It’s incredible how we don’t realize the amount of energy it takes to weather constant changes in life. After I learned about this term “transition fatigue” I realized I often encourage and recommend that my clients avoid too much change at once. However, in my own life I’m constantly undergoing change, which is exhausting and has worsened my burnout symptoms. I’m curious how you have experienced change management, or how you feel mentally and physically when undergoing change.
Transition fatigue is this exhausted feeling, being overwhelmed or just overall disconnected due to navigating constant change. Something that I'm constantly finding myself encouraging is no change or single simple changes over time. Sometimes I probably need to do that for myself more and more.
How do you navigate change? How do you feel your ability to weather change and adjustments and being flexible actually impacts you mentally or physically? The idea of sitting still versus changing something and then waiting for the opportunity to arise.
Hey, Cadre. One of the things that I really wanted to use this platform to talk about and hear from others about is that feeling of being a hypocrite when you're a healthcare provider. Because there's so many things that I say and I recommend and that I know from the science, but even in my own life, I have a harder time applying. So when I say it to other people, sometimes I'm like a little bit of an imposter. You know, I'm not necessarily always doing that for myself. So I came across this noun or this phrase known as transition fatigue.
Basically what it is is this exhausted feeling, being overwhelmed or just overall disconnected due to navigating constant change. So in sessions and working with folks with eating disorders and comorbid psychiatric disorders, something that I'm constantly finding myself encouraging is no change or single simple changes over time. Like, let's not stress ourselves out by trying to change too many things because then if something doesn't work out, we don't actually know what the cause was. Let's say find the low hanging fruit.
Let's do something that's approachable and then over time with smaller successes, we can culminate to longer term changes and longer term goal accomplishments. But in my life, I feel like I am the king of radical change at this point. I've undergone so many cross country moves and I've changed jobs a number of times and I've changed partners a number of times and feels like there's no stability. And so what I'm finding is that I am relatively young, but I'm tired, I'm very tired and I'm burnt out socially really easily and professionally really easily.
And I'm wondering if it's because I'm constantly going through this change where there's nothing for me to fall back on. So when I think about how I apply this in my treatment and how I work with my clients, sometimes I probably need to do that for myself more and more. So I'm curious from you all, how do you navigate change? Or how do you feel your ability to weather change and adjustments and being flexible actually impacts you mentally or physically? Because I've also talked before in previous videos about the idea of stillness and the challenge of doing nothing and kind of just sitting and letting things happen around you before you make a decision to act.
So in this case that also would make sense, right? The idea of sitting still versus changing something and then waiting for the opportunity to arise instead of exhausting yourself even further.
