Everything You Need To Know BEFORE You Hire a Burnout Coach
Recently, I had the honor of being featured in a New York Times article about burnout coaches and burnout coaching…
But I’ll be the first to admit that this article was a little bit on the superficial side and not what I thought it would be. Frankly, it was surface level, from the quotes it pulled, the things that were highlighted. Heck, it talked about burnout in the same way that hundreds of other articles have:
Presenting the World Health Organization’s (lacking) definition
Highlighting the sheer volume of people who suffer from burnout
Discussing the lack of resources available for people who are experiencing burnout
Drawing attention to how ineffective previously used corporate strategies are
So, let’s DIVE DEEPER and let’s clear some things up in the form of some common FAQs…
Now, let’s Talk about the COMMON BURNOUT MYTHS…
I’d say “sorry” if I call you out on any of the beliefs, but I’m honestly not because we need to know that these things aren’t true. I felt as called on them as you might, but that’s an important step in our burnout recovery journey…
So, let’s check out some of these common burnout beliefs…
“If I find a new job, I won’t feel stressed/burned out anymore”. This is my least favorite piece of burnout advice. Quitting your job often doesn’t help.
“I just need to suck it up and it will go away.” Burnout recovery takes lifestyle changes and if we don’t make those changes, it likely won’t got away but get worse.
“It’s my boss/employer/co-workers/clients/businesses that is/are causing my burnout feelings and symptoms.” This is where the WHO does us dirty because they say that burnout is an occupation phenomenon and I disagree. Burnout is holistic.
“I’ll just take something to fix/treat this.” Taking time off is great, but when you’re a high-achiever, sometimes its your very habits, behaviors, and mindsets that are leading you to burnout.
“If I ‘slack off,’ relax, or let myself off the hook, I won’t reach my goals.” We’re so afraid that if we let off with the effort, the shame, the unrealistic expectations that we place on ourselves that we’ll become complacent. Honestly, more often than not we burn ourselves our in pursuit of not wanting to become complacent.
“I can only create the success I want if I hustle.” Hustle doesn’t work because it’s not sustainable. We cannot keep it up long-term and that’s the problem because we have unspoken expectations that we should be able to.
What are the Signs and Common Behaviors we Engage in When Trying to Cope with Burnout…
There are 4 different types of burnout, which I describe more here, but I’ll try to summarize some of the core signs and symptoms to look for (including the things we might say to ourselves) here:
Feeling exhausted all the time
Getting sick frequently (or having difficulty recovering from an illness)
Inability to turn off
“I turn my brain off when it’s time to fall asleep”
“I feel like I have too many tabs open in my brain”
Analysis Paralysis
Absolutely language (“always”, “never”, “every”, etc.)
Emotional reactivity (quick to tears or quick to anger/snappy at people)
An uptick in numbing behaviors—drinking, eating, cigarettes or other substance abuse, crappy reality TV, etc.
“I can’t bring myself to go out and socialize”
“I just don’t care anymore about ______” (apathy, disinterest, lack of motivation, etc.)
“I can’t do this anymore”
“I’m at the end of my rope/at wit’s end”
“I just want to get away”
Feeling a lack of challenge or engagement in your life/work
Feeling like you're "going through the motions"
Burnout is not prescriptive. You don’t need to have all of these to be experiencing burnout because burnout affects everyone in a unique way.
You could have the same business, job, or career as someone else and work the same number of hours, but the way in which burnout manifests might be different.
Frequently Asked Questions re: Working with
a Burnout Coach
-
Whenever you enter into a coaching relationship, there are several red flags to look out for.
A Coaching Contract. A legitimate coaching business should be utilizing coaching contracts and this coaching contract isn’t just meant to protect the coach, but to protect you as the client too. It should include things like confidentiality and, optional but definitely good, it should make some reference to following the ICF code of ethics. In my opinion, this is important even if the coach is not ICF credentialed.
Offering to cure ailments in the psychological space. This is super important. Coaches are NOT therapists and there work should never cross into the therapy space. In fact, this is something I would look for in contracts and other on-boarding materials.
