that you don't want to have really hard for yourself, which is the gray scale on the phone, and make the habits that you do want to have easy for yourself, which is actually having the journal out in present. And it's interesting because one of your core thesis is that by approaching our emotions differently, by learning to regulate difficult emotions, we will be able to form habits significantly better, correct? It's a completely different approach to forming habits and a completely different unlock to why we can't form habits than I have ever heard. So can you explain that? I think that's the reason I ended up writing this book because I noticed that. I noticed that, a lot of like the self-help literature, the personal growth literature, even like the leadership

literature, was all behavioral. It was all about habit systems and changing microbehaviors, which are all valid. But we are driven by our emotions. And interestingly, the stronger drivers of our behavior are the difficult emotions. So happiness will drive us, but shame will drive us harder. So the emotions that we don't like thinking about that we think are negative, that are called negative emotions, shame, guilt, fear, comparing yourself to other people, not feeling good enough, perfectionism, they really drive our behavior. When they are very, very deep, we can set up a habit system, right, and we can succeed. And then the emotion comes up one level higher, and your system will fall apart. That's just human behavior. And in my office, as a

a therapist, I see it all the time. People are spending money and they're like doing all these things and what's really driving it is shame, right? So you create a financial budget, you download the app, but then you still are not successful. And what do you do? You blame yourself for it. But what's really happening is you have unresolved shame. So if you can resolve that emotion and you can learn to identify, process, and release, those are the three steps, then your habit will be so much more sustainable and long term. But we don't actually talk about that ever. Emotions are a really integral part of our health, our productivity, and our success. But what happens is we don't really teach people how to process emotions. I have worked with adults who cannot even recognize or identify emotions.

And it's not because there's something wrong with them. It's just the way our academic system is set up. It's the way our family systems are set up. It's the way our culture is set up. And by identifying emotions, you harness this power that is just like enormous. Because then you can ground yourself no matter what happens and choose a behavior instead of being reactive to your life. It's a huge idea that we are trying to set up all these little systems to create the habits that we want to have. But we're missing this incredibly important underlying piece of the puzzle. And we're berating ourselves probably because we're like, oh my gosh, my habits aren't working. what's wrong with me, whatever. And it's like, well, no, we're not addressing this root cause

that's getting in the way of us living the lives, crafting the lives that we want to live. Yeah. And a lot of times to avoid emotions, we say we're too busy. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out are good nutrition. And yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health.

Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts.

And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement might appear does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitochondria increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin A keeps your cells healthy.

Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support your cells and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondrial. pure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. Look, I'm never going to make everything that I wear

organic, but your sheets, your pillows, your comforter are literally touching your skin for eight hours every single night. That is a third of your life right there with one simple swap. And if your bedding is worn out, it's trapping heat or it's made with questionable materials, your sleep is going to suffer. And so will everything that depends on it, you want a bed, you deserve a bed that you are excited to get into every single night so that you can, can get the sleep that you need to feel your best. That's why I love Bowlin Branch so much. Their signature organic cotton sheets are incredibly soft. You notice that the first night, and they are so breathable, which is a godsend if you sleep hot like I do. But what massively impresses me is that in an era where

everyone is greenwashing everything, Bowlin Branch takes the safety and the quality of their products so seriously. They're got certified, meaning the organic integrity is verified at, every single step of production, not just the raw material. They're Okotech certified, which I always look for. It means that everything has been tested and cleared for harmful substances from the yarn all the way to the finished product. And they are fair trade certified. So the people actually making your sheets are being paid and treated fairly.

Most people start with the signature sheet set. And honestly, once you feel them, you're going to want to do the entire bed. They feel like a fancy hotel, but maybe even better. It's made travel actually worse for me, fair warning, because my own bed at home is like nicer than the nicest hotels. It just feels so good. I get so excited to get into it every single night. It's time to upgrade your sleep with Bowlen Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at BowlenBranch.com slash Liz Moody with code Liz Moody. That's Bullen Branch, B-O-L-L-L-B-Range.com slash Liz Moody. Use code Liz Moody to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply.

I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refuse to die. They sit there releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign. of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers

and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO-1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger-looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the

case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference and you're kind of like, do, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that like sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really. well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One Skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 5-star

reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.com. slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. So toxic productivity is a coping skill to avoid those difficult emotions. If I'm too busy, my schedule is too tight, like I'm overcommitted, I don't have to deal with the little whisper of shame because I'm too busy. And we can lead our entire lives like this. Like years and years and decades can go by without you even recognizing. that you're carrying shame, right, or that you are a perfectionist, and that's actually harming you.

People often see perfectionism as, like, a very positive trait. But if you actually speak to a perfectionist in a state of vulnerability and honesty, they will tell you that they are miserable. So let's go through some of these, like, individual examples to make these connections. We'll start with perfectionism. First of all, how would perfectionism be contributing to this feeling of feeling burned out, feeling low energy? And then can you bring it back to what's, under underlying there. So perfectionism contributes to burnout by having like exceptionally unreasonably high standards. So people are always like, well, what's wrong with having standards? Like I want to have standards in my life, right? But I think we have to really question the standards we're setting for

ourselves. So perfectionism is this desire for control. The world is inherently like uncertain. Your relationships are uncertain. Your body is uncertain. Like day to day, it's going to be different. but a perfectionist mindset wants to control everything. And because you cannot control it, you continue to want to do that by changing habits and systems and behaviors and having these standards, and so you burn out because you're just doing too much.

