Burnout can be a horrible place to be. I know, I’ve been there.

My name is Aaron, and I’m now in my early 40’s. I’m a software guy, come jack of all trades. I’ve worked in all sorts of industries over my time from Food Technology, Veterinary Science, Electronics, Web development, IoT, and Image Processing. I’ve done consulting and have run businesses.

This is my story of burnout and the road to healing.

Earlier on in my career, actually — in the not-to-distant past, I was involved in a local startup company as one of the founding employees. As with most startups, it was full of challenges, ups and downs and its fair share of heartaches. The company had grown rapidly and then rapidly downsized, only to grow rapidly once again. The company went through several different sets of leadership over the years and tried several different markets. I found myself smack bang in the middle of everything that was going on. It was exciting and exhausting. I was involved in every level of the technology and involved in most other parts of the company to varying degrees.

After one particularly tumultuous year, I found myself really struggling. I was struggling to get out of bed in the morning, struggling to pluck up the courage to get in the car and go to work. Taking a bit of time off didn’t help all that much. I mentally knew I was struggling but like many guys didn’t really know how to express it, or truly even knew within myself the depths of how much I was struggling.

Mentally I tried to “push the reset” button a few times. I’d tell myself:

“I’m putting the worries of last month behind me. I’m coming at this with fresh perspective and vigour!”

This would last a couple of weeks before I’d fall back into the struggle mindset. Work tried to help by insulating me from some of the goings on at the company, but deep down, I knew I just couldn’t keep going. I knew how much more effort was needed for the next phase of the company’s life, and I knew how much more I had left in me. It was not anywhere enough. I ended up handing in my resignation letter not knowing what was ahead but knowing that the one thing I was sure of was that I couldn’t stay around. I was struggling. Big time.

While all this was going on, I also started a family. My two sons and a daughter were born. While home life was calm by most accounts, it was not always a very relaxing place with babies and toddlers requiring a lot of attention.

As a consequence, I didn’t really ever focus on myself. Why would I? I had never really consciously focused on myself before. I guess it just came naturally. Free time was mine and downtime didn’t need to be planned. With a busy work life and a busy home life, self-time got unintentionally and unconsciously pushed to the sidelines.

Looking back now, during this time I also started to put on weight. I didn’t notice it really. I had always been skinny as a kid, even through my university years I struggled to put the pounds on. I never watched what I ate, and I was fine. However, somewhere along the way this changed. It was probably a combination of eating easy calorie-rich foods, doing less physically, and growing older. I had moved my clothing size from a small size to a medium. That was great. “Finally, I’m now a sensible size.” I thought to myself. But hang on, those pants are not really fitting anymore, and that medium is now becoming a large. But beyond thinking “I should do something about that” nothing much happened.

My mental health was not great, my physical health was deteriorating. I’d quit my job. What now? I still had a family dependent on me.

Luckily, I quickly picked up a part-time project-based temporary contract with a local company, belonging to some friends who were really supportive. This was just what I needed. Enough project work to keep the brain ticking over, income to keep the lights on, and importantly, time to reflect and take it slower.

I was not known for taking things slowly or taking the easy road, but that’s exactly what I needed. I needed to give myself permission to feel what I was feeling and to accept “this is me right now”.

I didn’t know I had burnout at that stage. I read a few articles about mental health and realized that this is probably what I had, although I never wen for a proper diagnosis. I certainly didn’t have it bad like some people. I was never at the point when I couldn’t get out of bed (I just really didn’t want to). I never struggled to do basic tasks, and from anyone else’s perspective, on the outside, I probably looked as functional as ever. This was not true on the inside.

I had feelings of failure quite often. Imposter syndrome had come back (I had previously learned that you can slay that beast). Getting going was hard. If things didn’t go right I took it extra hard and felt like a failure. I’d give myself a little bit of pep talk telling myself “This is just a temporary setback. This is normal, pick yourself up and go again” but that only went so far.

Over time the part-time contract turned into a permanent gig. I am incredibly grateful for the support I received from the team. One piece of advice I was given a few times was to get more physically active. I really did not want to. I had started biking to work, I ate a bit less for lunch and I felt good for it. But it was still not enough to kick those good brain chemicals into gear, which is what I really needed. I decided I needed to take some more serious action.

