The Link between Burnout and Motivation

0:00Welcome to Ferra Fireside, where feminine leadership gets rewritten. I'm your host, Dr. Corey Blake, nervous system educator experienced business strategist and founder of the Ferra Collective, helping women lead from pleasure instead of pressure. Every week we gather here by the fire for a quick poem hit of truth, strategy, and primal wisdom. If you're ready to lead without burning out, to trust your body as deeply as your brain, and build a life and business that feel like freedom, you're in the right place. Here at the Ferra Collective, we blend grounded science with primal wisdom, feminine energetics with strategic leadership, and rebellious self-care practices that actually move the needle in your business, your body, and your life. This is the feminine leadership revolution. Let's dive in. Hey, love. Alright, so today I thought we

1:01would dive into one of my all-time favorite topics, which is burnout, okay? And so I have been getting a lot of questions about burnout, especially because there are so many different flavors that it can take on. And one of the things that I am most passionate about is really understanding not only the the energetic balance of burnout as in like how do we actually prevent it from happening in the first place, but what are the factors that lead to it, right? And there are so many different components to that. And the one that I want to highlight today is something that we talked about in one of my programs recently, okay? So if you know me, and if you don't, here's a little tidbit, I am literally the queen of burnout. And so I have burned myself out so many times. I am a type A overachiever who hustles. Well, I used to be that, okay? So that was how I defined myself. So for most of my professional career, I was the one who

2:03always got it right, who always made sure all of my T's were crossed and my eyes were dotted. I stayed late and made sure everything got done. I made sure other people will take care of their shit. And I also held myself to a very, very high standard, right? And so when you get into that space, whether you're a business owner or not, like as just a professional, I did that. And then I took business owning a business and being responsible for a team of 20 people. And I was that on top of it all, right? So what ended up happening with that is that I would repeatedly go into these cycles of I'm going to work, work, work, work, work, because I know at some point this is going to end. And I'm going to be able to take a break, right? I have a vacation in three months. So I'm just going to like power in and I'm going to focus and I'm going to do the thing. And I had gotten so, so good at hyper focusing on what I needed to do that not only was I compartmentalizing, but I actually was feeding the burnout

3:05cycle inside myself. It was like I had taken that that habit loop of patterning a behavior. And I had driven those tracks so many times that there were ruts in the ground. That was my default operating system. Okay? And so over the course of many years, I would get into this pattern where I would like take a vacation, feel relaxed, and then I would come back to work. And it maybe lasts like a few days tops. And then I would start to get into that like, oh, there's so much to do. I've got to catch up sort of thing, right? And so what's really interesting is that having shifted the way I work, like I have a totally different career now, right? Like I have a career where I'm not tied to being at a specific location at a specific time for a specific period over X number of days, 52 weeks out of the year. And I'm not at anyone's back in

4:06a halt anymore, which is a big deal, right? So I have so much more freedom and expansion in my business and in my life now than I did say three or four years ago. And so I have noticed, however, that even with that freedom and expansion, I can still fall into those kind of like default behavioral patterns of burnout. Even when I'm living the life that I really, really want to live, like this is perfect for me. And yet still, I can still burn out. And so what I have been really working with is what are the factors that actually contribute to burnout? Because you can look at people in different industries that work the same number of hours, right? And one of them is burnt the fuck out. And the other one is like, I'll have to go lucky. Everything's fine. You can also look at someone who's working 80 hours a week and they're not burnt out. And you can look at someone who's working 30 hours a week, who is crispy as like day old

5:09toast that came out of the oven on setting eight, right? So it gets a little bit like, well, what's the difference between those two? Like what's the difference between the person who is burnt out at 30 hours a week and the difference between the person who is burnt out or not burnt out at 80 hours a week? And it's not that there's a fundamental difference in those human beings. It's not that there's a difference in their level of resiliency per se. It can, you know, mindset can certainly influence it. And energetics can hugely influence it. How you are able to work with your energy, rebuild energy, work with charge, how you work with all of that, right? The energetic dynamics of it. But I also think the factor that really plays into this, especially with passion driven leaders, right? So people that work because they're passionate about something they care deeply about something. Generally speaking, they tend to fall into two big categories. Either they are just fueled by their work.