And perfectionism is actually anxiety. It is a manifestation of anxiety because you're trying to control for an outcome. So that's like the underlying emotion or I guess the underlying experience, but the underlying emotional experience is if I am not in control and things are not the way I need them to be,

I will not be good enough. There is this fear of rejection. And we don't actually walk around the world thinking that I'm going to be rejected and that's why this email needs to be perfect. It's like so many layers deep, but that's what the fear is. If I make a mistake, if the outcome is something,

I didn't want, then I'm not good enough. And because I'm not good enough, people will reject me. And that's so scary, you know. How do we begin to feel good enough if that's the underlying thing? That is a journey that is like a lifelong journey. And I really want to encourage people to see that as a beautiful thing. For as long as you are alive and breathing, you are continuing to build a life that you feel good about. This idea that we are going to get to a place of good enough and stay there forever in this, like, magical land, that's a myth.

And that's why people constantly feel bad because everything changes with seasons. Like, we evolve, like who I was five years ago. Isra pre-pandemic, you wouldn't even recognize that girl right now. This person, that person completely different, right? But because so many of my values shifted, the journey of feeling good in this new state, this new season, this new body, this new lifestyle. That's like a constant thing.

But that's like really beautiful because it shows me that I'm growing. I love that. I've never heard anybody say that before that the reason that you don't feel like you're doing it perfectly is because you've grown and evolved into this things. Of course you're not. It's new to you. Yeah. And that's like a good thing.

I loved my 20s, but I wouldn't necessarily trade things. to go back, you know? Like, I had a great time, but that was for then. And so when it comes to trying to feel good enough, what we want to do, so essentially what's happened in our culture is there is this thing called external motivators for achievement and internal motivators for achievement in psychology, right? We need both. What's happened is we have shifted it completely externally. So generations of people probably starting from like Gen X, onwards the last 40 years have shifted with every generation how good they feel to external markers of success. And we haven't built how to feel good about ourselves internally. So it's just

completely swung. So the way to feel good about yourself as a whole is to have a balance in knowing that you are good enough outside of your external achievements and having the motivation to pursue external achievements. So we can't just only feel good about ourselves internally, right? Because that takes away motivation for productivity. We need that. So we have to find this balance. And the way we can do that is by diversifying where we spend our time. So having our work, having our hobbies, having our community, having time for ourselves, and having something we do that is purposeful beyond us. These things need to be in balance. But we live in a culture that demands that you focus only on work. Work on its own is not a

bad thing. So a lot of people think that I'm like anti-productivity, but I'm not. I'm a super productive person. I struggled with toxic productivity myself, which is where this all came from. I'm also like very ambitious, so I'm not anti-ambition either. But what I am a big proponent of is balance. You know, balance and alignment in the things that we do. We are missing that. And that's why I was very intentional about sharing stories of how this burnout mindset can show up in our relationships, in our caretaking relationships. It can show up in the way we practice self-care. It's not just about work anymore. It's just become this mindset of like achieving and excelling and comparing ourselves. And that makes us very disconnected. Yeah, it's so interesting. When you

hear what people regret at the end of their lives. It's always, I wasn't my whole self. I didn't have connection with community. I work too much, et cetera. And we hear these things, but then we just do the opposite. Why are we working against our own best interests? Why are we working against the things that would actually make us feel good? So this is like a broader, like, existential question, right? The reason we do that is because of the way our social, structures are set up. So right from childhood, especially like right now, children are told right away that you have to be a part of like four different things to excel and you have to be really busy. You see your parents. They're like super busy all the time. And no one is really talking about

balance or alignment. And then you enter the school system and it's this false meritocracy. You're told that if you work hard, you'll get the thing. Then you hit like your undergrad like 20s and you realize people getting the thing are the people who have network and social capital and connection, yet you're like, no, no, no, but if I work hard, I'm going to get it. And so you get on this, like, treadmill forever, right? And the second thing is we are unacquainted with the joys of having the alternate path. We don't remember how good it feels to be playful. We don't remember how good it feels to be present. And then we've got this, like, social media landscape that is, like, driving the attention economy. Well, and it makes you want to perform even things that didn't used

to be a performative. Like your skincare routine might have used to be for you, but now you're comparing it to all these people with their 10 steps. Skincare routines online. Maybe you're even filming yours or share with your friends. It makes your vacation performative in a way that it was, and it makes your vacation comparative in a way that it didn't used to be. Yeah. The vacation thing is a real sticking point for me because I've been to places that, you know, the person I was traveling with has found on Instagram. And then like, we do this hike to get there. And there's like 7,500 people there waiting in line for that one shot.

And nobody is in the shot. So it looks like it's just you, right? And so I very actively try to just never look up the place I'm going to on Instagram. Like, I just won't do it. When I get there, I look for restaurants or like bookshops. And that's it. So I think that's how we can bring a sense of agency. back. We have to make these choices that feel really difficult, that feel like, okay, I want to film

this, like, beach that I'm on and I want to post it. The moment you feel that, do the opposite. So it's called opposite action, and it's from DBT therapy, and it's used for, like, emotional regulation. But I think it can be a very powerful tool when our instinct to kind of share comes up, asking yourself, why am I sharing this? Or doing a photo dump after your vacation so that you're present in the moment and you're not sharing stories because the moment you share something, you're going to go to look at who's watched it, how many people, all that jazz, right? So I think like it's these little ways where we can kind of take back some of this control.

