During our NLP training, we frequently get students with a burn-out. Typically, they have been in this space for a while, and after much reflection decide to do an NLP training. Often they after enough rest (and at times therapy), they can come up for air for longer periods of time, but still can dip down. A game of two steps forward, one step back. Or is it the other way around? For the same reason, people may seek you out as a coach to work with them.
A good therapist is advised to pull someone out of mental illness, and away from ill-being. In essence, pull the overgrown, weeds and remove the rubbish, to leave barren land. It is the coach and the NLP training that replenishes the soil, and plants a beautiful garden. To become the new 2.0 version of yourself, and achieve well-being and mental health. You could look at mental illness and ill-being as one side of a spectrum, and mental health and well-being on another side of a spectrum. The therapist can deliver the person to the point in the middle, but is ill-equipped to take them any further. For a person to gain new friends, gain better relationships, become happy, become the best version of themselves. And change the way they think, feel, believe, and approach life.
What caused them to have a burn-out?
Limited amounts of stress causes you to work hard, to achieve, to resolve pain impulses. Chronic stress leads to over-extension and burn-out. Most people can handle the extended pressure a job brings, or their home life, but when both situations occur at the same time it pushes someone over the line.
The reason why they didn’t intervene earlier isn’t because they couldn’t. Yes, they could have quit their job. And yes, they could have set a boundary in their personal life. The problem is we are often much further along into developing a mental illness, than we think we are. What the rest of the world has been warning them about often for years, they felt they were still able to handle.
I know how this works. Most people stay home with a burn-out, I kept working for 1.5 years with a burn-out and ended up so mentally ill that I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME), and was supposedly going to be sick for life. I was 3 years off the rails, but I used NLP to put my mind back together, and started my own NLP training company so I would never go there again. In any case, despite this story, I never saw it coming, until I was at the bottom of the bathroom floor.
Why go to NLP training or hire a coach with a burn-out?
People typically come to the training where they are able to maintain their energy a little more and recognize one or more of the below:
1. I need help in the last phase of my burn-out, to heal myself even further.
2. I need to change the way I think, feel, believe, and behave to not end up here again.
3. I need to change what I do for a living, and have more purpose and meaning.
4. I want to become the 2.0 version of myself.
5. I have been neglecting & destructive of something or someone important to me, and need help fixing this that.
They are absolutely correct that NLP tools and techniques are instrumental to the above.
Can you do NLP training or coaching with a burn-out?
I can not speak for other NLP training companies, but I have trained over the years well over 100 people who were officially diagnosed with a burn-out, and over 500 people who once had a burn-out and didn’t want to end up there again. Only 1 time did a person have to leave the training early, because they could not sustain their energy.
A good rule of thumb is if you can do something that is fun, shifts negatives to positives, and not physically exhausting can you be somewhere for 9 hours, assuming there are plenty of breaks, and 1.5 hours of lunch. As an NLP trainer, not only have I trained other people with burn-outs, but I am expert based on personal experience to have had a burn-out times 10 (which is what Chronic Fatigue is.)
With coaching it is the same, once the first-aid has been received and much energy has been regained, it is time to get to work on yourself. Not by digging into the past, going why, why, why? And talking about what makes you feel bad. But actually learning tools from your coach that allows propel yourself forward. That’s why it is important to hire an NLP coach. I can give you plenty of referrals among my former students, who are located all over the world.
As a customer of an NLP training company or a coach, do ask what happens if you can not continue with the class or with the coaching sessions because of your burn-out? As a company owner, I am a believer in transparency. A good coach, who runs a professional coaching company will do the same. And that you should be able to discuss with a trainer (rather than their assistant), how you navigate an NLP training with a burn-out before the class starts, you may prefer to do this in writing so you can calmly reflect on it. One thing I will always allow is for people to re-schedule twice, and re-take their training.
Next week, I will explore how to use NLP when you have a burn-out or are working as a coach with someone who has.
