The Spoon Theory and It’s Application to Energy, Workaholism, and Burnout

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You may have heard of Christine Miserandino’s The Spoon Theory. She was attempting to explain how chronic illness limits a person’s abilities and energy, including the experience that she must remain mindful of her spoons to not feel depleted or suffer as the result. It’s a concept that resonates with so many people, even when we apply it to cancer treatment, workaholism, and burnout, as I have with certain clients over the years.

As a skier, my spouse would say it’s the concept of leaving a little left in the tank. You can’t give it all on the mountain and be on “empty” when trying to drive yourself home safely.

A client recently described it as social coins and introversion or extroversion. Introverts spend coins when being in social situations and replenish their coins when home recharging alone. Extroverts feel their coins being spent at home until they are around other people, thus regaining more coins. Similar to The Spoon Theory, when the coins are gone, the person must pursue a shift to protect their remaining energy.

This protection of energy is what makes The Spoon Theory so effective in it’s application to different life experiences. As my client goes through her weekly cancer treatment, she has learned to ask herself how many spoons she has left and what she wants them to be used for at the end of the day. If she starts with 12 spoons but is feeling the toll of the chemotherapy on her body and mind, she could very easily find herself with 1-2 spoons left by 4pm. Then she has to make the decision of how to use them, such as a spoon to eat dinner or a spoon to pick up around the house. What really stuck for her was the question of what happens when you run out of spoons? In her case, she was trying to borrow spoons from the next day, finding herself even more depleted and sick as a result. Each choice and action comes at a cost.

So how does The Spoon Theory apply to workaholism? Many clients over the years have heard me talk about their energy pies. They have a pie and that is all the energy they have. There is no more pie. Each thing they pursue or have on their plate is represented as a slice of pie. The number of slices and how big or small they are, are constantly changing based on what’s going on in the person’s life. For example, perhaps they are recovering from an illness, which has taken a significant slice of their pie over the last week. Or they are focusing on taking a big test in their career, resulting in a large chunk. What’s important to recognize is how the remaining things in their life then result in a smaller piece of pie. A workaholic focused on a big project is allocating a huge slice and is wondering why their relationships aren’t going so well. It could be the result of having their relationships having little to no slice of the pie. There is no energy left for them in how the workaholic is currently allocating their slices. Therapeutically, this concept has served as an important and simple visual for anyone who is frustrated by their lack of energy or progress, by being able to see how their energy pie slices are showing up (purposefully or organically) and by noticing which ones are largest versus some that may be small or completely absent.

As for burnout, we can now imagine an even smaller amount of spoons at the start of each day, or a bigger portion of the pie being consumed by burnout, which leaves little energy left for anything else. When we begin the process of burnout recovery, it’s the small but mighty shifts that we can celebrate where the focus becomes regaining and diversifying our pie slices in the goal of work-life balance, or protecting our spoons from being used up too quickly as the byproduct of burnout.

How can social coins, an empty gas tank, the energy pie, or The Spoon Theory help you in your goals for 2023? Taking inventory of your daily quantities can be a powerful place to start!  

To Conquer or Die: Pivoting as a Recovering Perfectioneur

Control Freak.

Entrepreneur.

Workaholic.

Type A Personality.

Perfectioneur.

A Perfectionist Entrepreneur

Have you ever worked so hard at something that you made yourself sick? Maybe it was that time at the gym where you pushed yourself so hard in a workout that you felt physically ill. Or during dead week in college, that week before finals, where you worked so hard to feel prepared, only to get sick after finals were over. Working so hard to master something, it’s something I know a lot about as a Recovering Perfectioneur. 

There are many Perfectioneurs in this world, managing the workforce with the badge of busy-ness. 

How’s life? It’s busy! 

How are you? So busy! 

Responding to an American culture of independence and prosperity, we are a breed of Entrepreneurs driven by desires to create, to make an impact, and to lead change. A group of hustlers that epically fail at self-care and work-life balance. Running themselves into the ground out of a desire to accomplish things that feel important, meaningful, and worthwhile. A group of Millennial and Gen-Z ers who were taught to work hard for what they want, only to find themselves overworked, burnt out, and with higher risks of anxiety and depression.

