Burnout - Virginie Jullien - RéalISE Coaching

“9 Tips for taking care of your energy on a daily basis?” – Article

Our energy is precious: it allows us to live, create, and achieve our goals. Yet we often waste it without even realizing it.

The good news? Sometimes, small, simple actions can make a big difference.

Here are nine practical tips for taking care of your energy by focusing on three essential pillars: body, heart, and mind.

1. The body: the foundation of energy

Tip 1: Get enough sleep

Eight hours of sleep per night is the minimum requirement. However, we often sleep less than we need to. Quality sleep is essential for recharging our batteries.

Sleep is prepared during the day:

By eating protein (which helps produce melatonin, the sleep hormone).
By taking breaks to avoid overheating the brain.
By turning off screens at least 1.5 hours before bedtime: blue light and social media stimulate our minds.

Tip 2: Eat well

Food is the fuel for our energy. Here are three super important tips:

Start your day with a protein-rich breakfast: it will sustain your energy and prepare your body for sleep at night.
Reduce your sugar intake: contrary to popular belief, sugar tires us out more than it boosts us.
And above all, remember to stay hydrated: drinking 1.5 to 2 liters of water a day is essential. Feeling sluggish during the day? You may simply be dehydrated!

Tip 3: Move, move, move

Although we often feel lazy, moving gives us energy! It helps energy circulate, reduces tension, and relieves stress.
No need to run a marathon: 30 minutes of walking every day is enough!

Above all, avoid sitting for too long: get up, stretch, breathe.
Movement, in all its forms (dance, yoga, massage, etc.), is a real source of vitality.

2. The heart: cultivating emotional energy

Tip 4: Treat yourself

Pleasure recharges us.
Laughing, going out, dancing, seeing friends: all these activities nourish our joy and energy.
Don’t wait for vacation to treat yourself: indulge in small pleasures every day.

Tip 5: Embrace your emotions

Repressed emotions drain us.
It’s essential to take a moment from time to time to ask yourself: How do I feel? What’s going through my mind?
Write, talk, vent… Expressing your emotions frees up inner space and restores momentum.

Tip 6: Take care of your environment

Everything around us has an impact on us:
The people we interact with, the content we consume, the space we live in…

I therefore invite you to avoid environments filled with negativity or anxiety-inducing media.
Instead, cultivate gratitude, kindness, and beauty. Put on some music, sing, dance, breathe… it changes everything.

3. The mind: calming the mind

Tip 7: Reduce screen time

Hyperconnectivity exhausts us mentally: there is too much information, too many stimuli, and it all comes too quickly for our brains to process properly.
Less scrolling means more presence, clarity, and rest for the brain.
Why not set a time limit on your smartphone so you don’t waste your attention on useless or toxic content?

Tip 8: Learn to do nothing

Yes, really!

Doing nothing, daydreaming, contemplating, even being bored… are all restorative activities.
A few minutes spent watching the clouds or breathing deeply can be enough.

Meditation, cardiac coherence, or just a moment of silence can help you get back to basics.

Tip 9: Return to the present moment

The past judges us (“You should have…”), the future worries us (“What if…”). These thoughts are often anxiety-provoking and steal our energy.

Bring your attention back to the present moment by returning to your body and your five senses.

Cooking, gardening, painting, walking: anything that focuses your attention in a concrete way helps you get out of your head.

Body, heart, mind: everything is connected

A restless mind can create tension in the body.
A poor diet can affect our mood.
Repressed emotions can drain our energy.

But small daily actions can change everything.

I start my day with a walk and a protein-rich breakfast.

What action will you choose to take today?

💡 Want even more tips to boost your energy every day?
📥 Download “21 wellness tips” for free to take care of yourself, simply and sustainably!

“Managers, stop striving for perfection!” – Article

Being promoted to manager is a great step in your career. It is recognition of a solid track record, expertise or strong commitment. But this role cannot be improvised. And if there is one thing to deconstruct when taking on this new position, it is perfectionism.

Contrary to popular belief, perfectionism is not simply a desire to do a good job. It stems from a fear: the fear of doing something wrong, of being judged, criticised, or not being up to the task. To protect oneself from this, the reflex is to want to control everything, master everything, anticipate everything. This is a costly strategy, which may still work as an individual contributor, but quickly becomes untenable – even dangerous – once one takes on a managerial role.

Why? Because a manager cannot do everything. It is no longer a question of executing tasks or being an expert in one’s field, but of coordinating, uniting and guiding a team towards collective goals. And to do that, you need to know how to prioritise, delegate, say no, manage uncertainty… All skills that perfectionists often struggle to mobilise.