But the reason is like we are in a culture that is really pushing us for that. And it's hard to kind of answer this question without bringing up the very capitalist nature of the world we're in. And I'm not an anti-capitalist either. I think it's really important. But again, it's like we have to balance. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any advice that you would give parents who want to raise kids that have this level of balance while they're working within the culture that exists?

Parents are just struggling right now. Like, I want to acknowledge how challenging it is to be a parent right now. There was a surgeon general's warning that classified the health risks of being a parent, like smoking or drinking. It's like the literal risk to your health. Yes, it is. Because of the stress. Because it is so high stress these days.

But the advice that I would give to people right now is twofold. One is children will always do what you do. So you have to model the behavior you want them to absorb. And two is you have to set up the environment in your home as. such, right? So even if the world outside is demanding different things from your kids, they realize that home anchor where the foundation begins is different, right? So how do you do that? One is you really have to work on your own emotional regulation. But there it is again, right? The more regulated you are as a parent, the more you can kind of keep your nervous system.

And I don't mean doing like ice bats in the morning to do your, like that's not what I'm saying. great. I'm not trying to add more. It's really just about pausing before you say yes to a commitment as a parent, thinking through the decisions you're making on behalf of your child, asking yourself, why do I want my child to be in this activity? Is it because those other people are doing it? Is my fear that my child's going to get left behind? What are the other things that my kid is already doing? What are they involved in? What did they like? You know, a lot of times parents will put their kids and things because other parents are doing it. So like that's kind of what I mean by emotional regulation. Learning to calm that fear, that fear of missing out or the fear of your child

missing out on something, that anxiety, learning to kind of still that before you commit to things, your child will pick up on how you make decisions as well. Right. And as I think that can be a very powerful thing. And then modeling like constructive free time. with your child. So puzzles. Puzzles. Just like sitting on a Saturday morning and just talking while having breakfast. And so trying to like run to an activity or trying to like do things while having

breakfast. Like they need to see this. And that kind of calmness really sets your child up for success in the future because they absorb that. Another really helpful, like very tangible thing for any parents who are listening is try to instill that inner sense of achievement in your child while also giving external praise. Children need external praise. They need to be told, hey, like, I see the great thing that you did. But you also want to say, hey, you must be so proud of yourself. You put in so much effort.

These are the skills you learned when you were trying to do this project, even if they didn't get a good grade, let's say, right? Highlighting that process-oriented mindset, highlighting that you need to be happy about the things you're doing, just in the way you praise your child really shifts their perspective completely. Wait, can we do that to ourselves as grownups? Like, can we try to like enjoy the process and be like, wow, you're doing so good at this step versus having to be outcome focused or like, Liz, you must be so proud. Because like, if you didn't get that as a kid, can we re-parent ourselves a little bit in

that way? Absolutely. Okay. So an example. I mean, you have a very successful podcast, but let's just say that it wasn't, right? However, let's say you didn't get like the podcast streams that you wanted. You still learn how to set up a tech studio telling yourself like, yeah, okay, I didn't get the thing I wanted, but here's all the things I learned in the way, the process of it, right?

That improves something that's called self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is your sense of trust in your own skills. And when we have a very strong sense of self-efficacy, we are less than. likely to compare ourselves to other people because we have that sense of grounding. And I mean, I have to do this all the time too, right? Like I did this like book tour. I didn't get all the goals that I wanted. But I still had to remind myself of all the things I learned in the way. Like I learned about the publishing world. I learned about the press world. I learned about how journalists work, how to pitch people, even if I didn't get all the things I wanted.

Sometimes I have to consciously remind myself of my growth. When you're in it, it's hard to see it. same as when you're hanging out with somebody every day. If they look differently, you don't notice that because you're with them every day or yourself, you know, you don't notice that you look differently when you're looking in the mirror every day. You have to consciously go back and be like, wow, look at where your life was then and look at where your life was down. Look at the way your brain thought things, how your anxiety was, how your relationships were. I have to really consciously remind myself of that growth because otherwise I don't notice it. Yeah, people think a growth mindset means the outcomes you're getting. But that's not what a growth mindset is. A growth mindset is acknowledging

the steps you have taken incrementally. Like, that's what growth is. And ultimately, it comes to the point of choosing a different reaction to what you would have done previously. Like, that's what growth is. So, like, if my automatic reaction to not getting something is internalizing shame, being able to choose objectively a different response to that is my growth. And that happens because of all these things that I've done over the past.

Yeah. One thing that I really struggle with is because we're, used to doing so many different things at once. Like you're on your little screen while you're on your big screen, you're answering an email and then you have a web page open, you're texting your friends, you're scrolling on Instagram. Our brains are wired to need all of the stimulation so that when we do one thing at once, whether it's just sitting there and doing nothing and enjoying the birds chirping or something low-key like reading a book, it feels really boring. And then you're like, well, I don't want to spend my limited free time doing something that feels really boring.

