How to Make Good Decisions When You're Burned Out
“I sold my business, fell apart and am trying to come back now.”
That's what entrepreneur Jill Smokler wrote when she reached out to me asking if she might be a guest on the Anxious Achiever…I was floored.
See, Jill Smokler was a legend to me and many other content creators. She’d turned her blog, Scary Mommy, into a seven figure media company and sold it at its height. She became nationally known by creating a community where parents could be open and honest and imperfect. By the time she left the business, it was reaching 80 million monthly visitors.
Jill had achieved the big dream: a big exit from the blog she started from her dining room table.
Jill’s truth was darker than the glowing feature articles about her success. She’d divorced after her husband’s homosexuality became a secret neither she nor he could keep anymore. Selling her business was a mixed blessing: the new owners took her brainchild in a different direction, even while she served as the new company’s Chief Content Officer. And her mental health was in the pits.
The truth is, she’d sold Scary Mommy mostly because she needed help. Jill says in our interview:
“I don't think I understood what burnout was until that moment in time, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't sleeping, I was working constantly. We had this facade of being this successful company, but it was just a couple of us who were holding everything together.”
Jill got an offer she felt she couldn’t refuse. And she sold quickly. “At the time I thought it was meant to be…the timing was very, very fast. And not the smartest, but I think we don’t make the wisest decisions when we are exhausted and can't see the light and just need to get out of the darkness that we're in. And that's where I was.”
Jill’s very human reflection resonates deeply for me. I know I have made decisions I’ve regretted when gripped by poor mental health. Depression, burnout, and anxiety can impair our ability to make thoughtful decisions. They can cause us to focus on the wrong things, distort the facts, or rush to conclusions. And sometimes, we just need help so much that when a life raft seems to come along, we take it.
In difficult times, it’s important to deliberately set yourself up to make good decisions. Start by acknowledging that your emotions will make you an unreliable narrator, and that you will likely be prone to negative thoughts. When you’re stuck it’s hard to see the way out. Know that our brains have a negativity bias that’s only exacerbated when we’re stressed. If you’re feeling like everything is awful and there’s no way out, ask yourself: are you being objective enough? If you’re not sure, investigate.
While some stressed out leaders react to anxiety by agonizing over a decision and putting it off, others do just the opposite and make hasty decisions. It can be an enormous relief to move the needle on a project, get something off your plate, or feel like your stress is now someone else’s problem. But of course, the very definition of an impulsive act is one that’s carried out immediately, with no forethought and little or no regard for the consequences.
Don’t make big decisions alone. You might use a technique called Always Consult Before Doing (ACBD). It was developed by Harvard Law School’s Dan Shapiro and Roger Fisher and is described in their book Beyond Reason. Shapiro and Fisher recognize that emotions play a big role in negotiating or decision-making and suggest using ACBD to consult with others — whether they’re involved in the negotiation or not. There are several benefits of this technique, including the possibility of learning something new and making the other parties feel valued.
But more than even these points, ACBD provides checks and balances and a clear strategy for those of us who don’t trust our instincts because we’re just too damn stressed and burnt out.
A great way to build ACBD into your everyday life is to have some “real talk” peers, people you can consult who will give you their unvarnished opinions. Your kitchen cabinet or personal board of directors. And you can serve this role for others too. You can often provide clarity and insight even if you’re an unreliable narrator of your own experience.