Hey there! For this blog, I’m talking about a really important topic, how to prevent burnout for health coaches. This topic is not only for growing a profitable wellness business, but also to protect your own health and wellness and allow you to have the energy to do the things that light you up in life – like spending time with your family, going for hikes, going to your favorite yoga class, and all of those things.
Here’s What’s Not Often Talked About: Burnout In The Wellness Industry
This is because we’re all wellness practitioners. Maybe you call yourself a yoga teacher or
maybe you call yourself a massage therapist or body worker, a healthcare provider, wellness
practitioner – it doesn’t matter. We all teach health and wellness or healing-preventing injury and
in my mind, has to do with health and wellness or healing and preventing disease and illnesses
– all flavors of the same thing and spectrum of health and wellness, healing well, thriving, living
your best life. This is what we teach to others. This is our passion. This is how we show up to
serve for our communities and it means a lot to us.
Yet, what’s not talked about is how a lot of wellness entrepreneurs are burnout themselves.
They don’t want to admit it to themselves, or maybe they have an inkling of, “Oh, I’m starting to
feel the signs of burnout.” Meaning, they lack luster, maybe they don’t want to show up to their
sessions, and often, some signs of burnout, are you might start to resent your clients and the
patients that you want to serve so dearly.
Reasons Of Burnout In Wellness Practitioners
There are two reasons of burnout I see. Number one, is due to schedule, overworking, hustling,
often from a pressure to pay the bills, to do more, to be more, sometimes it stems from our own
beliefs and worthiness. This is one whole way to show up – in terms of overworking and
hustling. Sometimes fear of not being able to make ends meet as a wellness practitioner which
also has to do with the second big reason as to why I see burnout is because wellness
entrepreneurs don’t have a strong foundation for their business, a streamlined structure for their
business, or are not charging appropriately for their business.
Now I’m not saying you go out there and automatically raise your prices for private sessions, for
private classes that just seems astronomical in your mind. I’m not saying that at all because
there is a sweet spot for price of charging your worth so you don’t resent your people, so you
can pay the bills without overworking, and also meeting your people where they’re at and fitting
somewhat in the industry.
I’m not saying that you have to be the average price in the industry. Of course you can be an
outlier, there is a formula for that as well. This is all of what I teach in the Awaken one-to-one
intensive – figuring out that sweet spot of the price point for yourself so you’re not overworking,
you’re not hustling, you’re not hitting burnout.
Here’s the thing, if you hit burnout, then you can’t serve those in your community that you want
to serve so well. The whole reason why you became a wellness entrepreneur in the first place is
all for naught if you’re so exhausted, if your adrenals are so taxed out, if your body and your
own health is saying, uncle and tapping out, and you can’t show up to serve, your whole
passion is all for naught
Experiencing Burnout First-Hand
How do I know? I’ve been there. Some of you have heard my story. I had a successful on paper
profitable, six-figure, with profit – 60% profit and more, brick and mortar wellness and healing
business. It was wonderful because I was helping ton of people. I was leading yoga-teacher
trainings, I was leading classes, one-to-ones, and it was hustle and bustle. On paper, it looked
very profitable. But, in my life, I was nearing towards burnout.
Let me give you an example. For 14-15 hours a day, I am at the studio. I teach at 7am for a
yoga class meaning I have to be in the studio at 6:30 A.M., ready to go, to start and meet and
greet, check in the whole thing, finish that class, go do a couple private sessions. Then I would
have a noon yoga class, meaning I had to be there at 11:30 A.M., and by the time I showered
and what not – because it was a hot yoga class – it was about 1P.M. By the time I got back to my
studio, I would quickly cram something in my face to eat for lunch, and then I would see a few
more private sessions until about 5:30 or so and I would be exhausted. Somehow, I would have
to drum up my energies, and that’s where my adrenals really got taxed because my nervous
system was pretty tapped out, my energetic resources were pretty tapped out for the day. I had
to be down La Jolla in the which is a good half hour on a good day, 45 minutes, teach a 7:30
P.M. yoga class. I will get home around 9:30 or 10 at night. That was a normal Tuesday and it
was not sustainable.
The Negative Impact of Overworking
The reason why I was doing that was, number one, it was what my mentors did. They were
teaching yoga classes, squeezing in private sessions, teaching evening workshops, teaching
weekend trainings and intensives. It was what I saw my mentors doing so I thought it was
normal. I even thought something was wrong with me because I was so exhausted and tired. I’d
say to myself, “How come I can’t keep up with this grueling schedule? I must not be working
hard enough. I must not be fit enough.” I was beating myself down at the same time, which was
another whole layer of energy exhaustion and burnout.
I know this is so common because I hear it, and on paper, there was a point where I was way
above six figures so I was bringing home a good paycheck. That was great, except I was so
exhausted I couldn’t really enjoy it because I couldn’t get off the couch the weekends that I
wasn’t teaching teacher trainings. I was so tired that I had a hard time getting off the couch. This
doesn’t serve anyone because for sure it doesn’t serve my own health and wellness.
I was diagnosed with cancer and lynch syndrome. I’m not saying that my schedule caused it,
but for sure because of what I’ve been doing to my body, I contributed to that.
Importance Of Having An Ideal Schedule and Having Enough Time for Self Care
My schedule did not help my cancer diagnosis at all. I wasn’t seeing my family, so I wasn’t
replenishing my cup. It was a mix of all these factors.
And you know what I noticed? I still had so much passion to serve those in my classes, in my
trainings, my one-to-ones. I was still putting so much energy to those even after my cancer
diagnosis. But now what I noticed, because I have a profitable six-figure business again, I’m
treating one-on-ones, leading trainings, but it’s all in a different way. My schedule is so
optimized, because I have evenings and weekends with my family, my daughter and I are even
going to another girl’s trip this summer. I have so much more energy that I feel so much better.
Here’s the catch here, for those of you doing this, my classes, my one-to-ones, the trainings I
lead, the content I put out, the value I put out into the world, is so higher quality now because
I’m not exhausted.
Even though you might be thinking, “Well I’m showing up, I’m teaching my classes, I’m doing my
things,” but if you’re dragging your butt trying to get to class and teacher-training, YOU ARE
TIRED. The quality that you’re going to put out into the world is not going to be as good as when
you’re cup is full.
When you’re going to your own yoga classes, when you’re taking care of yourself, when you’re
having time and fun with your family and those you care about – hundred percent and you can’t
argue with me, that you’re not going to give a better quality when you’re not caring for yourself
better. And I know this a hundred percent to be true. So this might be your wake up call, some
call it the “come to Jesus call.”
Don’t worry if this stirred you up and you’re like, “Oh my Gosh. I didn’t recognize that I was having some signs of burnout. Now I can feel in my body how tired I really am.” Don’t beat yourself up. This is not a reason to beat yourself up. This is your wakeup call because I got you. There’s something you can do. You may not be able to prevent burnout at this point but we can work together to turn things around and prevent it from happening again in the future.
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