So how do we get over that hump? Our brain wasn't designed to be this active, right? And multitasking is a myth. Like that does not happen at a neurological level. It's just not possible. What actually is happening when you're doing multiple things at the same time and you think you're like juggling different things simultaneously, what's happening is your brain is task switching at such a fast speed

that we can't even register how fast it's happening. So different areas of your brain is lighting up to do these different things and process information. but not at the same time. It's happening one after the other back and forth. So that's very tiring, but it gives you a very fast dopamine hit. The coolest thing about our brain

is that it is the most trainable thing in the world. We have come to train our brain to expect these rapid dopamine hits by task switching. We've trained our brain. Our brain is very plastic. That means it's malleable. So we can retrain it to its original state. The original state for human beings,

as children is to do one thing at the same time. If you leave a child in a playroom, it will just do the blocks. It's not going to do a block and then do a puzzle and like, you know, at its like base state. Neurodivergence holding a different space for that. So I think that we have to retrain our brain. And any time you retrain, whether you're training for a marathon or you're changing your eating habits, it feels bad. Acknowledging that this initial boredom when you are single-tasking is part of the process.

It's not a waste. you're actually retraining your brain, like talking yourself through that can be a very helpful way as a reminder. And the second thing I'll say about boredom is boredom is a very, very critical skill. Because when we are bored, we can access creative thinking. When we are just shooting like all cylinders in the brain, like left brain, right brain, vocabulary, memory, executive functioning, everything is going on at the same time. We actually cannot access creativity. Because doing too many things at the same time puts you in fight or flight. Stress is like all over the place.

And so your creative system shuts down. And I don't mean creative in like arts and craft. I mean like the essence of being a human being. We are the only creative creatures on planet and the way we define creativity. So just like problem solving, collaboration, negotiation, like thinking about new ways of doing the same thing, you can only access that if you bore yourself. Okay, I love this. And how long does it take for my brain to acclimate to the boredom? Like, how long is it going to feel boring before my brain rewires itself?

I don't think that there's like a time limit like on it in terms of research. However, this is my experience on doing things. I have found the most success kind of committing to something for like a three week period. This is not based in any science. Like there is no science around how many days it takes a set of habit or a thousand hours to become good. Like, I think those are just things people say the way I'm saying it right now. But I think consistency is important. So if you bore yourself this week and then you don't do it for three weeks and then you do it again, you're not going to retrain. Is there an in the moment thing though?

Like if I sit there for five minutes, will it start to feel? Is it like, because I just, I know this is my own, you know, toxic wiring speaking, but I'm just like, I don't have the time to sit there forever and feel so antsy in my body and feel so bored. Yeah. It's not just you, girl. Let me just tell you that. We have to reparent ourselves. Like, that's what's happened, right?

So we have to set these rules. Like, I have these rules that I really try to meet. And again, like, I remind myself that if I meet this rule, I'm being accountable. Like, it makes me feel good. If I meet this rule, like, I am regaining control over my time. Like, you're constantly validating yourself. So my rule is to not scroll if I'm in a car. car.

Like at a stoplight or in a cab or an Uber or something like that, not scroll in the elevator. That is also retraining my brain to just be in the moment and daydream. And in the beginning, it literally feels like an it. You're just like, oh, like what's happening in the world? Like maybe I can catch up on the news or whatever. It's not even what's happening in the world for me. It's I don't want to know what's happening in my brain. Oh.

That's like the like I don't like to sit. It's my struggle. My brain is a much scarier place than the world. Fair. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if we're talking about that, then the piece around like thought dumping is really important. If you are setting aside some time to do some like boredom, like intentional boredom, I would start with like a timer set three minute thought dump. Just a stream of consciousness. Like it's called expressive writing. So you set a timer and you just like write whatever is coming to your mind. And if you blank, you write the room you're in. So I can't think of. anything to write anymore, the walls are white, blah, blah, blah, right? Yeah. Until the timer stops. And then just sit with yourself.

And I think over time, like over consistency, like a couple of times you do this, you have to activate talking yourself through it. So if you have a thought that comes up that feels really icky, say, oh, I'm having that icky thought again. Have you ever watched like how I met your mother? Yeah. There's like a narrator. Yeah.

You have to get into that mind. Oh, Liz, you're having that. thought again. You don't like thinking about this thing. Can we think about something else? Oh, you know, now I'm bored. I wish I was scrolling. Like you just kind of have to do this self-talk. Self-talk is so important because think about how much it affects you when it's negative. Like negative self-talk prevents us from so many things. It makes us feel bad in our bodies. Like it is so impactful. So positive self-talk has the same impact on our bodies, on our mind, on our physiology. We just don't access it. And do you think that is like, you go, girl, you do this?

Or do you think that the cultural depictions of positive self-talk aren't what you're actually talking about? 100%. Yeah. So I'm not like an affirmations person because it's so reductionist. I am more of like a reminder person. Remind yourself of the thing. But like you go is like not going to help anyone. Positive self-talk is partially observing your thoughts and narrating it to yourself, asking yourself. asking yourself if your negative thoughts are true or not. Is this true? Like, where's the fact in this? And then telling yourself, like, you've survived this before.

You've had anxiety before. What are the times you actually moved through a difficult moment? You're pulling from like previous success examples. And then you're telling yourself that you're going to survive. You're safe. A lot of time. It's the reparenting. It really is.

