Don’t ignore these warning signs in your CELPIP prep journey

So this week, well, actually just a couple of days ago, I was driving late at night. It was already past midnight. And actually I was driving back home from trying to help my son jump start his car. And that part was done successfully.

We were able to get his car up and running. It had drained its battery, and he just wasn't able to start the vehicle again until we were able to get it started using some jumper cables.

Now, the interesting story here is that I had a little portable jumper battery that you can just plug in to the other person's car and it will help them start the car. But what happened was, is that it had been an exceptionally long time since I had actually charged this battery.

So when I pulled it out, guess what happened? It wasn't working. It had run out of battery power itself. So there was no way for me to use it.

And I don't have jumper cables in my van, which is a mistake on my end. But I just had no way of being able to help my son.

So I ended up calling our insurance, and through our insurance, we have the service of being able to get our vehicle jump started or towed if something were to happen to it. It's just part of the. The insurance package that we have.

So we ended up calling and the tow truck came and hooked up their portable, powerful charger. And in an instant, my son's car was up and running just like nothing had happened to it. Now, on my way in to pick up, well, to. To help my son.

And again, this was already late at night. It was past midnight. On my way into where he was, an alarm went off in my car. Well, in my van. And my van is kind of old.

No, they have not been able to shut off those little indicator lights on the dashboard. So they're always on. And I've come to the place of just kind of ignoring when one of those indicator lights comes on.

And while I was driving in, I noticed a new indicator light pop on. And it was saying something about the battery was not charging properly anymore. And so I started monitoring the voltage level on my.

On my van's battery. And I noticed that as we were driving, instead of it going up or staying where it should be, it was starting to go down.

And I thought, well, that's weird. That's never happened to me before. That, that can't be. That can't be right. That can't be accurate.

Because I mean, I know I don't know a lot about cars, but I know that when I'm driving normally, the battery get recharged as I'm going. But the opposite was happening. At least the indicator was telling me that my voltage level was going down the more I drove.

So after getting my son's car up and running, I was driving home, he was following me. And the tow truck driver had recommended that we drive around a little bit just to help his car charge up a little bit. So that's what we did.

We took the long way back home. We were only about know 10 minutes away from, from where I live. And we took a couple of back roads and I was noticing something kind of alarming.

My voltage reading that I was following in my car was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And as we drove along, I noticed that certain lights inside of my car, other lights like the lights on the dashboard, started to get dimmer.

And then I started to notice that my headlights were also starting to get dimmer. Like I was starting to not be able to see very far in advance or in front of me. It was just getting darker.

And I was starting to feel a little bit nervous, to be quite honest, because we were not back home yet. We were still a good 5 minutes drive before we get back home. And I started to go faster because I didn't want to get stuck way out on the road.

But the crazy thing is the faster I went, the faster the battery drained. It got down to like 5, 5 volts. I don't know if that was the measurement. And then all of a sudden the complete dashboard went blank.

And there was a little buzzer that went off and my headlights went completely dark or just very, very faint. And I started to feel my steering wheel getting harder and harder to control. And then the engine started to sputter. Like it just went.

And before I knew it, everything died. I couldn't turn, I couldn't hit the brakes. Everything just stopped working.

I managed to, you know, as things were rapidly shutting down, I managed to turn off into a little side street. Thankfully I wasn't like on, on our main road blocking things, but I managed to pull off and coast just so that I was off the main street.

And then everything stopped dead. I couldn't move anything. I couldn't start it again. I couldn't, you know, roll down my windows or, you know, power windows.

My Electric windows would not go down, and I was just stuck. I was dead on the road. And thankfully my son noticed what was going on.

He pulled in behind me, and we ended up having to call the tow truck to come back. And funny enough, it was the same driver that had come to help us with my son. And so that's what happened.

Now my van is in the mechanic shop getting worked on, and I'm left walking around. Getting to work and coming back home, which is great, and I'm going to talk about that in just a minute.

But there's a lot that has been happening in my life, and I think happening in your life that my car story has something to do with. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in my newsletter that you can't pour from an empty cup.

And what I was talking about was my own experiences of starting to feel like I was starting to run out of things to pour, like I was starting to feel exhausted. I was starting to feel like a very strong lack of engagement or enjoyment out of the things that I normally love to do.

I was just starting to feel like I don't like doing the things that I normally like doing. And that really caused alarm buzzers to go off in my head, quite frankly, because I have burnt out before.

And I was starting to recognize some of the old feelings, some of the old warning signs that things were not okay.

And so that began for me a journey of trying to stop, trying to figure out what I could do to help treat that feeling of exhaustion, those feelings of burning out.

And I created, you know, a couple of videos about the topic, a couple of podcast episodes about the topic, and I've been writing about it in my newsletter, all because I also know that some of you are also dealing with this, that maybe you. You listening to this, watching this, you might also be struggling with this.