A phrase that captures this experience: To conquer or die. It’s a family motto I believe to my core, even going so far as to tattoo it on my body! And as a result, I was nearing collapse and total breakdown. That’s when I learned I needed to recover as a Perfectioneur.

That’s me, now what? 

So maybe you resonate with this definition of Perfectioneurs. If this is you, there is hope! Let’s look at some ideas outside of the commercialized concepts of self-care that can help you heal and grow for the better.

1.     Rest versus Restoration

Self-care from an American standpoint might present like a vacation, massage, or other costly thing that is meant to encourage a person to slow down and take a breather. For many of us, the luxury of spending money on such items can be a struggle. Perhaps it’s not even the financial stress but the struggle to carve out a chunk of time in your full schedule to complete it. Feeling like we don’t have time is half the battle. With this in mind, it’s no wonder planners have come back into popularity, with the purpose of blocking out time for yourself, your friends, and your family.

So now it’s the weekend and you decide to binge watch Netflix and lounge on the couch to rest after a very full week. Do you find yourself feeling rested? What about restored? Rest is the idea of limited or low activity. There is purpose to rest. But for so many of us, rest doesn’t provide us with renewed stamina or energy to keep achieving and progressing. We are still tired. We are still overwhelmed.

Instead, perhaps we embrace the concept of restoration. What are some things that energize you, restore your energy, revitalize you, bring you back to yourself? Interestingly enough, the list of ideas for self-care shift when presented from the lens of restoration! Maybe now you are thinking about being in nature, cooking a delicious meal, or dancing to good music. Rest and restoration have value for Perfectioneurs and Entrepreneurs, it’s important to identify a balance of both.

2.     Who’s in your orbit?

As you think deeper about restoration, perhaps there are cherished people in your life that you want to be involved in that experience. Do you feel restored when surrounding yourself with loved ones? Fellow Entrepreneurs? Creative thinkers? Dreamers? Giving yourself permission to explore the relationships that energize you can be insightful into how you spend your time. Recognizing individuals who drain you, ask too much of you, or relationships that just don’t feel reciprocal, can be adding to your risk of burnout when feeling overworked and overscheduled. Give yourself permission to focus on the relationships that boost your energy and creative spirit, they will be the ones you’ll want to schedule and make time for because of how they make you feel.

3.     Find your Focus

Balancing your time, your relationships, and your goals can be difficult. And yet, now that you’ve identified the relationships and activities that energize you, you can bring those goals into focus. What if I asked you to write down some goals that are showing up in your mind in this very moment? What items are on your agenda? 

What if I told you that you can only focus on 7 goals in the next 6 months? For those of you who are hustling hard, this may feel restrictive, challenging, and create anxiety and resentment. What would you cross off your list, giving yourself permission to focus on only these 7 goals for the next 6 months? It may feel difficult at first, but it’s amazing to find yourself making more significant progress on the 7 goals because you are also saying NO to everything else. We know that multitasking can be done, but at the risk of lower productivity and limited outcomes since your energy is spread too thin. I encourage you to embrace this exercise of identifying 7 top priorities in your goals list and leave the rest to be added when these 7 are accomplished. You might surprise yourself in how you feel, recognizing more energy, focus, and progress as the result of your efforts!

These are just three strategies that I’ve worked on in order to come back to balance, health, and healing.  And like anyone else in recovery, it’s a choice every day to do something that’s in your best interest. If you decide to take the leap, recognizing yourself as a workaholic, a Type A person, an Enneagram Type 3, or as a fellow Perfectioneur, I can’t wait to see how these strategies work for you, not only to move closer to your values and feelings of fulfillment but to change the narrative of Entrepreneurs for the next generation trying to make a difference for all.

If you’ve run yourself into the ground, the only direction to go is up!