Combating Mental Burnout Series: Part 3

This is our third and final blog on combating mental burnout - we’re almost there team!  So far I have explained the importance of community, as well as the importance of competition and specific, time-sensitive goals.  This third article is more personal and “you-centered” than the other two, and because of this it is perhaps the most important of all.  Here is your third step to combating mental burnout: 

Find your Why.

This is something I frequently say to my clients, whether we work together on athletics, nutrition, health coaching, or any combination of these.  “What is your Why?”  Unfortunately, this question is not nearly as simple as it seems, and the answer can often prove to be difficult to uncover.

When I ask you why you’re doing your sport or physical passion (Why do you do CrossFit?  Why are you an Ironman?  Why do you lift weights for an hour every day?), I don’t want your first answer.  I don’t even really want your second answer.  Usually the truth, your actual Why, lies much deeper than that.  It’s in your fourth or your fifth “Why” and perhaps even beyond.  Let me give you an example in the hopes that this starts to make sense.

I once had a health coaching client, who we will call Sally.  Sally told me that one of her goals was to go to CrossFit five times per week.  I asked her why, and she said she wanted to lose weight.  “Why do you want to lose weight?”  She responded that it was because she wanted to look better.  “Why do you want to look better?”  She wanted to look better because she felt ugly and fat all of the time.  “Why do you feel ugly and fat all of the time?”  I asked Sally “why?” probably 10 or 12 times.  I won’t take you through the entire conversation, but in the end it came to light that Sally’s husband wasn’t interested in her physically anymore.  This was it.  This was her Why.  Everything else was just the reasons Sally gave herself and others to cover her Why.  The more comfortable truths, but not The Truth.

Although in this case Sally’s Why was a particularly difficult truth, it was her real underlying cause and motivation.  Helping Sally with her motivation to go to the gym (all other personal issues that we worked on aside) looked a lot different when we knew her true motivation for going.  If when she felt mental burnout we simply acknowledged that she “wanted to lose weight” it wouldn’t have taken her back to the true spark which lit her fire in the first place.

There is a difference between why you do things, and The Why.  There is a difference behind something that is true, and The Truth.  So - I want you to ask yourself “Why?” Then ask again.  Then do it again and again and as many times as it takes to reach your most honest reality.  Once you have that, if and when you start to feel mentally burned out, you will much more easily find your spark again.

Remember team - everyone stumbles in their pursuit of their physical passions, even if they won’t admit it.  But it’s the getting back up, the continuing of the pursuit, that will separate you from the pack.