Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress and overwork. As moms, we often take on multiple responsibilities, and it can be easy to become overwhelmed and feel like we are constantly running on empty.
In this episode, we will be exploring the 3 P’s of burnout – pressure, perfectionism, and people-pleasing. These are the three common factors that contribute to burnout in moms, and understanding them is key to preventing and overcoming burnout.
Our guest expert specializes in working with moms experiencing burnout. She will be sharing practical tips and strategies for managing the 3 P’s of burnout, as well as insights on how to recognize the warning signs and take proactive steps to prevent burnout.
If you are a mom who is feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or on the verge of burnout, this episode is for you.
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
About Ahuva
Ahuva is a mom of three under six, a pediatric registered dietitian turned coach for professional moms at the brink of burnout who know they deserve more.
Connect with Ahuva
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahuvahershkop/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahuvaARM/
Website: https://linktr.ee/ahuvahershkop
Links Mentioned in This Episode
Book: Thinking 101
Facebook Group : Beyond Burnout
Subscribe & Review in Apple Podcast
Have you subscribed to the Real Happy Mom podcast? If not, I’m encouraging you to do it today.
I don’t want you to miss any upcoming episodes. I plan to add some bonus episodes that you won’t find on this website, and if you’re not subscribed, you might miss out on those. Click here to subscribe to Apple Podcast!
I would be so happy and grateful if you left me a review on Apple Podcast too. Reviews help Apple Podcast to know that this is a podcast for other moms so that other moms can find this podcast. Plus, it makes my day to read the reviews.
Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know your favorite part of the podcast. I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Don’t have Apple Podcast? You can subscribe to the podcast Google Podcast, Anchor, Spotify, Breaker, Castbox, Overcast, RadioPublic, and Stitcher.
Related Blog Posts
- 7 Ways to Prevent Burnout This Year
- Are You Burned Out?! Tips for Work-Life Balance to Prevent Burnout
- Your Menstrual Cycle Matters! What Your Flow and Your Foods Do to Your Energy and Burnout
- How to Avoid Burnout at Work for Career Moms
Transcript of this Episode
Toni-Ann Mayembe
I see, you’re striving to be the best version of yourself constantly juggling the demands of family work, household responsibilities, and countless other roles. But you and I both know that being a working mom is a journey like none other. It’s filled with love and joy and cherish moments, but let’s be honest, it can also be overwhelming and demanding, and a little bit draining. And many times, we often put everyone else’s needs before our own, leaving little time and energy for ourselves, and the result is burnout. But before you start to blame yourself, I want you to check out this conversation with my guest today, a Hoover workshop about the three P’s of burnout. The three P’s that we’ll uncover in this episode are the culprit for burnout among many moms. But we’re not staying stuck in burnout. Hey there, I’m Toni-Ann, the podcast host of real happy mom, the podcast for busy working moms who need help with time management, and achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And fun fact, my first job was as a cashier at Winn Dixie. Now, if you’ve experienced burnout, or been on the brink of burnout, this episode is for you.
Ahuva Hershkop
So I’m a Hoover horoscop. I am a Toronto based anti diet dietitian and burnout coach for professional women who want to do it all and have it all but want to stop feeling like they have to choose between their enjoyment today and their professional goal.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Now I did spend some time kind of looking around on your Instagram page. And I was loving everything on there. And one of the things that I saw was one post about the three P’s to burnout. And I saw that she put Yeah, perfectionism people pleasing and pressure. So I went to Etsy, like, why those three? And like, what is it with those three that leads to burnout?
