I was having a great conversation the other day with one of my clients who was telling me he was starting to feel a bit of burnout and didn’t know what he needed to do to remotivate himself. I was a bit surprised that this guy, who I consider a towering example of a motivated leader was struggling, but I leaned in to give him my perspective. I hope that any of you who are feeling likewise and are burned out in this fast-changing nearly post-pandemic world will find some value in our conversation.

You’re More Important Than You Realize I told my friend that just because he didn’t think he was creating as much value for his clients as he used to, didn’t mean that he wasn’t still creating a ton of value. Our colleagues and customers don’t always tell us how much they value us, and sometimes we are our own worst critics.

Anything Worth Having Is Worth Struggling For This is a big point. Success is just like anything else that is worth having. It comes at a price. Sometimes the price is dear. You must pay that price if you want to position yourself for success. You must pay that price again and again while you’re learning how to become consistently victorious. Sometimes we get the idea in our heads that success should be given to us, because we’ve worked so hard, or because we deserve it. There’s no getting around it, you must pay the price for a long time to learn how to win, and once you’ve learned how to win, you need to continue to pay the price to stay at the top of the heap. Don’t get soft, and don’t begin to feel sorry for yourself when the going gets tough. You can do it!

There Is Magic In Accomplishing Challenging Tasks Another big point. Some things that we attempt to accomplish in life are relatively easy. I’m not that interested in those as a result. Other things in life are much more rigorous and challenging. I am VERY interested in those. You should be too, because when you accomplish something challenging, something grand, something sweeping in its impact, you know you’ve accomplished something rarely achieved. In my experience, those accomplishments come at a much higher price, but the payoff, in the end, is exponentially higher when you achieve them. Think about the difference between winning a football game and winning the Super Bowl. Think about the difference between winning a golf tournament and winning The Open. When the going gets tough, the tough become strengthened, and in the end, they become great as they achieve greatness.

My client and I talked for just a few minutes about burn-out and how if I were his doctor, I would prescribe for him a new challenge, one that would test him as no other had, and one that would assure that he was creating value for others. He smiled and said our talk helped, and he went to work on figuring out how to get back to creating value by finding a new challenge, one that would come at a high price but would be worth the effort. I’ll keep you posted on how this turns out for him.

Michael is a Master Coach, certified by the PBCA, the Professional Business Coaches Alliance. He runs a firm with coaches in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Tucson, and Fort Myers. Michael and his colleagues’ coach CEOs and their leadership teams, and are very involved in coaching and training Emerging Leaders to become the very best leaders that they can become. Check out Michael’s podcast, the “What Are You Doing? “ podcast which is about developing leadership in your organization, and about developing yourself to become a greater businessperson and a more transformational leader.