They have no training. The coach you’re working with should be certified, preferably by an ICF-accredited training program. This is important purely because it means that they know the standards of the industry and know how to be a coach. Additionally, if your coach has niched down into burnout and stress management, they should likely have certification or credibility beyond their own experience. So, I would just stop at determining if they’re a certified life coach or professional coach. They should likely also have specialized certifications in burnout, stress, and similar.
Failure to Outline limitations and how they will handle certain issues if they arise. To paint a picture of what I mean here, my contract details my methodology, call procedure, cancellation policies, disclaimers, how to handle disagreements or problems, etc.
They should engage in continuing development. And this should not just be business development. This should be continuing education and development in the niche of burnout and stress management. One thing I loved about my Precision Nutrition certification is that to maintain that certification, I have to do continuing education. Love that!
Feeling pressured or manipulated. Shady coaching practice exist. I don’t doubt that. But your coach should not be pressuring you or manipulating you into your coaching package or into any of the practices they’re encouraging you to do.
Unable to show a code of ethics they abide by. Again, I include a reference to the ICF code of ethics and definition of coaching in my coaching contracts. If they can’t reference something like that, then they’re likely not a coach you should be working with.
Unable to answer what underpinning evidence or science informs the approach they take and methods they use. This is something that I believe is super important. Scientific terms and the phrase “scientifically proven” are thrown around like marketing hacks now in the business space, and, frankly, it’s bullshit. I fully recognize that there are some things that science will never study. In fact, some of the studies I reference were crowd-funded. I use the phrase “evidence-based” intentionally because some of what I do has science behind it and some of what I do has anecdotal evidence behind it.
Additionally, there are some things you need to think about when it comes to choosing your coach and some of the most important considerations:
The Coaches Results. With burnout, relatability is important. The coach needs to have gone through their own experience with burnout to really understand what it takes to beat it.
Coaching Testimonials. It’s important to look for a coach who can expand their work beyond themselves, especially if they are charging more. Charging more means they have a system that’s been ironed out and tested on other individuals. They should not be their only result.
Contact time. Do you have enough time for a coaching relationship? You’ll like need 1-2 hours per week to meet with your coach. Plus, you’ll also need some time outside of the coaching relationship to do your homework.
Homework. You should expect that your coach is going to assign you some homework. This could take as little as a minute to as much as a couple hours. It really depends process and fundamentals.
Budget. Don’t work with a coach you can’t afford. It’s down to that. Coaches charge more based on their expertise, so there is a balance to the coach you choose. It has to be a coach you can afford but also a coach that has the expertise that you need.
-
One of the points that was reiterated in the New York Times piece was the notion that coaching is an unregulated industry that “anyone can hang their shingle” and that burnout coaches have to “cobble together” certifications.
I want to address these notions because I think it’s important to understand the coaching industry.
Firstly, coaching is an unregulated industry, meaning that no government or academic entity regulates it. I won’t pretend that’s not the case, and frankly, I don’t know of any coach who isn’t aware of and transparent about that. But what does it even mean? To answer this question, I’m going to pull from a very well-written article from STRATA leadership on this exact topic…
"While it is accurate to say that coaching is unregulated in the sense that legal licensure is not required to practice, it isn’t entirely accurate to say that there isn’t any oversight, standards, or self-regulatory systems in place."
There’s a false assumption, though, that credentialling somehow guarantees quality. It doesn’t. I mean, should a C-med student who got an MD really be out there practicing medicine on patients? Probably not.That being said, any coach who has gone through a program accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) is abiding by the standards in place in the coaching industry.
There is a difference, though, between being certified and ICF-credentialed. Someone who is certified holds a certification from a coaching program. Sometimes you might see a coach say ICF-certified. Frankly, this is a gray area to me and seems to imply that the person holds one certification (or multiple certifications) from an ICF-accredited coaching program.
However, both of these are different than ICF-accredited. ICF accreditation for individual coaches comes in 3 levels or tiers—Associate Certified Coach (ACC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC), and Master Certified Coach (MCC). Basically, the 3 tiers differ by:
How much Coaching Education you’ve done (ranging from 60-200+ hours)
How much mentor coaching (from 10-20+ hours)
Completion of a Performance Evaluation
Hours of Coaching Experience (from 100-2000+ hours of coaching experience)
Completion of an ICF-credentialing exam
Frankly, the cost of coaching programs is a limiting factor for many people who can’t undergo the rigorous accreditation process, and many choose to pursue certification when they start rather than accreditation.