Ahuva Hershkop
Those three, those are the three that is the number one are very specifically why most women end up socialized into into burnout. And so that’s what I’m seeing in my clients time. And again, and I think that there are three operating systems again, that that we fall into, right, that we don’t always recognize that we fall into the sort of wear them like badges of honor, like oh, I never put myself first or like, I’m just a perfectionist, right? Or it’s what my family does. So that’s what I do. And they’re actually the things that have us burning out, which is so very often confusing for a lot of women, because they’re like, What do you mean, these are the things that we that we’ve always been told that we’re supposed to do, right? And so when we’re having trouble, it’s almost like women then double down on their perfectionism. Like, I just need to try harder, I just need to be even better, or the people pleasing. They’re like, I’m clearly taking too much time for myself, I’m gonna, you know, I need to give more, or we never really take the time truthfully, to step back and assess how societal pressures, how our family of origin pressures, how you know, even the workplaces that we that we work in how the pressure that we are under from other people impact how we function, right. And what I think that is most important for us to recognize is the reason that I really talk about these very often is they are ways that women are socialized. Right. Perfectionism is a coping mechanism, people pleasing coping mechanism, giving into societal pressures. And, you know, like, I’m my Orthodox Jewish, like, assimilation is a thing, right? That like, just be as close to whatever society wants you to be, and then everything will be okay. And so whereas most women are really, really great at taking personal responsibility, right, I must have done something wrong. And so here’s why I’m burning out. One of the most powerful things we can do for women is start taking that pressure off and being like, here’s actually the list why it makes perfect sense. While you’ve done that, right? It doesn’t mean you have to stay there, it doesn’t mean that burnout has to be a part of your life. But let’s not just blame you for being there.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
I really want to get into this perfectionism thing with you because, um, one other post, I saw that she said, Don’t quote me on this, but it said something along the lines of like, you know, perfectionism isn’t your greatest strength. My greatest weakness is its operating system. And I was like, Ooh, okay. So I just started thinking about it, like, okay, like, I know, sometimes, like, even like for job interviews that will be like, like, what’s the greatest thing was reading segments, we’ll use that. But I was just wondering, like, Where were you? How did you come to this where it is an operating system? Because it’s like really taken back on that
Ahuva Hershkop
one? Lot. And I do think that a lot of women feel like either, you know, exactly, you go into a job interview, and people are like, what’s your greatest weakness? And you’re like, Oh, my perfectionism. I just care so much. And I think it’s because people don’t necessarily have an understanding of how perfectionism evolves. Like, why so many women identify as perfectionist, it’s number one, and how it actually plays out. And the way that I think about perfectionism really is if you have someone who is coming to like, attack you and you have no skills to fight back. The best thing you can do As put on a coat of armor, right is walk around with like those old timey like night full metal suit thingies, right? And women historically have never been told how to have their own backs through failure. And also remembering that only in the last 100 years, do we have things like women owning banks, you know, having bank accounts, owning property, having these cars having all of all of being able to have jobs, right. And so it’s always been in women’s best interest to maintain perfection standards, right? Like if there’s a way that you should be, so that you can get married or have stability, like you should be able, you should do that. And so we’ve really, we’re not so many generations past when that was actually true, right? When women really needed to do that for safety and security. And so being in perfectionism, like maintaining those standards, is something we’ve always done for safety. And you know, when we still think that like sending an email, if we don’t write if we make a spelling mistake in the email, and then we feel totally ashamed, if we don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with that, the best thing that we can do is put on that coat of armor of perfectionism. Like, let me just never make a mistake, and then I’ll never have to deal with my lack of coping skill eight. So the best thing we can actually do to step out of perfectionism is start building those skills to like, hey, sometimes you’re gonna start a business and things aren’t gonna go your way. Or you’re gonna send an email, and there’s gonna be a spelling mistake in it. And maybe that’s a little bit embarrassing. But, you know, that’s the best way that we can start shifting out of that perfectionism.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
I love it. I love it. And there was another post too, about the perfectionism that that really resonated with me, where you’re saying something along the lines of like, the reason why you haven’t like taking that class is because of your perfectionism. But that’s what’s actually holding you back. And, and I’m noticing that too, a lot of times with a lot of women who want to start or even try different things, but they can’t because they’re perfectionist.