Sometimes, I found myself having good days. Days when I would feel on top of the world. I felt like the mental health troubles had gone away. However, I quickly learned that this was just the peak before the crash and that the following days were some of the darkest. I came to loathe the good days because I knew what was coming next.

Growing up I always hated exercise. I hated Physical Education at school, never played sports, and was of the opinion that exercise just wears your joints out faster. I even remember telling one of my friends at school that “one of my life’s goals was to never join a gym”. Well now was the time to break that goal and replace it with a more grown-up one.

I’d tried a gym once before, for a few months, but never really liked it. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and it took effort just to go. After doing some research, I selected F45, which looked good. All the exercises were on a screen so if in doubt you could always just copy what they were doing. It was a bit expensive, but I thought, what the heck. Let’s do the 14-day trial and see what it’s like.

Oh my goodness. I ended up starting on a resistance day. Having never really done weights before this was a shock to the system. I had no idea what weights to choose and I’m pretty sure I overdid it. The trainers were really great and I got through the class… only to find that my arms were like jelly and even washing myself in the shower afterwards was difficult. Not wanting to let a free trial go to waste, I went back a few days later, and then a few times the following week. I was starting to get the hang of it and it was starting to grow on me….

I realized how poor my fitness was. I couldn’t do a single pushup or a single mountain climber, or for that matter, even hold myself in a high-prone position for longer than 10 seconds. At the end of the trial, I bit the bullet and signed up for 3 months. Eventually, I worked my way up to 5 classes per week and got stronger each time. I was not in it for the weight loss, in fact, at that point I was not even truly aware of how overweight I was. I was in it for the good brain juices. Making me feel good and kicking the mental health issues down the road.

The classes were great. Being a fitness noob, I could just rock up and do what the instructors and screens told me. I loved that. The trainers were great, although I have no idea how many times I heard them count backwards from 10. The gym was a bit pricy but it was getting the job done so I could live with that. Working out with other people didn’t thrill me to start with, but you soon realize that everyone is in the same boat. Everyone is pushing themselves to their own limit. No one is really watching you, they are focusing on themselves, and if they are watching, it is from a place of reminiscing about how far they have come themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, it was intense. Really intense. My body ached after almost every class, but I felt good. Really good. After a few months, I noticed that my bad days were fewer, and good days didn’t always mean that the next day would be a bad one. I began to love the intensity. I ended up doing 6 or more classes a week and doubling up once or twice a week (morning and evening). I had the bug.

As the months passed, I began to feel better within myself. Then I noticed that I needed a belt for my trousers, then the trousers really didn’t fit very well anymore. My shirts were getting very baggy and my wedding ring getting very loose. I was now aware of how overweight I was and how much I was losing. In all, I lost over 15kg over about a 9-month period. Looking back at old photos, I realized just how overweight I was and how much that was probably contributing to my state of mental health.

I took a break from exercise over the summer. I wanted to enjoy my new body without the constant aches and pains of exercise. One of my workmates had set himself a new year’s goal of running the parkrun in under 30 minutes. I thought to myself, now I’m fit, I wonder how fast I could do it? I had not run since I had to do it at school. After a couple of practice runs during the week, I realized how much ‘grit’ I’d developed over my time at F45. I ran the park run that Saturday with a time of 28:40. “Gosh I guess I am fit now!” I thought to myself.

As time passed, about 3 years, in fact, my mental health improved. I’m glad to say that I’m back to my old self. I attribute my recovery to a combination of time and physical exercise.

I keep fit and have done the park run nearly every Saturday since my first event. Every so often I still have a down day. It is usually if I have not been active enough and I know that a solid bit of physical exertion will put things right.

My advice, from personal experience to anyone who is suffering from burnout is to:

  • Take time out for yourself. It is OK to go slow for a while and feel what you are feeling.
  • Accept you will have good days and bad days but know that the bad days will come to an end.
  • Count your blessings. When life looks down, remember how well off you really are.
  • Get physical. HIIT is great for getting those healthy brain juices flowing.
  • Expect to return to normal after 2–3 years.