So, I hope that clears things up.
But, what about the notion of “cobbling together” certifications? Just like any other field, burnout and stress management is a specialization that a coach might choose to pursue. Do coaches need to pursue those specializations? No. As Corry Robertson said, “Many professional coaches have a specialty, and that is perfectly ethical if the coach is qualified in the subspecialty.”
Usually, they start with general coaching certifications in the same way a career, executive, or life coach might. Heck, in the same way a medical doctor might. All medical doctors start with an MD, don’t they? Then, they add specializations, residencies, etc. on top of that. Coaches are doing the same thing, but they’re specializing through continuing education and additional certifications.
To paint a picture, I have been coaching for 10 years. I have certifications from the iNLP Institute and from the World Coach Institute, one of which is a CPC—Certified Professional Coach. Since these initial certifications, I’ve done multiple other coaching certifications from ICF-accredited programs in stress management, stress, sleep, and recovery, and sleep management. You can find out more about my certifications here.
-
Yes, absolutely. But, here’s the analogy I always use.
Let’s say you were climbing a mountain for the first time. You’ve never climbed it, your relatively new at being a climber, and you’re already feeling low on energy, overwhelmed, and just unmotivated juggling all the things that you’ve already had to juggle just to arrive at the base of this mountain. To climb the mountain, you need to read the map, look out for obstacles, carry all your gear, etc., yourself. You can do it. But it’s a lot harder. It might take you longer and it might be way more exhausting and overwhelming. You might even make mistakes that could cost you.
Now, what if you hired a guide. Someone who has climbed this mountain not once, not twice, but dozens of times before and helped others do the same. They read the map. They look out for obstacles. They carry your gear and set up your tent and lay all the ropes you need. They even cook you food! You still climb the mountain, but they take all the logistics off your plate and give you all the moutaineering best practices along the way.
It’s the same thing here. So, yes, you can. But the question is, do you want to?
-
One of my clients told me that she answered this for the aforementioned New York Times article and she said something along the lines of, “I wouldn’t go to a surgeon that doesn’t specialize in the type of surgery I need. It’s the same thing here.”
A life coach may be able to help, but the fact of the matter is, life coaches are generalists. Burnout and stress management might not be their primary area of knowledge or expertise. Therefore, their skills may be limited.
It’s the same thing with a career coach, practitioner, or career guidance counselor. Burnout and stress management is not their expertise.
A work-life balance coach, though? Honestly, to me this might just be a semantic when it comes to the name this coach came to employe. A work-life balance coach is definitely more equipped, but I would again check their level of experience the depth of education they’ve done in the field.
-
How long you need depends upon the depth of burnout you’re experiencing. It’s similar to weight loss in the sense that if you’re not too far off your goals and only need a subtle course correction, you might only need 1 session. However, if you’re more in the depths of burnout, you might work with a coach for a minimum of 90-days to upwards of 6 months to a year.
Ultimately, it’s up to you and what you think you need. It also might be based on the level of confidence and comfort you have with your coach and if you feel they’re the right fit, style, personality, and have the right expertise to support you.
Just like health and weight loss, you need to consistently do the work and make them a part of your lifestyle, so however long it takes you to do that!
-
A coach may suggest supplements, but it’s important to ensure that the coach has knowledge of the supplements and the science behind them as opposed to making recommendations haphazardly.
However, a burnout or mental health coach should not and is not able to make recommendations for medication. Coaches are not doctors and that is far outside of the realm of their expertise.
A good coach, in my opinion, should work with tactics, strategies, mindset and behavior shifts primarily, as opposed to medicating or supplementing the issue. Burnout can be overcome with lifestyle changes at that is primarily what a good coach should focus on using.
-
Some coaches have and do say that you can (and should) expect complete elimination of burnout-related thoughts, feelings, sensations, an symptoms.