Ahuva Hershkop
Yeah, totally. The way that I the two analogies that I love when it comes to perfectionism is number one, that perfectionism to me, is standing at the starting line of a marathon. And just thinking and planning and considering and just staying in your head about how you’re going to take that whole marathon and one step, instead of just taking the first step. Right. So everyone else finishes doing it step by step by step, and you’re like, I can’t get started until I know how to do it all in that one perfect step. Right. And so exactly like whether it’s taking a dance class, or whether it’s starting a business, or whether it’s, you know, anything like that, we stay often so stuck in the planning stages, because of our perfectionism. And so we never get started, right? How many times do people say like, Oh, I’m gonna start a workout routine, like, I’m gonna start exercising on Monday. And that was in like, 2013. And we’re now in 2023. Right? And the second analogy is, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Mr. Bean? Oh, yeah, definitely. So I always have this picture of like, Mr. Bean in my head, I don’t know why, you know, he’s just the perfect person that I think I when I think of this, where, you know, it’s him driving a car, and he’s looking down in a bag. And so he’s driving in a straight line. And, you know, he just sees that he got from point A to point B. And he doesn’t see, you know, the little old lady who actually like, throw her groceries in the air and like, run out of the way of his car and the other cars who are crashing because he ran a red light on the way, he doesn’t see all of the collateral damage. And I think that’s where we missed the mark, when we’re talking about perfectionism. A lot of people are like, so what’s the big deal? If I, you know, if I want this cake to come out perfectly, and I’m like, Okay, but what about your kids who are standing over there, like, you’re supposed to bake the cake with them, and you’re like, oh, just give it to me because you’re doing it wrong, right? Or the work that you spent 20 hours doing and not 10. And now you’ve missed an entire day with your family, right? And there’s often the collateral damage. But perfectionism keeps us so stuck focusing on the end goal, that we don’t really consider that
Toni-Ann Mayembe
enough. Now, I wanted you to impact the people pleasing because I think a lot of people think like, Oh, I’m not a people pleaser. But there are a lot of people pleasing tendencies, I will say, at least. So how is that people pleasing putting us into burnout too, as well.
Ahuva Hershkop
The the story that I sort of love to think about with this one is, you know, we all know about like the marshmallow test way right? Where you give kids marshmallows, I feel like it went on it was like on tick tock, like two years ago, but really, it’s a scientific experiment of you know, you put this marshmallow kid What are you telling me they can either eat one now or if they wait five minutes, they can have two. And, you know, they they trace these people for like 30 years and saw that everybody who had waited for the second one who experienced delayed gratification, have higher SATs scores, got a better job had better job offers later on, you know, like 20 years past. And it was written about in this book recently called Thinking 101 by a yield Professor, I believe I’m gonna butcher her name, but it’s Wukong on, I believe, as a pronunciation. And she always says, and this hit me like a ton of bricks, even when I was thinking about people pleasing is she always says that the one question that they never asked these people was, does it actually make you happy to have done all of these things? Right? You got all of these like accolades, but like, was it worth it? Right? And I think when it comes to people pleasing, we never sit down and ask ourselves the question, Was it worth it? Right? We keep ourselves so stuck on everybody else’s needs need to come above our own. And we confuse even once with needs, right? Like how many times as moms do you serve your kids like a third breakfast before you sit down and eat your own, or let your kids steal your breakfast before you eat your own? Right. And we operate from this place of delayed gratification, kind of waiting for our entire lives to be able to focus on our needs. Because women are socialized to believe that their value comes from service, right? How we show up for other people, how we support other people, that’s how we show our value in the world. And so it makes perfect sense why none of us really, you know, pay attention to the needs that we have, because we’re never taught how to do that. And so there’s a lot of talk around, you know, how can we how can moms put themselves first, and I always say, like, Forget putting yourselves first. Because even that sounds so stressful to a lot of moms, it’s like, can you even give yourself a seat at the table? Like forget, first just put yourself on the list here. And even that can feel difficult for so many people, the
Toni-Ann Mayembe
last P that I really wanted to hear you talk about is about pressure. And I wanted to one get you to clarify, is this like pressure coming from outside? Or is this pressure from within, and then how this pressure plays a role in burnout as well?
