478: Fighting Mental Fatigue
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Where does mental fatigue come from, and how does it impact us? While a large portion of the fatigue is brought on through external influences, a not insignificant amount stems from our own actions. From failing to adhere to policies to taking on too much, we often burden ourselves more than others do. Today, we will break down why pet sitters deal with so much mental fatigue, its sources, and some simple steps to start taking to combat it.
Main topics
Where it comes from
When it gets the worst
Ways to lessen
Main takeaway: Do what you need to reduce your worry. Find where your brain spends its time worrying, or thinking, and find ways to get a process in place, set boundaries, and fight for your personal life
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
client, mental fatigue, visits, life, pet, fatigue, brain, day, business, mental, mentally, pet sitters, request, feel, operate, burden, find, policy, people, prolonged periods
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:03
Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are. I am Meghan. I'm Collin, and we are the hosts of petsitter confessional. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you also to our sponsor, pet sitters Associates, and our Patreon peeps.
Collin Funkhouser 00:16
Happy Easter everybody know if you would like to learn more about what it means to be a Patreon supporter, you can go to Pitzer confessional.com/support, there are two different levels. There's the Doxon. And there's the great thing about the Doxon is really there. If you love the show, if you want to support the show financially, if you get a lot of value from that, if you'd like a little bit of extra and get some episodes early, if you'd like to attend our first Friday meetups, and get on zoom with a bunch of people from around the globe, you can join the Great Dane membership and again, both of those, you can find it pet surf professional.com/support.
Meghan 00:49
The number one piece of feedback that we get from employees who choose to no longer be a pet sitter with us is the mental fatigue aspect of dog walking pet city, it first you don't think that it's going to be there. You just think this is puppy cuddles and Kitty kisses. But it really does start to weigh on you if you don't manage it properly. Colin and I have been pet sitters for 13 years. And We have certainly had to work through this in our own business and we continue to struggle with it at times and just caregiving by nature is a very exhaustive process. And so we wanted to talk today about how to overcome some of these and where that mental fatigue comes from as a petsitter.
Collin Funkhouser 01:29
Because when we talk about mental fatigue here, it really is that mental burden that mental fogginess that that feeling that you get when another decision has to be made, and you just can't where it becomes such a burden where it starts to kind of trigger you into avoiding or triggers emote an emotional response from you because there's just no more capacity there to do one more thing. Well,
Meghan 01:54
and mental fatigue is more than just decision fatigue. We actually did talk about decision fatigue back on episode 171. But mental fatigue is not just about making decisions, it's where it becomes difficult to process a lot of information at one time in ko processing and multitasking we've talked about before as well, but it's the the weightiness of this job.
Collin Funkhouser 02:14
And just everything that goes along with it. But it is this this fogginess that you feel kind of this tiredness, this exhausted nature of waking up and feeling groggy and tired and going through the day feeling groggy, and tired and just mentally being checked out. Because there's not enough you don't want to always feel like you don't have enough energy to keep moving forward and processing what needs to be done in the business. And
Meghan 02:36
so it is multifaceted. The mental fatigue, the physical fatigue, emotionally just being exhausted, it really all compounds to where you're just feeling done over it. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 02:47
compared to running a marathon or that that is physical fatigue, weakness of your body is being exerted of our long of over a prolonged period of time with exertion and effort. And when running a business and especially in pet care, we are our brains are engaged constantly for prolonged periods of time, and it impacts everything about us physically, our mood, our focus decision making, it impacts our, our health, and indeed can actually impact our immune system at the end of the day.
Meghan 03:15
And actually, sometimes it comes from us this mental fatigue, we may not necessarily notice that we're intentionally doing it. But maybe it's policies that we don't stick to something that that we had written down previously. And we either forgot about it or just chose to ignore it for this one special client that creates a weariness of if I do that, that one policy for this one client and I, I move another policy for another client, I'm having to keep track of all these different things. Or
Collin Funkhouser 03:41
maybe because we don't stick to a policy that we put in place to protect us like I always require having a key access to a home. But we don't follow that policy. And now we get in trouble because the garage code is out of battery. Or maybe the client is unable to unlock their front door from their app because they don't have signals. So we waste a lot of time sitting outside of the client's home. That creates mental fatigue and burden because now we have to be problem solving, engaged, active and alert during that entire time. When have we just followed our policy in the first place, we wouldn't have had to do that.