It's not the, like, cheerleader. It's the gentle parent who's saying, I've got you, you've got this. Yeah, that's why I don't talk about the inner cheerleader. I talk about the inner coach. It's like a coach who is guiding you through a difficult moment. So you're observing your thoughts, like they're clouds in the sky. Like, oh, I had this thought again.

Oh, I usually think about this when this happens. Like you're observing. You're observing your physical reactions. Oh, I'm starting to feel hot. And over time, it becomes so helpful in a crisis moment. When I get triggered by something, like there's certain things in my life that will definitely frazzle me. I start noticing immediately like, oh, I'm feeling this like sensation in my legs.

Oh, this is going to happen. Like, I'm going to start feeling this. I'm going to get this thought. I don't want to have this thought. What have I done before? This is what I've done before. And then you kind of go from there. But positive self-talk only works if there's an associated action.

Yeah. Tell me about that. This is my gripe sometimes with like the manifest. manifestation discourse is just like saying things into the world and it will happen. I think it's important to say and set and visualize, but there needs to be an associated action because change happens when our thought and our habits are integrated. Thoughts alone are not going to change anything and habits alone are not going to change anything. So once I get into this mindset, I've recognized what's happening, I've recognized a trigger, I feel it in my body. I have a preset list of things on my

note app. And I open it and I'm like, oh, these are the things I can do right now that have helped me in the past. So whether it's literally just getting up and washing my face with cold water, sometimes after difficult therapy sessions, I'm left with a lot of emotions and like it always feels bad, you know, sometimes. I will take a shower. And that has proven to help me feel better for me. So that's become part of my action. It can be calling someone. It can be getting out of the house, it can be anything that works for you. But it has to be something that is slightly challenging. You cannot just numb yourself because you're not processing. Well, and if we're talking about change happens when you're associating this self-talk with actions, has numbing yourself

created change in the past is the question that I would pose to people. Yeah. I'm not saying you should never scroll because you absolutely can, especially like high intensity, very triggered moments. sometimes accessing that emotion immediately is dangerous. Like sometimes it's like too overwhelming. So you can numb yourself, but numbing yourself shouldn't be your default, right? It does have a benefit. That's why it exists and it works. But it can't just be the default.

I love this. I think it's so actionable to say, hey, okay, I have my talk. I'm saying the things that I want to say. I'm hearing what I want to hear in my brain. How can I associate that with action to actually see and feel the change that I want to feel? Yeah. I think it has to be a small action. too. Let's not burden ourselves with like, oh, I'm going to go do a 16 minute workout. Like, no,

it has to be accessible, easy for you to access in your home or your workplace, and it has to be something you can just do. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20 minute meal and like get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great, that's sorted. But they also have meals that you can just heat up.

They have ready made breakfast, which is always such a tough time of day to get a healthy meal in. They have grab and go snacks. Everything is made from farm fresh produce with high quality proteins and you can select by dietary preferences, including Mediterranean diet, which is the top diet that doctors on this podcast recommend. Also things like gluten-free, dairy-free, low sodium, anything that you need. The food is so good and it's so gourmet feeling like you feel like you're at a nice restaurant. We're talking like chicken Milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes. My favorite recent meal was the creamy lemon chicken tray bake. I had one of those moments where I looked at my plate and I was like, wait, I made this.

And so quickly, like so easily, it's just so little effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful. And honestly, that is everything. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marlyspoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. That is right. up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody.

So remember to get the offer in there. Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. I'm genuinely confused how master class gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary. school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more

interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Master's Art of Master's in Sex Appeal class. It's 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaley. Literally, you name it, they're on masterclass, and it is such a good way to get off your phone, but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into is a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps you entertained and interested, and you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best, all for just $10 a month when build annually, and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode,

like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing

with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common household cleaners.

Branch Basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free, and made safe certified, meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals. And best of all, you literally use one product, but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens

who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them. So I'm protecting them too. Branch Basics is now available at Target, Target.com, Amazon, and branchbasics.com, so it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branchbasics.com and use code Liz Moody. A really good one for the workplace. Let me share this. Is if you are very scent oriented,

keep like a little roller ball at your desk. So I have that. And that just kind of helps me feel really grounded if I'm feeling overwhelmed at work. 90 second. Just like put it on your wrist. Like just like breathe it in. And then it will, it will ground you if you practice it hard enough. That's like a real great like micro moment of pause, micro moment of not doing anything practicing that. I love that. Okay. So we've talked about that's perfectionism. Let's talk about people pleasing. How does people pleasing contribute to our sense of burnout and what is the underlying emotion at play there? People pleasing comes from a sense of consistently feeling that the way you exist in the world is not good enough. Right. And so there's this fear of rejection again.

That's like the underlying thing that's happening. But instead of perfectionism where you're controlling outcomes, in people pleasing, you are controlling other people's reactions. So you mold and change and you limit and you hide and you amplify parts of yourself as a way to control how other people see you and therefore react to you. And so you have developed this idea in childhood that in order for me to feel safe, other people have to be happy with me. And people pleasing is like very much rooted in like a specific family dynamic. And it is a very like we talk about it very candidly and like very colloquially nowadays, but it has a very deep rooted family dysfunction. And that is an emotionally volatile parent.