Ahuva Hershkop
Totally, so I talked about pressure from you know, societal, familial ourselves, because we all put pressure on ourselves to perform a certain way. Society has, I would say, very clear expectations of what we’re supposed to do, you know, as as women, and it really depends on the family, the culture, the background that you come from, as well. Right? Like my, the pressure that might be on me to function a certain way might be totally different for somebody who doesn’t have my background or doesn’t share, you know, my culture. And it really is this idea still have, like, there’s one right way to do things. And I think it’s become so much more difficult in the age of social media, even when you know, the pressure is really in your face, right. And women now are not only comparing themselves against the three moms who may have been on their on their, like city block 50 years ago, but now it’s like, okay, there are 700,000 Moms on on Instagram, I see each of them, you know, one is building a seven figure business one is baking some cookies. One is training for a marathon. One is, I don’t know growing all of her own food in her garden, I should do all of that today in the next 10 minutes. Right? And so really starting to understand and a lot of the work that I do with my clients inside the unapologetic living code, which should I told the program is, how do we bring some of these unconscious definitions, right, these societal expectations, these unconscious definitions that we hold to the forefront, because if I say the words, good mom, without needing any other prompting, anybody who’s listening can probably list out like 30 attributes that a good mom is supposed to have. Right? Some of them are really, like, easy, and some of them are like, very, you know, difficult for you to think about. But you might look at that list and be like, I don’t even believe that consciously. But somewhere in your subconscious mind, it’s there. Right? I always joke that off very often, when I’m doing I do some corporate workshops, I’ll hold up a picture of myself covered and spit up from my third kid. And then Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl. And I’m like, which, you know, who is a good mom here and who’s killing it in her career, right? And people have, like, nobody has ever looked at me covered and spit out for my third child and been like you, you look like you’re really thriving right now. Right? But I’m a good mom, because I’m covered and spit up. And that’s what I’m supposed to be right. And so a lot of the times we have these unconscious definitions driving the bus of our actions, and we don’t really take the time to step back and number one, unpack those and uncover them, and then also then be able to decide like, do I actually want to keep them? Right? Do I like this definition? Is a mom who is a good mom, really a murderer who never sits down? Or is a good mom, someone who also takes care of herself, right? But we can’t really shift those definitions until we become aware of what they are
Toni-Ann Mayembe
now. I’m just thinking even right now about those unconscious definitions. How would you say like, like first steps to like really start to pay attention to those things. So is there any other exercises or, or things to think about to help with unpack liking some of these unconscious definitions that we might have.
Ahuva Hershkop
So my, my favorite exercise that takes like five minutes or less that I encourage so many parents or to so many women to do is just called my what? Why What strategy? Okay? Very simply, if look at what the thing is that you’re doing, and this doesn’t have to be something, I know that some people are like, to help students with everything. And you don’t, it can just be a practice that you sometimes pay attention to, right? Like you just try and become a little bit more mindful of where you can say, you know, what is the thing that I’m doing? Like, I’m trying to take my kids to the park today, and I’m trying to like, force them off the screens, when I don’t want to go to the park, and they don’t want to go to the park. And it’s definitely hot outside and like, everybody’s already in a bad mood, right? Like, like, what am I? That’s what I’m doing? Why am I doing that? Right? Why am I doing that? Because like, my kids shouldn’t be on the screens all day, or whatever that answer is that comes to your mind. And I always encourage people to go two times. So because sometimes it’ll be like, Why am I picking someone up from the from the airport in the middle of the night? Like, oh, it’s just because I’m such a good person. I’m just like, so giving that like, I just, you know, just so great. And a truer answer of that might be because I don’t know how to say no. Right? And somebody asked me to pick them up at three in the morning. And so I don’t feel comfortable saying no. You know, when we uncover those reasons, like the why are we doing this? Right? So if it’s like taking your kids to the park on a day that nobody wants to go to the