Meghan 04:15
There are times that we take on more than we can keep up with. Maybe there are complicated visits, you have eight dogs, three that need a medication, 14 cats. It's all too much or too many visits in a day or too long of visits too clingy or demanding of clients. There are times that we look back and we think oh we actually should have said no to this client. It was not in my wheelhouse or it was too much for me to handle outside of my service area when we stretch ourselves too thin. That can lead us back to this exhaustion. Well, don't
Collin Funkhouser 04:47
don't discount being comfortable in a client's home. If you come into a client's home and it's not as clean as would make you comfortable or maybe the pet isn't as friendly or engaging as you would make you feel calm. Trouble. Or maybe they're asking you to do something with that pet that puts you outside your comfort zone. This is now going to elevate your cognitive level, you're going to be engaged more mentally for more prolonged periods of time. And this leads to fatigue, especially when we do this day after day, hour after hour, 30 minutes after 30 minutes. And that is something that we work with our staff a lot is under helping them understand that your brain is going to be turned on and engaged actively and attentively and intentionally for four or five, six, maybe eight hours in a stretch, and that you are going to have to find ways to turn that off when you are done. Or then understand how do I best control that women in that situation? Or how do I communicate? When do I need help? And being a solo sitter, it's especially important to know at what level can I operate for prolonged periods of time, am I going to take on 22 visits every day for 365 days a year for year after year after year. That's probably not an episode for that's probably not a recipe for success. So what is a comfortable level for you? What are the kind of visits that actually bring you joy, because I guarantee you not all of them do, or what kind of clients are actually going to help you lead a more mentally balanced and stable life. Those are all decisions that you get to make.
Meghan 06:15
It's also easy to keep track of if you have 1020 30 clients, all of their information and details is pretty easy to keep track of. But once you start growing to 100 200 1000 clients, it's no longer sustainable or mentally profitable for you to keep all of that in your head. It is definitely mentally taxing when you work in 30 minute chunks because no house is the same. No clients are the same. No pets are the same, the demands are different, and the house layout is different. And so we do need to understand what is in our control and what isn't when you do that meet and greet, maybe get the pictures of the house and kind of the layout if you and the client are comfortable with that. So we talked about this a lot but be introspective know how you work know how you are able to process information and know what's going to work best for you. As far as what things that you need to have control love and things that you are okay with letting go.
Collin Funkhouser 07:08
Understanding what we have control over. And what we don't is really when we're impacting with others in our business, whether those are clients, those could be staff that could be built on our personal life, what clients really do request a lot from us, especially things like last minute changes, this can provide a lot of opportunity for mental burden if we don't have good systems in place to control that. Because now we've got we've done all the work to get the nice lineup for how things are going to operate and the order of operations for our route planning, and everything's perfect. And then there's a last minute change in the last minute request. Well, now on top of everything that I've got to be doing, I'm going to now look at the schedule, I'm going to rip it all apart, put it all back together. That's that takes time and intense focus that a lot of times that we don't have, or maybe it's not just requesting additional services. But once you've committed to a service, they start adding additional requests for you to do while you are there that maybe weren't initially brought up in the beginning. And so now you've got to switch into your brain of going now I've got a plan for this, I'm going to allocate time for this, I've got to change how I approach this visit, maybe I need different tools, maybe I need to go and do research on this specific request that the client has for me so that I feel comfortable doing this. Or maybe it puts you outside of your comfort zone. And now you're operating outside your comfort zone, already mentally stressed and taxed for the new request that was just placed on you and you're trying to perform it well. Because you know, you're at least you're here you are thinking as a business owner going, if I don't do this, well, this person is not going to use me again, maybe I'll lose out on money that comes down for us or they're going to leave me a bad review when I wasn't set up for success in the first place. But here I am. And I have to do this anyway, that causes a lot of stress and fatigue on us.
Meghan 08:46
As it happens, life often gets in the way, traffic lights in between visits, not fine. brain capacity goes down and blood pressure goes up. I am not I am not an okay mood. When I have hit the fourth red light in a row. It could also be sick family members or you get sick and your fuse gets shorter, you're able to handle less and CO process less when your car needs an oil change and you have to take it into the shop but you've got visits for the next 17 days in a row and aren't able to get to it until after that it can really weigh on you.
Collin Funkhouser 09:19
Well it's not just the weight it's the fact that now you have to plan differently you have to make changes your brain now has to think engage work on the schedule problem solve solution here, work your way through how do I now put my life back together? Now this is life is throw me a curveball or maybe it's on a curveball. It's an oil change that happens every three or five or 7000 miles depending on what you're doing with your car. You know it's coming up but now you have to make changes. It interrupts your daily flow it interrupts what you thought you were going to be doing. The fatigue comes in when now I have to add another thing to my plate to problem solve to find a solution for in work on in my schedule and in my life. If a
Meghan 10:00
lot of mental fatigue comes up around busy times, for the holidays, we are already stressed. Physically, we are trying to prepare, but it's hard on our bodies, it's hard on our minds. It can also be when our personal life intersects with the business. So if you've had a family member gets sick, or your something with your house has gone wrong, or you just sat down for coffee with a friend, but they gave you some not great news, and you take that into your next visit, our personal lives are typically very intertwined with our business, and it can be hard to separate them.