Recognising perfectionism

A perfectionist manager tends to want to keep control of everything. They think: ‘It will be quicker if I do it myself’, ‘I can’t delegate, it takes too long and it won’t be done the way I want it’, ‘Asking for help means admitting that I’m not up to the job…’

The result: excessive workload, chronic fatigue, stress, isolation… and sometimes burnout.

But perfectionism doesn’t just hurt the manager: it also holds back the team. A manager who doesn’t trust others, who controls everything, who leaves no room for initiative, prevents their employees from growing. The atmosphere becomes tense, autonomy is stifled, creativity is curbed. This generates frustration, loss of autonomy and a decline in energy within the team. Some managers become rigid and authoritarian without even realising it, convinced that it is ‘for the good of the project’.

Added to this is another pitfall: the fear of not being liked. Because some perfectionists also seek to please. In addition to ‘doing everything perfectly’, they also want to ‘be perfect’ in order to be appreciated by everyone. Saying no then becomes difficult. Setting boundaries is seen as a risk. However, a manager is not there to please, but to help people grow. They are not there to shine, but to help others shine.

Successful delegation and trust

A good manager knows how to draw on the talents of their team. They step out of their role as an expert to become a mentor, facilitator and leader. They create a climate of trust, motivate others around a shared vision and enable everyone to give their best. To do this, they must learn to let go of control, trust, listen and guide without micromanaging. They must accept that they cannot control everything in order to create a high-performing team.

In my coaching sessions, I often meet managers who are trapped by their perfectionism: tired, overwhelmed and frustrated at not being able to ‘do everything right’. And I meet demotivated employees, lacking in energy, held back by a manager who doesn’t give them any leeway.

Dear managers, here’s some advice to help you avoid getting lost in this demanding role: let go of your perfectionism. For your own sake, for your managerial performance, for your mental health and your work-life balance. You will feel lighter and more aligned, and your team will reap the full benefits.

Need help letting go of your perfectionism? Book your discovery session, I’d be happy to help you.

Exhaustion – Article

This is a cry from my heart.

Following two years of Covid pandemic, many people are experiencing emotional and/or physical breakdown.

They held on tight for a while in a very difficult context with a lot of fears and uncertainties, they held on and now that the pandemic is receding, they have the space to let go, to think about themselves, think about their lives… and they start to collapse.

I see a lot of people around me who stop working, handing over medical certificates, unable to carry on because they're too exhausted.

Most of them are women.

Indeed, during this period, gender inequalities were glaring and women, much more than men, managed most of the household: home schooling, cleaning, taking care of children,... all while working at the same time.

I wonder when we will realise that gender equality is far from being achieved.

Yes, we have the right to vote, to study, to choose our career, to be free,...

Yes, but in reality, it is always up to women to take care of the household, shopping, children, family activities... And it's not just about doing it in addition to our work, but also thinking about it, organising it, coordinating it! The mental load is almost exclusively for us.

Should we talk about progress? I don’t know. I think that women are stuck for the moment.

And I think most husbands, fathers, men don't realise that.

And it's partly our fault (and at the same time it's not, because we were well educated and programmed by the system…)

We play superwomen.

We proud ourselves and we convince ourselves we can do it all.

We don't delegate because it takes time and anyway it will not be done as we want it to.

We manage everything.

We control.

And at some point, it's way too much.

Ladies, we are caregivers, it is in our nature but the problem is when we care too much about others (and what they might think of us) and too little about ourselves.

Gentlemen, open your eyes, observe your house, do the exercise of listing all the invisible and repetitive tasks that your wives, sisters, daughters do without you realising it, as if it were completely normal.

We cannot do everything.

And if we do, at some point, we will crumble.

“When I burned out…” – Article

The term "burnout" is sometimes misused, so I'm going to be careful when using it.

Nevertheless, I want to share with you my experience of burnout because it was an important period in my life that taught me a lot about myself and led me to my new career as a coach.

Here is the story of my burnout, as best as I can remember.

I hope it will be useful to you.

This article is also available in French.

It started like this: “I am feeling so cold! ”

Of course, there had been some signs that I wasn’t at my best; I was pretty tired, a bit emotional as well and I was having second thoughts about my work.

Nevertheless I kept going.

On my birthday, after a small celebration at work, I went back home and then I felt really cold.

My hands and my feet were super cold, it felt like there was no blood flowing there anymore. It was pretty strange.

So I took a warm bath, I put my pyjamas and a robe, I went to bed with the robe, under one blanket, two blankets,…

It didn’t help, I was so cold that my entire body was shaking.

It was not the first time my body was telling me to slow down. I was suffering from angina the summer before and I knew then that I had to take care of myself.