park, kids included, ask yourself, What am I getting out of this? Right? And is it I’m making somebody else happy at the expense of me, I’m? Or is it? I actually just got to feel like a really good mom, if I’m taking my kids to the park, because a good mom takes her kids to the park, right? Like, where are you falling into some of these definitions? And when we start understanding that, then we can start deciding, you know, like, do we actually want to operate from that place, and it doesn’t mean that we have to change right away. I think that’s one of the you know, biggest misconceptions. Also, as people like to go straight from identifying something to wanting to change it right away. And sometimes just being able to uncover the pattern is enough, like we don’t have to go straight into, okay, now I’m going to be an expert at this, because that’s perfectionism a play also. Yeah,
Toni-Ann Mayembe
definitely, I definitely feel like just the awareness just helps to, to bring about some of that change. Because I think a lot of times, people go about their day, not even knowing that there’s a problem, thinking everything’s great. And then once they are aware of it, some change can happen. So I love that exercise. And I love that you brought that up. But I was just wondering if there was anything practical to help any moms that are listening with helping with burnout, whether it they’re in it, or they’re feeling like they’re on the verge of it, and how we can get out of that.
Ahuva Hershkop
So number one is just recognizing that it’s not, you know, you didn’t make the like, mistake or whatever that has you here, really being able to unpack and understand some of the ways that we again, like we’re socialized and and up in this space, just to take the pressure off of that, right. I know that most moms who end up in burnout are also like, type a high achievers, and want to take that personal responsibility and just understanding that it’s not necessarily just where you are, and just starting to practice advocating for your needs, because that’s a very, very difficult skill for people who don’t know that. And so just writing down what some of the things that you enjoy are, right? Sometimes it’s really, it’s really difficult, like you forget who you are, what do you need, if somebody if somebody offered you a day off? Most women would be like, I don’t even know what I would do. Right? And they’re not not telling the truth. Like they genuinely don’t know, what would I want to do for my time. So if that’s the case, then starting to just start think about like, just in your head, what are some of the things that I used to love to do, and starting to identify what I call your as long as things? Okay, just one strategy that I use, which is, you know, like, I don’t know, if, like, you can’t see my hands, but like, My nails are done. My nails are always done. I don’t even think like my husband always jokes, like I don’t even think I’ve ever seen you like with like, I’ve never seen your fingernails. Because I go like I go once every five weeks, and I get my nails done, because as long as I can look down and see my hands and see the hands of a person who was taken care of the sky could be falling, and I’m fine. Right? If the nails are not done, I operate at like half the speed and anything is gonna throw me over the edge. Right? And it’s simple, and it makes no sense. And it doesn’t matter and it might not matter to any other person in the world. But to me, as long as that is taken care of all is right in the world. Right. And sometimes for a lot of people when we’re looking for those key areas to start shifting us gently out of burnout. It doesn’t have to be all of a sudden making radical changes to your life. It can be starting to pay attention to Those as long as things, right I had a client who, you know, we were doing this exercise last week because actually she had she had multiple kids who are sick. And she was like, it actually went really well. Like I wasn’t stressed when they were sick. And normally I’m, you know, totally thrown over the edge of my kids being sick. And it was like write down what those things are that you made sure that you did. Right? Maybe it’s as long as my partner and I are on the same page. Maybe it’s as long as they have a cup of coffee in the morning, or I get 10 minutes to myself. But start paying attention to what those things are, that allow you to, you know, function at your best if you’re really finding yourself like at that brink of burnout.
Toni-Ann Mayembe
Now, I hope you are feeling so much better after listening to this episode. I know I surely do feel a lot better as far as preventing burnout and then dealing with the burnout that I have experienced in the past. And I know Hoover mentioned a couple of different things in this episode. So if you want to get the links and show notes, head on over to Real happy mom.com/ 207 And do me a favor, make sure you subscribe and stay tuned for next week for another full episode. Take care and with lots of love