Collin Funkhouser 10:34
And that is a balance that I know a lot of people struggle with. And we do as well, even after 13 years of knowing how do I have a personal life? How do I have my business life? And we posted on our social media and Instagram and Facebook here recently about asking how do you balance this? There was a lot of great tips there a lot of people talking and walking through that struggle. And then there were also a lot of people saying things like, I don't have that, or is this a joke? Or how do I even what, how would I even manage that in my life, and it's taking that time to recognize I have a personal life that is worth me investing in, I have a business that needs me to operate in them, these both have to coexist. But that does not mean that one should or must consume the other. And that we get to find that line, we get to hold that line in our life. Because as our personal life goes, that will impact our business as our impact as our business goes, that will impact our personal life. And that causes us mental fatigue, because when we have stressors and strains on one side of that scale, or both of them at the same time, we are caught in the middle, and we must work through those as they come up. Megan, you said that most of the time when mental fatigue kicks in, it's during the busy times. It's during the busy times of our business during the busy times in our life. Basically, it's anytime where you need to start operating at more than 100% capacity, but you just can't. And this is the insidious nature of this, we feel as though we are operating perfectly fine, that we've got it under control that we have everything lined up and that we can keep everything moving along. And then one little thing happens, one little thing goes wrong, the tire go blows out and we need to get a new one of those or a friend needs our assistance because they're sick or maybe a client starts having some issues with our services. One little thing goes wrong. And that messes up everything that we have because we were barely able to keep it up as it was. And that fatigue kicks in hard. And then we have to deal with that. One
Meghan 12:33
thing that definitely lessens your mental fatigue is pet business insurance. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help for over 20 years they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote at pets@loc.com. You can get a discount when you joined by clicking membership, a pet sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. But we don't want to be negative nancies here because we've basically just been saying, Oh, it's terrible, awful, don't even become a pet sitter. It's not what we're saying at all. There are boundaries, you can set to lessen mental fatigue. And one of them is saying no, it is a complete sentence. It stands on its own. It's just two letters. And you can say at anytime you want to, to whomever you want to friends, family, employees, the clients yourself, no, I will not do this today because it is not serving me it is not good for my mental health, I need to take a break, I'm going to say no to this activity. And yes to the mental break, I'm going to say no to this client that's outside of my service area. And I'm going to say yes to somebody that is inside or I'm going to say yes to that extra time that I get back by by not having to drive to this other client.
Collin Funkhouser 13:56
And I will say in all of our conversations with other pet sitters and even in our own life. I personally don't feel as though you can say no to early. Well, we hear often as people started saying no to light, and then they had to get caught back up. And then they really had to slam hard on the brakes to do a course corrective in their life and in their business. Saying no early allows you to build that muscle saying no to little things allows you to build the muscles so that when big requests come up, you are confident in saying no you're standing firm in that we had one of the comments about the importance of staying no on our on our social media post about that. One way that you can do that with confidence is to work on things like your finances as to work on things like your scheduling is to work on things like your business to have that plan lined out so that you know that there are things going on that you know that you don't have to say yes to absolutely everything or every request. Because they're going to be covered and everything's going to be okay.
