This is the second of four steps to preventing HR burnout.
If you’ve arrived here first, here’s what you’ve missed. In HR Burnout Is Not What You Think I set out the foundation: everything you experience, moment to moment to moment, no exception, is an internally generated response based on the perceptual map and model you carry around inside your neurophysiology. Your workload isn’t creating your burnout. Your interpretation of it is.
Without that foundation, we carry on feeling powerless. Victims of circumstance.
With it, the next question arrives on its own.
Why do I think and feel the way I do in this moment?
That’s conditioning. And it’s what this step is about.
You are not running the show. Your conditioning is.
What we know to be true is that we’re operating from the level of the unconscious mind around 95 to 98% of the time.
Which means if you’re not fully present, the unconscious mind is running the show.
Now think about that in the context of burnout.
Here’s my assertion. If you’re experiencing burnout, you are not showing up in the present moment.
You can’t be. In burnout we’re in the survival response. The brain has gone into high-range beta, and high-range beta is akin to chaos. It becomes hard to focus, hard to concentrate, hard to absorb information.
It’s like somebody’s hit the emergency button and we’re still in a burning building.
You cannot show up as your true empowered self, fully present, while you’re in survival mode.
What’s running underneath
Conditioned thoughts. Patterns of thought. Habitual thoughts. Beliefs. Emotional responses. Behaviours.
All of it running in the background.
Without self-awareness, without consciousness of where you’ve fallen into these habitual responses, they are what’s running the show.
“If you are not consciously creating it, you are unconsciously accepting it”
I heard someone say that one day and it struck me, because it’s so true.
If we’re not creating how we want to experience life, we’re accepting these conditioned responses instead.
The magic in seeing what’s been hidden
Once you see a conditioned response, whether it’s a reaction, a thought pattern, a belief or a behaviour, you can’t unsee it.
For me, it was the belief that I needed to be seen to be perfect.
There’s a quiet power that comes from seeing what’s running the show. And yes, it can feel uncomfortable. Like having a really good look in the mirror and going, okay, there’s that part of me I don’t want to look at.
It’s also liberating. Because you start to realise:
That belief that you’re not good enough? Just a thought pattern.
That need to prove yourself constantly? A conditioned response.
That burnout you keep circling back to? A symptom, not a life sentence.
Think of consciousness as an aeroplane
I like to think of consciousness as being in an aeroplane, looking down and seeing the landscape.
Looking down at the landscape of your life.
I can see where that reaction might have come from. I can see what’s going on there. I can see why I’ve been scared to be vulnerable. I can see why I always get defensive. I can see why I’ve been playing small.
I can see why I’m a people pleaser. Which is something a lot of HR professionals recognise in themselves.
When you can see it, and understand it, you can recognise something important. This isn’t necessarily who I am. These are conditioned responses.
Because who you are is the consciousness that’s able to observe all of it.
What opens up when consciousness rises
There’s no limit to the level of consciousness. It doesn’t have one.
The space you’re able to show up in is one of clarity. Calm. Balance. Emotional intelligence. Emotional regulation.
All the qualities we’d associate with a high-performance state.
Raising your levels of self-awareness and consciousness is the catalyst to change. Transform those, and you’re in a far stronger position not to end up back in that old space again.
Pattern spotting
HR professionals often call themselves HR ninjas.
I’m a ninja too, of a different kind.
After 10,000 one-to-one sessions I’ve developed the ability to hear the inner dialogue someone is running, just through everyday language. I can spot the belief systems underneath their responses. I can see the conditioning in the way they speak, think and lead.
That’s not about being clever. It’s about being conscious.
It’s one of the reasons that when I run my signature programme, HR Alchemy, I get people to complete a pre-assessment. To start seeing these patterns for what they are.
Coming next: nervous system regulation
Step three is nervous system regulation, and it’s the piece almost every HR training programme misses.
If you want the whole picture in one place, including what causes HR burnout and how to tell whether it’s shifting, the complete guide covers all four steps.
If you want to see your own patterns
If you’re struggling with HR Burnout, imposter syndrome, the need to prove yourself I hear you! This is the exact reason I built The HR Alchemy Circle. An online community for HR Leaders who want to do the inner work to access their natural resilience, calm and self worth so you can truly thrive in your HR career and your life.