And I think the worst thing that I can do in this situation is what I so often do in my car.

I see the indicator lights coming on on my dashboard, and I've gotten to the point where I ignore them, and I don't pay attention to what those warning lights are trying to tell me. And while you and I are not vehicles, we're not cars. We don't have a dashboard. We do get signals from our body, don't we?

We get signs that things aren't working right. I mean, for some, in some situations, it could be pain, like physical pain, which alerts us to, you know, something isn't right. But for me, the.

The warning signs that I was starting to get was like that feeling of just being exhausted all the time. No matter how much I try to rest or sleep, it's just not doing a good enough job to re, to re. Energize me.

And I find myself just feeling tired all the time. I find myself snapping more easily with my friends and with my family members. And by snapping I mean. I haven't lost my temper really.

Maybe once or twice I have, but I just find myself saying or, or not having the same amount of patience, I guess is what I want to say. Not having the same amount of patience as I normally do with the people around me, I, I snap at them.

And when, when it comes to work, a job that I normally really love to do, my, my day job, I love my day job normally.

But lately, like since probably about September or so, I've started to notice a repeating feeling of not dread when it's like Sunday night and I know that the next day I need to go to work. It's not been dread, but it's been a feeling of oh, I don't really want to go to work. I'd rather just stay home. I'd rather try to rest.

I'd rather do nothing. Which again, it's not normal for me. To me, those are those indicator lights starting to flash on my dashboard.

And I wonder if that's been happening to you. If you've been noticing any, any indicator lights going off for you in your life.

If maybe you're, you're thinking that maybe you're dealing with burnout. And the thing that I think I said at the beginning of this is that you can't pour from an empty cup.

And just like my van can't run on an empty battery, you and I, we can't run on an empty, on an empty heart, on an empty spirit, on who we are. And honestly.

In your day to day, in the things that you are doing to try to get, to get your pr, for example, and as you're trying to get established here in Canada as an immigrant, you're, you're starting your whole life all over again. In many ways you've left behind your, your home, maybe your family, maybe your, your social network. And you're starting from zero.

And that's a lot of stress, that's a lot of, you know, draining of, of energy on, on, on your inside, like emotional and spiritual and physical energy. It takes a lot out of you and on top of that to be trying to deal with all the immigration things that you need to deal with.

Of course you're going to be noticing a drain on, on your battery, if you will. I mean, I know we're not cars here, but just go with me on this.

That, that if, if we're not careful, if, if you're not careful, you'll have those, your battery drain really quickly.

And I think that some of the signals that you could be maybe watching for or listening for are very similar to the ones that, that I was struggling with too. I mean, I'm sure there are other ones, but it's kind of common that you, that you feel exhausted.

That's kind of like a very common signal of BRNO that you're emotionally and mentally, physically you're just exhausted. You're so tired all the time. And sleeping doesn't seem to help you recover that energy.

And that whole piece of not wanting to do the things that you normally find enjoyment doing, like you find yourself withdrawing and pulling back. That's another symptom of, of burnout. That or an indicator light that's flashing for you telling you hey, there's something wrong here. Watch this.

And another one. Excuse me. And another one. That, that comes to mind is one of the words that I learned as I've been researching.

Some of this topic is called depersonal. Depersonalization where you kind of stop being. I mean your body is going about the day to day things that you do.

You go to work, you're spending time at work, you're doing your job, you come home, you try to spend time with your family, but it's almost like you aren't there. You've sort of disconnected somehow from that. You're no longer whole in the things that you're doing, if that makes sense.

You're kind of like withdrawing on the inside. You're no longer putting your whole self into those, into those situations, into those experiences in your life.

That's kind of what depersonalization is. And connected to that is, is what I was sharing a few minutes ago where I stopped feeling.

Maybe I didn't share that, but just feeling like a sense of my work doesn't matter. I, I don't think I necessarily was feeling that, that part. But that is one of the major symptoms of burnout when.

Maybe before you had a, a really strong sense or feeling of being fulfilled by your job, that it, it kind of filled you up to do it. That has been my experience that I've really felt like my job is meaningful and helpful, that I'm making a difference in people's lives.

But lately, boy, I'll tell you, there have Been days where I've wondered and questioned myself thinking. Does this even matter? Like why am I doing this? There's gotta be something different that I could be doing, you know.

So all of those things for me have been going off. Those indicator lights. They've been telling me, Aaron, there's something wrong here.

And because like I said before, I've experienced burnout before where my, my engine completely stopped for a little while. Thankfully it was kind of like a light burnout. But it was, it was hard. I couldn't do very much.

I had to completely stop and I took, you know, about two weeks off of work just to try to recover my, my energy levels. And it worked thankfully because it was, it was a light burnout. There is I, I have seen like full on burnouts happen around me.