6:13And it just drives them and they do it. And they're not getting depleted by it. Or they're like crispy as fuck because they have like given all of themselves to this business, right? Or to their work? And so one of the defining factors I would really, really encourage you to look at is what is motivating me in this moment? Okay? So if we look at people that are driven by their passion, right? If their motivation is this feels so expansive to me, this fuels me actually provides me energy to be in this environment. And I feel like I'm serving my purpose in this world by doing it, right? Like it's actually giving me energy because I get to engage with the thing that my soul is most connected to. Okay? If you're coming from that place where you are in that dynamic of this dance between this is so cool that I get to do this. And oh,

7:14here comes more. And oh, my gosh, here's this other opportunity. That is a very, very different dynamic than if you are working in the same industry that you love and that you're passionate about. And yet your actions and your behaviors are motivated by fear as in fear of if I don't get this done, the consequence, the thing that I care about is going to be so dire that I just, I can't deal with that. Or if I don't get this done, if I don't do it perfectly, then I'm going to be failing at this. Or if I don't do this the right way, there's going to be a consequence to another life that's on me, right? All of those things operationally are motivated through fear. Okay? And so I could be doing a job that I care tremendously about and have be so invested and passionate about it. And at the same time, it doesn't matter.

8:18It doesn't matter my level of passionate investment if there's a motivation from fear. Okay? And obviously we can be motivated by fear in the short term. And that that's a thing that happens. It's is the chronic behavioral pattern. Okay? So for instance, I have been working in the coaching industry for a number of years now, right? And so the only time that I have experienced burnout in this field was really recently when I was launching a program that meant the world to me, something that I had been dreaming up and finally brought it to fruition. And the week the program is going to go live, right? My assistant is in the hospital for the whole week. And I'm like worried about her, like, expanding energy, making sure she's okay. And at the same time, the program launches and the system I've used to build the program decides to do

9:18a complete rewrite that week, right? So what I have built over the preceding six weeks, I've got to rebuild in 24 hours, right? And so the motivation from that week in and of itself was like, Oh, shit, I'm not going to be able to deliver on this program that I have promised people that really means something to me that I feel represents me as a brand. And so when I went into that driven area of, like, Oh, my God, the consequences are a dire. Like I, I can't allow this to happen because if I do, then I'm not going to be showing my best self. Then it's going to take down my company, all of those things, right? So like I went into this place of like, Oh, shit, gotta get it done. Let's go. And I ended up staying in that for two or three weeks, okay? And so having been in it for one day would not have been a big deal. But staying in it, what happened is I depleted my energy stories because I was motivating from a place of fear, which is a depleting energy, right? Versus if I was just in this

10:23place of passion around this program, it may be able to be present with it, and at the same time throwing in all this extra time and the energy and effort because that energy was coming back to me 10 folds. That's where I would have been brought even higher, right? But because I switched, I actually experienced burnout for the first time in this industry, which has been an eye-opener for me. And I, I really am curious about how you actually experience burnout. And if you look at the places that are depleting for you, where are you being motivated? Are you noticing fear? And where do you find that your passion is motivating you? And that's bringing you higher. I would love to hear your perspectives on that. All right. I'll see you next week, guys. Wow. Thank you for joining me at the fire today. If this conversation sparked something in you, make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode. And if you want to take this work deeper, join us inside the Ferric

11:24Collective, where we turn these insights into embodied leadership, real strategy and lives that feel like freedom. So you can lead from ground to power, not from burnout. Until next week, take exquisite care of your energy and keep leaning like the badass you are.