I say, that’s a guarantee that coaches cannot and should not be making. In fact, in the next question I talk about red flags and, frankly, this is one of them.
The results you can and should expect depend upon the depth of the coaching you experienced (i.e. how long you worked together) and the depth of the work you’ve done outside of the session. Burnout recovery and transformation does not happen through osmosis and you will have to put in substantial work and make substantial changes outside of your coaching session to recover.
What about after the program? My goal is always to get my clients to the point of becoming “burnout-proof”, meaning that they are absolutely burnout resilient. Stressful situations, jobs, seasons, etc. that used to affect them no longer do. However, even this depends upon if the client maintains the changes, habits, routines, behaviors, and mindsets that the coaching program established.
For a lot of achievers, this work that you need to be plugged into for life. Yes, you can falter occasionally, but we’re making lifestyle shifts. The burnout program should help integrate those lifestyle changes, but after the coaching relationship has ended it’s the clients responsibility to maintain those.
-
Honestly, no. And that might be disheartening to hear, but that should actually be a red flag for any service provider that you hire. Coaches and consultants cannot guarantee results from their transformation and if they do, they’re probably making a bold-faced lie to get you to buy or to shift the perceived value of their coaching.
This is why my answer is no—coaching is a partnership. A collaboration. A coach or consultant can help a client make shifts, provide them with expertise, etc. But, you cannot guarantee results because the results also depend on the person. It is up to the client to implement the things they’re learning and, frankly, that is not something that is within the coaches control.
-
Coaching sessions can be as little as 30 minutes up to 2 hours, depending on what you arrange with your coach and how you and your coach work best. There’s really no right or wrong way to do things in terms of your coaching session length.
Outside of the coaching session, it depends on the coach and there methodology but I would say budget for 1-3 hours each week.
-
In my opinion, a burnout coach helps you by calling out the habits, mindsets, behaviors, etc. that are contributing to your burnout and help you reframe and fix these things. If you have a mindset of “I have to hustle to succeed,” you coach will help you navigate that mindset, reframe it, and show you what boundaries and shifts need to be put in place in your life to no longer operate under that belief. If you struggle with making decisions, your coach will help you create a framework for helping you better and more efficient make the decisions you need.
Most good coaches have a framework. For example, mine is the Sustainable Success Framework, which I’ll be publishing the details of on the blog soon. This framework has 3 core pillars—systems, self-care, and mindset. So, as a coach, that’s how I’ll help you stop or avoid burnout.
-
Working with a true burnout specialist, you could feel changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors within days, hours, and even minutes. These might not be a sudden reversal of your high cortisol levels within 1 hour of your first coaching session, but the shifts that usually start happening in your mindset.
Again, think of this like a weight loss program. It might take a few weeks before more obvious changes occur, and the progress might not be linear.
-
Like I said in a previous question, most good coaches have a framework and that framework usually services clients in multiple different ways. For example, mine is the Sustainable Success Framework, which I’ll be publishing the details of on the blog soon. This framework has 3 core pillars—systems, self-care, and mindset. So, as a coach, that’s how I’ll help you stop or avoid burnout.
Additionally, your coach will likely have multiple different ways in which they support people, through:
1-on-1 Coaching
Webinars
Online Courses
Live Seminars or Training Sessions
Self-Guided Programs
Workshops
In-House Training
PDF Downloads
Books or E-Books
Checklists
Worksheets or Workbooks
-
Generally speaking, most clients pay out-of-pocket to work with a burnout coach. In some instances, clients might be able to use personal or professional development funds granted by their institution to pay for their coaching.
In terms of insurance, though, I would say that’s much more rare. It does depend upon your insurance and level of coverage, but considering most insurance doesn’t fully cover therapy, it’s unlikely it will cover coaching.
-
Yes! Most coaches work virtually and, frankly, in the realm of burnout, I think it’s important you do because the added stress and time commitment of needing to meet up can often feel like “too much” for someone in overwhelm.
The most important thing is the FIT of the coach with the client.
-
This is a little bit of an "it depends" situation. How burned out are you?
For most severely burned out people, time away is simple not enough!