So I know how devastating of a thing this can be and how real it can be and how, you know, dangerous it is. Like I'm not trying to give you medical or psychological advice here but, but what I am trying to get out for you today.

My whole idea behind this is to try to say, hey, do you notice any of those indicator lights going on in your life? And if you do notice them, don't ignore them. Like what I was doing with my van. Because there is going to come a point where. It'S just going to stop.

Like your, your body, you, you're not going to be able to keep going if you don't take care of these warning symbols or these warning signs that something is wrong. So we can't ignore those things.

And so what I've been trying to do and I'm wanting to share some of the things that I am doing that might be an encouragement for you if you are finding yourself dealing or feeling like oh my gosh, I'm feeling exhausted. I am feeling like this sense of depersonalization where I'm just like a robot going through my day to day things.

And me, my soul doesn't feel like it's involved anymore. It's just a shell of me and I've lost interest in my job where normally I love what I get to do or I just feel like it doesn't mean anything.

Like my work and my life just feels a little bit meaningless right now.

If those things are happening for you, I, I would encourage you to consider that you're getting warning symbols or warning indicators that something is wrong and we need to hit pause and start paying attention to those symbols. So. I'm not trying to give. Like you have to do this. I'm Giving suggestions that might encourage you to think about the things that you can do.

And for me, I think that one of the things to think about and one of the things that I've been thinking about as I've been working through how to deal with my own feelings of burnout, has been thinking about what are the things in my life that are mission critical, things that I must keep doing that I cannot shut off. And there's some obvious ones. You know, I can't stop going to work right now. I can't. Or I don't want to. Excuse me.

I don't want to stop creating these podcasts for you. I don't want to stop writing my newsletter. I don't want to stop. I can't think of anything else right at the moment.

But there are things that are important for me to keep doing. But then there are also some things that are not necessary.

These are the things that, that we should be paying attention to in the sense that we can stop them and it won't have a negative impact in our life.

And I remember now one of the things that I wrote about in my newsletter about this topic was mission critical for you might be trying to get ready for the self of exam, but it might also be not necessary.

I remember working with a client who was kind of like putting this pressure of having to do their cell PIP exam in like two or three weeks, like they were giving themselves a really short deadline, which I don't recommend that you do. You, you should give yourself ample time to practice as much as you can.

If you have that luxury, you know, if you have the, the gift of time and you can devote time to practicing, you should give that to yourself. But this poor person was, was putting a deadline on themselves where they were only giving themselves a couple of weeks to get ready.

And I remember having this conversation with them and asking, is this something that is being imposed on you by the government?

Like you, your, your visitor visa or your work visa is about to expire in a couple of weeks and you have to get this, this exam done, or is this something that you are trying to do yourself and you technically still have a lot of time to deal with it? And the answer was, yeah, I'm putting this pressure on myself just because I want to get it out of the way.

But in reality, I've got over, you know, a year and a half left on my work visa. This is not urgent.

So it was like they were putting a lot of pressure on themselves and they were already dealing with a lot of high pressure situations in their life and adding to it, this pressure, it's just kind of like working against you. It's draining your battery a lot faster than you would if you kind of spaced yourself out a little bit and gave yourself. Spaced yourself out.

If you paced yourself out a little bit and gave yourself more time to get ready. That's what I'm getting at. Is this something that you have to do?

Like, think about the things that you are doing in your life right now and think about the ones that are mission critical. Those are the ones that you know you can't stop. Like, probably going to work.

Like maybe it could be getting ready for your celpip exam, depending on what's going on with your immigration status. Right. Or are there things that you are doing that are draining your energy, but they're not necessary.

You don't have to keep doing them in order for your life to function well. What I was saying before is we want to be kind of looking at those things.

We want to be looking at the things that are not necessary with the intention of what can I cut or what can I reduce or what can I pause?

Because reducing the drain on our emotional and physical and, you know, spiritual batteries is a good thing to do in order to help us to begin recovering. What we don't want to do is keep running at full speed, ignoring the warning lights that are coming on in our life.

Like what I did in my van and I paid the price, the van just stopped dead. And my friend, I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want that to happen to me as a person.

I mean, it happened to my van, but I don't want it to happen to me. So I am paying attention to the warning lights that are coming on in my life.

And so what I am doing is looking at the things that I'm doing that are not necessary, that are not mission critical. And I'm looking for ways that I can either remove them or pause them or reduce the number of times that I do it.

And the first thing that I am doing more of is walking. I noticed immediately when I started walking that my mood started to go up.

And now, thanks to the fact that I don't have my van, it's kind of forcing me to walk a lot more. And I'm loving it. I really enjoy walking. I don't see not having a van, at least not yet. It's not. Not a big deal. I'm.