And that doesn't mean that they're angry, right? It just means that their moods were unstable. So one day to the next, when you're coming home from school, you don't know what mood your primary parent's going to be in. And so that teaches you very quickly that I need to control this other person's emotion by changing my behavior. So I'll never say what I want. I'm not going to tell you my needs, and that's going to keep my parents stable. So it comes from a very painful place. I have worked with a lot of people who struggle with people pleasing. Because you never learn how to ask for your

needs, because the home environment is emotionally volatile. What you learn, the message there is, your needs don't matter. The other person always matters more. And what happens is without any guardrail, over-extend that definition to everyone. So not just your parent anymore, now it's your friends. Now it's your teachers. Now it's your boss. Now it's your co-workers. Then you get married. It's their family. It's your in-laws. It's your partner. Honestly, sometimes even your children. So you become a really, really unstructured parent because you want your kid to like you. So it has like a very deep impact on people's lives. I have a lot of empathy for people who struggle with that. How can we begin to address that if we recognize ourselves and anything that you just said? Because it's like such a deeply rooted

dynamic and it can bring up so much emotional unsafety for us, I always recommend that people seek therapy if they've recognized this. And I know that therapy is not the most accessible to people or there's a lot of stigma around it. So I would even encourage you to find group therapy sessions if that feels more accessible. I think that it is a lot to unpack because eventually comes to like your parenting. And that's just like a painful place to be in. And I think like habitually there's a lot of things you can do. But it's just so unsafe like in your body when you disappoint somebody if you struggle with people pleasing. People will feel like their social system or their friends will reject them. It's just too scary to try to do it on your own. But if you are motivated and you really

want to do it on your own and, you know, you think you have some of the foundational skills. One of the things that you can do is find a safe person, like a friend, who you really trust, you don't ever worry about what they're thinking about you or whether they like you or whatever, and start saying no to them in small ways. And a no doesn't have to be like a hard no. It can be they're saying, oh, like, let's hang out and you're saying, I actually want to go to this event. See if you can actually just offer that. instead of saying, yeah, let's just hang out at home. See if you can say, well, there's this event I really want to go to.

Would you be open to going? Because that's you effectively saying no to their plans. But a people pleaser will never do that. They'll just be like, yeah, yeah, we'll just hang out at home, whatever you want. What you can do is you can actually preface this with your friend, right? You can say, hey, like, this is a thing I'm struggling with. Have you noticed this about me? Do you ever feel that about me?

So people pleasers feel very lonely because other people see that. them as not very authentic because other people will pick up on the fact that they're just going with the flow or the closer you are, the more you will see it in your friend. So you can preface it with your friend. Like I had a friend tell me this herself. She was like, this is a thing I'm working on. You know, my people pleasing tendencies and anxiety makes me really anxious about getting somewhere on time to our like friend dates. But on time for her meant getting there 10 minutes early. And if she was late, it was like a disaster for her emotionally. Right?

She would stress about it, like if the trains were not working. And it was just like not a good situation. So she told me she was like, okay, I'm going to actively be late to our hangouts. Yeah. And in the beginning, she was getting there on time. But it was so difficult for her because for her it was like letting somebody down because I'm already there waiting and maybe they won't seat the whole group if she's not there. It's just so much, right? But she told me that.

And I was like, I'm honestly like I'm South Asian. I'm like perpetually late. Like we have a different standard of time. It's a fluid concept. So I was like, cool. Like, yeah, that's fine. I'm going to try to get there before you every single time and text you right away. So you can learn how to process that.

So I think you can do those type of things and it can be helpful. I love that. I also think that learning when a boundary is needed and how to set that boundary can be really important for people pleasing and for in general, not overextending our to the place of burnout. So can you talk to me a little bit about boundaries? The easiest way to know if your boundaries are being crossed is if you feel resentful. A lot of times we don't recognize our boundaries are being crossed until we are resentful. Like we're angry about it. We're unreasonably pissed off at a friend or a partner. Like, you know, your partner does the littlest thing wrong and you're just like, you just like fly off the handle, right? And this has happened to

every human in the world. So that can be a good indicator that something is, you know, wrong, then you can kind of back into like thinking about what needs to change so that you don't feel angry. What needs to be true today for you to not be angry tomorrow? And that can kind of give you that. And if you struggle with boundaries, which I think almost everybody does to some degree, I use like the no and yes formula because saying no right away is just too much. Like let's just be real. And sometimes you can't, right? Saying no to the thing that you cannot do and offering a yes, for the thing that you can in the same sentence, just makes it so much easier.

It makes it easier for you because you're like not feeling the pressure of disappointing someone or whatever. And it makes it easier for the other person because it lets them know that you still care about them. So a really good example is your friend is moving and they're like, you got to help me move on Sunday

and you know that you had some other home chores that you have to do to set yourself up for the week. And if you say no, you feel like, ah, I'm a disappointing my friend. you can say, no, I can't help you move, but I can help you unpack on Tuesday, right? So like now you've offered them something that they could potentially use help in. That is also still possible for you because you're free on Tuesday, right? So you can kind of think about it like that.