Yes, a retreat might be a nice pause button allowing you to rest and recuperate, but what about when the retreat is over and you have to go back to your life?
I generally don't recommend a retreat because it's a short-term solution to a long-term problem and work doesn't just stop. Life doesn't just stop. The things that are burning you out aren't going to go away if you do.
Instead, we have to find a way to be more resilient to our stressors, decrease our stressors, and/or better handle them and that doesnt' happen when we remove ourselves from those stressors.
So, generally working with a coach is going to be a better option.
-
I'm going to dive much more deeply into this in this blog. But, until then, here's my answer.
Therapists/Counselors treat mental illness. Coaches do not.
Therapists and counselors tend to be more past-focused, whereas coaches have more of a future orientation.
There's payment differences. Psychotherapy and counseling usually falls under something insurance would cover, while coaching often doesn't.
There's deeper levels of accreditation in therapy and counselling, typically requiring a degree, supervised practice, and continuing education. Coaching on the other hand has no governing body. I've addressed coaching accreditation and how it works in a question closer to the top of the FAQ.
The accessibility and availability of counsellors and therapists might be smaller. Therapists are only licensed to work in specific states, via specific mediums, and only offer specific skills. Coaches have much more leniency with how they operate.
As it relates to burnout, a therapist or counsellor would typically heavily focus on the mind and on understanding why you think and operate the way you do.
With coaching, though understanding why is helpful, awareness is often the most important step when it comes to coaching. A coach will help you create plans for implementaiton, shift habits and mindsets, create better systems, etc. The coach gives you the plan whereas the therapist might igve you more understanding.
-
A good coach should. In fact, a confidentiality clause should be something that is in a coaches contract when you start working with them.
-
Going to see a Doctor about burnout is usually the first place people will go for help, but a General Practitioner (GP) is just that… a generalist. So, they will often refer you to a specialist for more support unless they consider your burnout to be "mild."
The issue often when it comes to using a doctor for burnout support is we have a woefully short amount of time with our doctor's, at least in the U.S. and they often only have the time to give you very general lifestyle advice (exericse, get more sleep, take a vacation, etc.) and, as we know is an issue in American medicine, might simply default to prescribing you medication.
The medication might help, but it's a bandaid solution to a more deeply rooted problem and doesn't help you shift your lifestyle away from one that isn't burning you out. Why? Doctors often don't have the time or capacity to help us do that AND they don't/can't provide the accountability that a coach can.
-
There are a number of other professionals you might look to to support you through burnout--a counselor, psychologist, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, occupational health psychologist, etc.
But which one you might want to see depends on your goals for your burnout recovery.
Are you looking for someone to talk to about your burnout, more so than looking for strategies? A licensed counselor might be a good option. They can talk you through your burnout and other problems you're facing at work or in life. Often, workplace problems like Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are a place to start to seek out this support and often is covered by insurance.
Now, in this situation, the counselor may not fully have the tools to deal with burnout, specifically, but emotional processing is a hugely productive tool for emotional burnout, so it can help.
If you're looking for someone with tools and techniques who has a degree, a burnout psychologist might be a good option. They can help you arrive at practical solutions and lifestyle changes, and might be trained in cognitive tools like CBT that might be beneficial.
A clinical psychologist might be a good options for someone who has severe burnout that has been left untreated. Clinical psychologists support person with more advanced mental health challenges. They'll support us in challenging and navigating our beliefs and can leverage mind techniques to sift through and shift our thoughts and feelings.
If your'e seeking a medical intervention for your burnout, a psychiatrist might be who you want to seek out. Pychiatrists are like "burnout doctors". They can perscribe medicine for burnout, whereas the other professions discuss cannot. However, their expertise can also extend to helping you get to the root cause of your burnout.
The one caveat of this is that burnout is not currently recognized as a medical diagnosis in the DSM-5, which is what these professionals will use for diagnoses. It is diagnoses as an occupation phenomenon. So that does hinder some things. You can read more about what burnout is here.
Something to consider with all of these is the time and money it might take to work with medical professionals. It takes me months to get in with my doctor and there are limits to my insurance coverage. That can be a limiting factor for many people to get the help they need.