I'm enjoying the walks and I'm enjoying being able to breathe the fresh air, which is really helpful for your mood. I'm enjoying looking at, you know, the nature around me. I, I do live in a beautiful city that has a lot of trees, it has a lot of wildlife around.

I, I just enjoy that and it's part of what builds me up on the inside as I do it.

So maybe consider that for you, adding walking or including walking time or some form of exercise into your day to day can be a really big help in, in dealing with, with this burnout that you might be struggling with. Another thing that I stopped doing. It's not another thing. This is a thing that I decided to stop doing.

And that was posting on LinkedIn up to about maybe. I think I'm getting close to two months now. I haven't posted a single thing on LinkedIn before that.

I was trying to post daily and when that was getting too heavy, I started posting three times a week. And honestly, it felt like I was running on this treadmill that was never ending. I felt so worn out on that, like I was running on empty.

I could feel it on the inside.

Every time I hit send on a post, I was starting to feel it kind of like grinding, you know, like I would feel like I don't have anything to say or I just don't want to do this, but I felt almost like compelled that I have to keep posting or else my business is going to fall apart. My friend, let me tell you, my business hasn't fallen apart.

I mean, I'm still here, I'm still breathing, I'm still podcasting to you, I hope you're listening. But LinkedIn did not. The absence of LinkedIn in my life has not been a negative influence in me.

I mean, maybe I've not brought in new leads because I was getting, honestly, I was getting a lot of good leads through LinkedIn, so perhaps that part is suffering. But honestly, the, the trade off has been worth it.

I've been feeling my, my creativity, I've been feeling my, my spirit, my insides starting to, to recharge a little bit. And honestly, I don't want to look at LinkedIn right now. I don't even want to look at it. It just feels good to, to have it off.

So that's another thing that, that's one thing that I've decided to stop doing because I don't think it's necessary for me. A thing that I'm considering doing and I probably am going to do.

This is at least for this month, as an experiment, I'm going to be reducing my newsletter frequency up until. Well, now I've been publishing three times a week. On Tuesday, on Thursday, if I have a podcast episode, and on Saturday.

And I think I'm going to reduce that down to once a week just to try to remove as much drain on my, on my battery as possible. And today I did not succeed at this. But one of the things that I am definitely thinking of doing is reducing the duration of my podcast episodes.

I had it in my head that I was going to record this quick five minute episode. Yeah, I'm getting close to 30 minutes already. Hey, that's fine. I really enjoy creating podcast episodes, but I'm just.

All I'm doing is trying to find things that I can either cut out completely, like LinkedIn or to reduce the frequency of things in order to help me to have more downtime and relaxation time. And that's what I want to leave with you today.

If you found yourself struggling with, you know, feelings of burnout, if, if you've been feeling like, you know, you're.

You're struggling to find meaning and purpose in your life where before it felt like you were alive in the things that you were doing, if you've been finding yourself just feeling mentally and emotionally spiritually exhausted, maybe these are some of the things that you could start doing as well in order to start dealing with this. Because like I said before, the worst thing that you can do and what I don't want for you is that you ignore those warning lights.

Like, think about those, those feelings that I just described, those, those signs as warning lights on the dashboard of your life. They're trying to tell you, hey, there's something not right and we need to do something about it.

And the thing is, if we ignore those warning lights, eventually we're going to stop. And that stop is not going to be pretty. It's going to be pretty difficult.

And I was saying before, at my workplace, there's this one lady, such a kind, lovely lady. She has a really tough role. Her job is really, really difficult. And she was grinding and working really hard at that for years.

And then all of a sudden she stopped coming to work. And she stopped coming to work. It turned into a week, then it turned into two weeks, three weeks, months, A couple of months.

And just, oh, about two months ago, we got word that she had decided to completely change jobs. And it was all because of burnout. She was just not able to. Address the pressures and the stresses. And so her whole body just stopped.

And I don't want that for you. I don't want that. For me, that's what this is all about.

Just trying to again, notice what you can stop, pause or reduce in order for you to start recharging and look for the things that help you to recharge. Like I said a while ago that walking is one of my chargers. Another thing that helps to charge my battery is spending time with my family.

It's playing board games, it's visiting with friends. Those things help me recharge. What are the things that help you recharge?

Like, you can think about how can I reduce the things that drain me, how can I increase the things that, that help fill me up. And that's all for today's episode. And if you've listened all the way through, thank you so much for, for being here with me.

If this is something that you're struggling with, I hope that you will take into consideration some of these ideas and not ignore those warning lights. And I would love to hear from you if this is something that you're going through.

If you'd like, you know, mutual support on this, you can send me an email. It's aaronlpipsuccess.com I'll put a link to that in my show notes.

I would love to hear from you and just cheer you on and encourage you in your attempts to bring a little bit more balance and reduce the drain on your life. And yeah, thanks for listening. I hope that you'll come back again for the next episode of the Celtic Success podcast. Bye Bye.