Do you want a way to professionally grow and acquire new skills without the burnout?

Most likely you yearn for this and are reading this article because you feel stuck, overwhelmed and unfulfilled. You are in a job or in a career or running a business that you feel very drained by and in so deep that you feel you have dug yourself in and buried in like it is your grave and it will take a lifetime to dig yourself out of. Yet you dream of the day you will dig yourself out and sense that freedom you know exists. And you know that freedom will be attained by acquiring new skills so you can grow professionally.

You feel very stagnant professionally. The thing is the dream you have of retraining or acquiring new skills just seems so unachievable and impossible and so far away and you know it requires so much time and energy

Time and energy you feel you just don’t have. Well the truth of the matter is you do. Just because you feel you don’t, doesn’t make that true.

Often acquiring new skills and growing professionally can be done whilst we are in an existing job or existing career or running an existing business.

Often many who have been in a career or running a business for several years or decades, want a radical change.

Usually announcing the departure from the established career or business threatens those close to you.

And the support you were expecting does not consolidate.

I would advise that if the radical change is not a passing fancy but a dream you had from a very young age perhaps when you were a child, then is to run with it.

To take the opportunities you find about to acquire the new skills and retrain.

I would suggest you listen to that calling.

It is a calling isn’t it?

At first the calling was distant and very faint.

When you heard that it is time to set up that new business or retrain into the new career….you dismissed it as absurd.

But it is not absurd.

It is coming from deep within your soul.

And what happens when we don’t heed that calling is that we actually become more burnt out.

Did you know one of the signs and symptoms of burnout is BOREDOM.

Now if you are absolutely loving your job or running your business you would not be reading this article.

Think about it. Would you?

You know what I am saying there’s a grain of truth to it.

We all have our good and bad days but really being bored by our job or business is not a good vibe and really a very dangerous position to be in 

Yes let me say it again it is very dangerous.

Sure the money is coming in But your customers can feel your BOREDOM on one level. And if you have clients they can feel your boredom especially if you are in a caring profession. And if you are in the creative industry, your audience or your collaborators can feel your boredom.

Actually I care because your customers if you have a business are feeling it and your clients if you are in the caring profession are feeling it or your audience if you are in the creative industry are feeling it.

And it can lead to a downward spiral.

When your client or customer does not feel cared for, that client or customer will go somewhere else eventually. Not straight away but eventually. That means your business revenue will decrease. It could also lead to a reduction in productivity.

I wish employers would have mandatory training on burnout.

It would save so much money in sickpay and lead to staff retention.

I wish businesses big, large or small would have training in burnout. It would leave to more money being made and that is good for all, the more money being circulated, the more economies grow.

Unfortunately most employers are usually more focused regarding productivity and usually pay lip service to investing in systems to prevent burnout.

And systems is all that is needed really to prevent burnout. Systems after extensive training on understanding the various different aspects of burnout and being able to identify signs and symptoms of burnout.

And businesses are all about making money.

When we widen our perspectives and are open to learning about burnout and how it can affect productivity and staff retention, this leads to an upward spiral.

There is a ripple effect as burnout just doesn’t affect physical health, it affects mental health and social relationships and marriages and parenting and spiritual health. It affects not just the individual and individual family but the team the individual is in and the community.

Unfortunately boredom is not easy to recognise. The individual usually doesn’t the employer usually doesn’t the individual’s partner usually doesn’t or the individual’s family usually doesn’t.

Yet it is one of the early signs of burnout. Boredom is usually a sign that you are not living a fulfilled life and that you lack FULFILLMENT.

I know this personally.

Having been a social worker working with children and young people in London UK since 1991 it was around 2016 that I began to feel bored of being a social worker.

In 2016 I delivered a lecture at an international interfaith conference. The lecture was entitled God’s voice in a secular society and it was well received by the audience that comprised of LEADERS namely rabbis, pastors, imams and professors. It really kindled my passion for writing and getting published and also a desire to speak publicly regarding topics that I feel passionately about. However at the time I didn’t feel I had time to do any of those activities part time. This was because I have a very stressful job as a part time social worker. I buried these desires including the desire I have had and the dream I have had of becoming a published poet since I was a teenager.

However I found I could not keep the dream buried in 2017.

No matter how much I tried. I started searching for a sense of purpose which my job no longer gave me.

It is a job that is deeply admirable but working with young people in the criminal justice system, somehow did not fulfil me anymore like it used to.

I did not know that at the time.

This was an unconscious conversation that was going on inside of me.