But this time I felt something different, new, odd, definitely abnormal. I had to acknowledge what I was fighting against for weeks; something was wrong.

“I am not really ill…”

I called off sick for one week. The doctor said I was exhausted and I needed to rest.

Panic at the office since two persons working on the same project were already diagnosed with burnout.

I spent one week at home, going back to the basics; sleeping, eating, taking a walk, enjoying my little one (my son of 1,5 years at the time definitely helped me in this journey to take perspective on what really mattered !), and thinking about the nonsense of what was happening at work.

But during that week, I kept thinking; “I am not sure why I am at home, I am not ill, I am functioning normally”.

So I went back to work.

“I want a coach!”

Luckily, I had the presence of mind to ask for some support. I was a bit vindictive. As the work had put me in this difficult situation, I wanted reparation and I requested to have a coach.

Of course it was absolutely necessary for me to get support as I was trying to keep it together but I was emotionally distressed (crying almost every day at work…) and my self-confidence had plunged. In a way, I had to reconstruct a part of me that was broken.

I thank myself today to have asked for a coach as it helped me beyond expectations…

Why did I burnout?

Looking back, I think there was a mix of contextual and personal elements that lead me to exhaustion;

the superwoman syndrome
a misalignment with my own values
no distinction between myself, my role and the context

Let me clarify…

1. Superwoman syndrome

Just back from maternity leave, I wanted to prove myself that I could manage it all; having a baby and resuming my career where I left it. I had defined pretty clearly the rules of the game before jumping on this new project; I had to pick-up my son at the daycare everyday so my workday would be from 8am to 5pm and this was accepted. So, I thought it was going pretty well (even if I was running, running and running,…) and after 8 months back, I got promoted!

But being promoted meant more pressure; I had to be a role-model for the company and the project. And it is probably when it went sideways… I wanted to prove I had deserved the promotion (a slight imposter syndrome as well…) by being an example for the team and I started to execute what was asked from me even though I wasn’t completely in agreement with what was going on with the project…

2. Misalignment with my values

So, I knew or at least I felt something was wrong but I thought I just needed to try harder.

During the coaching sessions, I realised I didn’t know myself and my values…

So of course it was difficult for me to name and point out clearly what felt wrong to me. Discovering my personality type and the values that were important to me helped me to understand why certain things were not acceptable to me on the project.

I realised that I had worked all this time against myself and there was no wonder it led me to self-doubt and exhaustion.

3. Me, my role and my context

I also realised during the sessions that I had made a big mixture of me (as a person), my role on the project and my work environment.

I was constantly self-reflecting on myself and my abilities to be a project manager as those two were only one thing. And I never thought of taking some perspective on the environment I was in.

I had to learn to dissociate myself from my role and from the context I was in.

“I am leaving”

When it became clear to me that I couldn’t continue working on the project as it had became a toxic environment for myself, I took my courage and asked to leave.

Of course, it wasn’t easy, I was an important resource and I was promised things would change and I would have another role. Furthermore, I knew leaving the project was probably not a smart move career wise…

Despite this and because I couldn’t picture myself there anymore without feeling anxious, without seeing the future only in black colours, I completed my work and left quietly the project…

Clearly, the team felt I was abandoning the ship but my decision was taken as it was a question of survival.

“I was right”

I jumped on another project where I could rebuild my confidence, take it more slowly, value myself and my expertise and be surrounded by a more positive environment.

A few months later, my previous project ended abruptly. The full team went back to the office, so disappointed of being let go after so much effort and so much energy. There was so much disappointment, anger and sadness.

I felt sorry for all of them and at the same time so relieved. After all, I had been right to follow my intuition and leave the project, It was not just my imagination, the project was a toxic place and it didn’t end well.

A strangely wrapped gift…

This was a difficult experience. A tiring one. A period with a lot of self-doubts.

But I am truly grateful for it as it shaped me as a person and as a coach.

This experience of burnout led me to discover myself, to seek for self-development growth and to become a coach myself.

I would like to conclude with 3 pieces of advice;

1. If one day you feel something is wrong and you start doubting yourself more than usual, if you are becoming tired, emotional, having different behaviors than usual, it is probably that your mind and your body are trying to tell you something. Listen to yourself.

2. It is good to question oneself as a mean to improve but it is also important to reflect on the environment you are in; maybe you are not the issue, maybe it is the context.

3. In doubt, seek opportunities to talk about your situation outside the system. It is only outside the system that you will be able to get perspective.

If you feel like you're burning out, don't stay alone, ask for help.

Let's discuss how you can overcome this period of your life and make it a strength!