That's really helpful. And another thing that can be really helpful with boundary setting is recognizing that different circumstances require different boundaries. The way you set boundaries with a complete stranger is, very different from how you said boundaries with your mom, very different from how you said boundaries with the person you want to have a relationship with versus someone you don't want to have a relationship with. So we think, especially now, you know, people think the boundaries are just no. But that's just not true. Boundaries are collaborative. They are flexible and they evolve over time. Like if you go

into like boundary setting literature and psychology, like those are the three things. But if you go on Instagram, you'll like never see this. Yeah. for sure. There's a really interesting conversation happening online right now, and it brings us back to the community thing of we are not willing to put ourselves out anymore for our community. So somebody who's like, to be a good friend, you should pick your friends up at the airport. You should help them pack to move. You should do all these things. And maybe we've in some ways gotten overbounded in our lives and trying to protect our space, our time, our energy. How do you view that conversation? Thank you so much for bringing this up.

I think that this is a really critical conversation to have right now with the rise of loneliness, the rise of the breakdown of relationships, especially in the heterosexual universe. And then, of course, you've got the incels taken over, like with adolescence to show, right? I think all of this comes down to a lack of connection and community. And we have essentially monetized and outsourced a lot of things that you would traditionally get in your community, moving, picking people up. I made a video on TikTok about this whole exact thing of picking up your friends from the airport. And the number of people who were mad in the comments was just alarming to me.

Because people were saying, like, you shouldn't be friends with somebody who wants you to inconvenience themselves. But I think that a good life is an inconvenient life. And I have like a whole essay on this that's just sitting in my drafts. and I'm just like, I don't know if I want to publish it because people are going to get angry about it. But I think it's true. And there is this concept of mutuality in a relationship. And mutuality means the exchange of energy, right?

And healthy relationships have mutuality. And we never named this before because it existed. But as our society became fragmented and we can like task rabbit stuff and we can Uber ourselves to airports and we can deliver food and all that stuff, it's just kind of a quietly disappeared from our relationships. Even in romantic relationships,

before people used to walk to the florist, pick a bouquet, and bring it to the person, and now you just press a button and it arrives, right? And you don't get the handwritten note. It's like a random stranger who typed the note, right, in Times New Roman font. So I think that that is something that we have to flex our muscles of

or in, is accepting inconvenience in our relationships. So how do we navigate, though, knowing when we're giving too much of ourselves, when that inconvenience is what's required to form deep bonds? Is reciprocity? So mutuality comes with reciprocity. You are giving too much if the other person is not giving back. That is like the foundational lens. If the other person is giving back to you, then you can have an honest conversation about your

abilities, then you can offer alternatives. But if the other person is not giving back to you and you're only the one who's giving, then that's not an equal relationship. Then you're not in an equal relationship. But we don't measure that by stop texting your friends and whoever doesn't reach out to you is not your friend. Like, have you heard that on the internet? It's like you will find out who your true friends are if you stop texting people. And I think that that's so toxic because using text message as the barometer for the connection that you have is just ludicrous. Maybe that person just doesn't like texting. They don't like texting.

There are many people who prefer phone conversations. I have texting relationships with people who I would never have dinner with. Like that's not the barometer for friendship, right? So I think like right now in the discourse, there's a lot of very reductionist ideas floating around that tell you whether a person is good for you or how you protect your energy and how you like bring people into your universe. Like if it's too easy to do, it's not good for you. This goes back to what we were talking about about some of the pitfalls of social media

that might not be immediately apparent to people. It is by default, by nature, by algorithmic design reductionist. You can only fit a reductionist idea in a grabby 30 second video. And so when we are scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, all of the ideas that we are consuming are by nature of the way that we are consuming them, reductionist. We're filling our brain with reductionist ideas without even realizing that we're doing it. Yeah, and it's such a disservice to how beautiful and complex human relationships are. If you talk to people who've been married for like 40 years or so, they'll tell you like

the amount of flexibility and mutuality and reciprocity it takes to be in a relationship. A really good analogy for this. The Rose and the Gardner. Sometimes in a relationship, you're the gardener. where you are like helping the rose thrive. And sometimes you're the rose where you are thriving and the other person is supporting you. And there's this like movement that happens

in real relationships over time because seasons change, people evolve, circumstances change. And that comes with inconvenience. Like the rose is inconvenience in many ways because it cannot move. It has no agency, right? It's just being supported. And the gardening has inconvenience

because you're doing hard work. But if you can think about your relationships like that and allow a level of inconvenience because the output or the thing that you're going to get matters to you and the other person is also a safe, trusting person who does that for you, then it's just a part of being in community. Everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager.

That in a nutshell is our society right now. Are there other root causes of, burnout that we need to talk about. I think the only other thing I'll say is we need to become conscious participants of our own life. That's the final thing that I think ties like a ribbon around all of this is we are on autopilot too much. We accept the stages of like, oh, I'm going to do this, this, this, and this and this in life. We don't question things. We don't question of the thing that we're pursuing is the thing that we care about. We don't ask if our values are reflected in our So connecting to this village, villager thing, if our value is wanting a village, then our behavior

needs to reflect being a villager. There's sometimes a disconnect there. So I think we need to become conscious participants, active designers of our life. And that requires like being present and having intentionality and questioning things. Always question stuff. Why am I doing this? Why did I say yes to this? Why do I want to buy this?