It became a conscious conversation when I found myself on a family visit to Karachi in August 2017 saying a prayer out loud that I have never prayed before. This prayer was oh God give me a purposeful life. And the conversation inside of me became conscious because I slowed down in Karachi. The pace I lived my life slowed down so much I was able to feel very clearly my feelings and hear very clearly my thoughts. Perhaps because in Karachi, I did not run around doing washing and cooking and cleaning and buying groceries. Also because I was not working as a social worker. I attribute also that this conversation became conscious because I didn’t take any thick book to read or study or any notes for me to write up or type up or any writing project to follow through or complete. All I can remember is taking a very small notebook to journal in and a very thin copy of a small collection of Rumi’s poetry. And a translation of the Holy Quran. Being a personal development addict which I also was unconscious of back then, I am quite shocked by the fact I packed so lightly.

However I am so grateful for the fact that I did. This slowing down and simplifying my activities to only reading these books and engaging in journaling and brief Qur’an reading really was the catalyst that led me to embark on a spiritual alchemy quest. And this led me to live the fulfilled life I live now. It had led me to have the work life balance I have now. 

I didn’t know it then but I know it now.

Also I recall taking an afternoon siesta in Karachi during most afternoons during this family visit. This also facilitated the rapid and lasting transformation that occurred internally and externally in my life. This commitment to self-care also contributed to this rapid and lasting transformation. Finally the practice of sitting in silence which I have done for a few minutes every day since I was in my early twenties well basically since the mid 1990s, also served as a catalyst to my rapid and lasting transformations.

The rapid and lasting transformation occurred in most aspects of my life. These being psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, physically and financially. Seven months later in February 2018 I emerged as a woman that those close to me barely recognised. The transformation that occurred could best be described as the dark night of the soul but it wasn’t one night. It took seven months and resulted in me taking such drastic and radical action that when I think of it now, I find it so remarkable that I had the courage to do what I did. Because it led me to question everything I ever believed to be true about what I really wanted and about my purpose in life. Embarking on the spiritual alchemy quest resulted in me doubting if I wanted to  stay being a social worker, stay in my current job. The only thing I didn’t doubt was the existence of God. It really was a very stormy period of my life and it felt very destabilizing. I know now that it was an existential crisis I went through.  I was 48 at the time perhaps it was a mid life crisis. Whatever it was I know I had to embark upon it because I felt if I didn’t a part of me would die. I felt I had no choice and although I did not know where I was going or what it would lead to, I knew in my bones that it was a journey I needed to take.. there were four journeys I took at the time.. one was the personal alchemy journey which I have mentioned which resulted in me engaging in the four S’s

The four S’s indeed result in rapid and lasting transformations I e you embarking on the spiritual alchemy quest.

The four S’s are not easy to do though for high achievers and high performers because many of us live such fast paced lives and we are either workalcholics or personal development addicts Both addictions I find are the cause of burnout and can also be when seeking FULFILLMENT. This is very paradoxical and can lead to being very stuck. Because what burns us out also fires us up and vice versa.

I found though questioning everything which ultimately quests results in results to discovering what you really want and that is what happened to me.

I discovered I was bored and I needed a challenge and it resulted in me hiring an Online Coach.. and although the hiring of this Coach ended up in me paying thousands of dollars, it was a financial investment I have no regrets in engaging in. Hiring this coach resulted in me saving so much money and time as I discovered my lack of FULFILLMENT did not arise because of lack of FULFILLMENT due to my personal relationships, they were not who boring me. I discovered I was actually bored by my job and I needed a challenge to channel all my creativity. I discovered as well as having this dream of being a published poet, I always had this dream of starting a business. So in January 2018 I started an online coaching business and started to retrain as a coach. Since 2018 I have learnt the following skills: copywriting, email and social media marketing, sales, search engine optimisation, website building, nurturing online communities, networking. Running an online business whilst being a social worker has not been easy but it has fueled me, energized me to become a leader in my job as a social worker and in the online space. Perhaps I was always a leader having gone into social work when few Pakistani Muslim women brought up in London were doing so. However entrepreneurship has taught me that you can indeed acquire new skills as a professional without the burnout. This is true when you are passionate about something. I am passionate about beating burnout in society and that is why I started my Online Coaching business. Since becoming an entrepreneur I have discovered I am a healer and I can facilitate rapid and lasting transformations within in individuals when teaching them the Four S’s these being

Slowing down

Sitting in silence

Simplifying

SELF Care

That is why I refer to myself as a Transformation Coach.

Transformational Coaching is facilitating transformations in any area. Because transforming in one area leads to transformation in another. As each area overlaps with another.

So if you want to transform I would encourage you to embark on the spiritual alchemy quest. Especially if you yearn for a fulfilled life.