Right? Like always question why you're doing something. The last thing that you touch on in your book, and I do think it's an important part of the burnout conversation that I haven't heard before is a lot of our burnout comes from having this real scarcity mindset about our lives, about our relationships. And you talk about cultivating an abundance mindset as being a really useful tool for combating these negative feelings, feeling burnt out, feeling tired, feeling exhausted. How can we do that? Yeah. You know, the abundance scarcity mindset is like somehow, seen as very like intangible, but it's actually a very concrete thing. And that shows up in some of the dynamics we've already talked about. So comparison comes from a scarcity mindset. You compare yourself to people if you think that there is like a finite set of opportunities for you. We often believe that, you know, some things are finite, like money is finite, right? Time is finite. But where we put our attention is not. So abundance is about shifting. your framework. It's not about ignoring the things that are real. It's about reframing the way you look at life. And why does that work? So scarcity essentially is telling you there's not enough, so you have to do more.

And so what happens in our brain is we essentially start filtering out opportunities because our brain is designed to meet the hypothesis we believe. So you believe things are finite and people are like not generous and everyone's out to get you and you're like going to miss out if you don't do it right way, your cognitive filter will filter out opportunities, will filter out good people. Somebody will do a good thing to you and your filter will say, no, no, no, no, they want something, right? So shifting your framework into an abundance mindset is shifting the cognitive filter. And that requires reframing. It requires questioning your thoughts. It requires looking at facts that support abundance in your life. Has there been times in your life where people have helped you?

Have there been times in your life where you didn't pursue something and yet you got something else that was beneficial to you? Where you didn't pursue something and then you later felt like you didn't really need it. That would have been a waste, right? You have to like really collect evidence for abundance in your life. I love that. Can you leave us with just one homework assignment, it's something that we can all do as soon as we turn off this podcast to begin to fight burnout in our lives. I call this the Chanel rule. So Coco Chanel allegedly, and I think she said it because she, it sounds like something she would say, said that, you know, when you're getting ready, right before you leave the door, take off one piece of accessory because we tend to over-accessorize

just in the vacuum of our bathroom mirror. And I say take that rule to your commitments. commit to one less thing, say yes to one less thing, look at your calendar and remove one busy evening, make it a free evening. That's it. Let's just start there. To practice the Chanel rule in your life when it comes to commitments. I love that. Yeah. I love that. And we can also do that like in the micro moments, in the elevator, we can not scroll. We can take away our little scroll break and sit there and do nothing. Absolutely. Amazing. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your wonderful book, toxic productivity, and anything else that you want to spotlight? The only thing I'd really want people to remember is that this is an invitation into a reflection

into your life. It's a very actionable book. There's a lot of journals and exercises and stuff, but my recommendation is to not try to do all of it. Pick one or two things. Use it as an end, like a gateway into reflecting on your life and your relationship to productivity and achievement. I say this because we are in this era of personal development, and I'm in it, like, because I read a lot of personal development myself, where it gives us a sense of like perpetual deficiency. Every new book tells you there's something wrong with you. And so I really want us to be conscious consumers, read the things that really, really relate to your life, pick the two chapters from toxic productivity that feel most resonant, do one exercise, make one change, read the book over three months. I'm also like, I'm a big fan of the fact that if we consume the information, like, you're listening to this podcast right now.

When you need it, that's in your brain somewhere and that'll come out for you. I've experienced that so much in my own life where I'm like, oh gosh, I should be doing this, this and this. No, it's there. And then in the moment I really need to pull on those tools, they're there for me and I can use them. Think of it like a closet. Yeah. You know, like it's just like hanging there for you to pick up.

Yeah. But just don't pressure yourself because I think that this productivity and achievement discourse, like discussion, can elicit a lot of the underlying emotions, shame and guilt and, you know, not feeling good enough. And that can just be like a very, like, shitty place to be in. Well, and it's getting in the way of you creating the habits that you want to have and building the life that you want to live. So, so important. So that's my thing. Just really be gentle with yourself in this process. And if you choose to do a book club ever with this book, anyone who's listening, send me a DM. I have a book club guide. I'll just,

email it to you. Oh, so fun. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I love this conversation. Thank you so much for all of the work that you're doing as well. Yeah. Thank you for having me. This was really, really fun. Unfortunately, that is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you know anybody who is experiencing burnout, which I feel like it's just so many people in today's world, unfortunately, please, please, please send them a link to this episode. Let's all help each other. We all deserve to feel better than this. And make sure you're following the Liz Moody podcast and Apple Podcasts on Spotify or on YouTube because we've got an episode coming up that is the perfect follow-up to this one. The many reasons why you have no energy and what you can do right now to get your energy back.

These are really surprising bits of science and it's very immediately actionable, per the usual, and I know you're going to love this episode. Also, following the podcast means that the episodes will show up right in your feed. You'll never have to go search for one. You'll never miss one. and you can now watch full video episodes on YouTube and on Spotify as well. Also, we are able to bring you this show completely for free because of the brands that you heard in this episode. You can save money on amazing products while supporting the show by using the discount codes that we share.

There's a full list of all of our active codes at lizmoody.com slash codes. And remember to head over to lizmoody.com to send it for our newsletter, the takeaway. you're going to get key action steps for each episode, plus tons of bonus content. You want that attention restoration challenge. We also have a five-day gut reset that actually works. Highly, highly recommend, lizmoody.substack.com. You can also come hang out on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody.

I share tons of inspiring and always very real content and exactly how I am using everything that we learn on the podcast in my real life. Okay, I love you, and I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.