Meghan 14:53
Well and it really is about trusting your gut. You had said Say no to little things, but it's in that first inkling of that gut reaction of, oh, I may not be comfortable with this, or I don't really want to do that. It is okay to say no. Since you are the CEO of your business, you get the choice of when to put the brakes on. Nobody else can tell you when is too early. And
Collin Funkhouser 15:15
one of the reasons we say no to things so that we can fight for our personal life, we just talked about how our personal life can impact our business, our business can impact our personal life, but you need to recognize that you have a personal life that is worth fighting for, for whomever that is friends, families, neighbors, acquaintances in whatever capacity, fight for your personal life, this brings in more balance, because it means that you are not operating at 100% working on your business 100% of the time, when your brain is only ever engaged in your business. And it never focuses on anything else. You never give your brain a break. You never give your brain a break, to relax, to decompress, to focus on other things. And that's where again, this comes up, we fight for our personal life, so that we can lead a more balanced life. And
Meghan 16:06
when we talk about ways to decrease mental fatigue, we really are talking to ourselves here because I feel like we need this on a weekly basis. But another way to lessen it is to not create a policy or a boundary that you can't hold to or that you won't hold to, if you always want to take payment upfront. But a client is questioning you and doesn't like that. So you just say okay, you can pay me when you get back. I don't like confrontation, it's not a big deal. It's fine. Just this one time, we'll do it this way. Well, why even have the policy, if you don't stick to it, then there's no point. And I feel like Colin and I have this discussion all the time. Because sometimes we're our hearts on our sleeve and don't want to be business owners and really stick to our policies. But it is true, if you aren't actually going to implement it when the rubber meets the road, then don't even have it in there. No one says you have to have that in there. You're the one that created it, you are the you can be the one to take it out. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 17:00
I see a lot of people who want to just download a blanket contract or a blanket policies for their business. This is fine as a starting point. But you need to work through that with a fine tooth comb. I know we have one that we give out a lot as well if you work through this with a fine tooth comb and really ask yourself, If I send this to a potential client or an existing client, and they call me and they say Why is this in there? Are you willing to fight for it? Is this something that you're willing to stand up for, and potentially lose a client or potential client over in your business? Yes, it is that serious because it's worth putting it in black and white in your document, it's worth sticking to. And really having a weight on your shoulders about that policy will really help you know, okay, I'm going to put this in there. And I need to stick to this because it's for my benefit and connecting it to of why connecting it to a reason for you personally, the reason I take payment upfront is so that I have security in my booking to reserve this spot. So I know exactly who's committed to so I'm equally committed to them for the time they need
Meghan 18:05
away. And so ultimately, I have more peace of mind, I have less mental fatigue, because I know my schedule is set. I know I've already been paid for that. I know that I can meet my finances this month because of these bookings I already have set out and I can live a more peaceful life. I mentioned a few minutes ago about having 2030 clients, when you get to 1000 clients, you cannot keep all of their information and their door codes and, and everything particular about their clients in your head, you can't keep all of that straight. So you need software. That is the biggest business aspect that is going to help your mental fatigue, getting a software that can basically do it all for you, the clients can book they don't have to call you because that is also a mental burden of okay, Suzy needs me at this time on this day. I guess I can fit her in. And I know some people love pencil and paper. And that's great. But when you get to a size that is not really sustainable anymore 1000 2000 3000 clients and maybe you don't want to grow that big, and that's totally fine. It's your business. But getting a software where clients can book themselves do payments, you can they can see their calendar, you can see all of your visits, it was really a time saver, a mental bandwidth saver as well.
Collin Funkhouser 19:23
And it really is if you are feeling like you're struggling with this from the mental fatigue area. If you've are pen and paper if you're an email phone call if you write it down on your on your notebook and your personal calendar that you keep with you at all times. If that works for you and you don't worry or stress about that. Absolutely go forth and continue to conquer. But if you find yourself struggling, second guessing, worrying, feeling like you have to keep everything in your head and that you can't let anything you're worried about dropping something. Getting a software will really help you it really will because it will offload that mental burden from your life and and put it someplace where it can't go wrong.
Meghan 20:02
We I feel like we do talk a lot about automation and getting systems and processes in there to to help you the contract the software, the insurance is another big one. Because then you know you're covered for damages to pet property and third party. And even if you were thinking about getting employees having the scripts that you send out to them with all the questions, your your interview questions all written down somewhere, whether it's automated or not have a process for what you do in your business. We've also implemented doing walkthrough videos at our clients homes, it really helps our employees, it helps us to know where things are during a visit, so we don't freak out. And oh, we only have so much time left. And I don't know if we can find this thing. We already know where it is. And our employees already know how to interact with a pet. Because we've done that, do
Collin Funkhouser 20:47
this, even if you are a solopreneur in your business, because sometimes you may do a client and they may need you in 18 months, and you've forgotten where their spoons are. This is a mental burden. Literally, it's a mental fatigue in your business. Having that one simple walkthrough, whether that's photos, or that you document where things are, or an actual video where you walk through the house. And I do this with each of our clients. And I say I'm over here at Baxters. Today I'm going to show you where their spoons are. And just not not too much detail. Each video is about a minute, maybe a minute and a half long, just giving a lay of the land and outline where things are and where to expect to find things or potential problems that may come up. Then you have outsource that information from your brain is now sitting over in loom or wherever you store this. And you can always refer back to this, and then you don't have to worry about it. Since our days are filled with a lot of unknowns, there's a lot that we can do to prepare beforehand, so that we know what to expect on those busy days, preparing your snacks, double checking your route, checking the weather, getting these things off of your brain, so you don't have to worry about them or have them hovering over you while you're going from visit to visit. Something that's become also a lot more commonplace. Over the last few years has been cameras in client's homes, these are wonderful, they're a great asset that we lean into with the client, letting them know that hey, if you see anything, reach out to us and tell us so that maybe we can change the visit time or that we know what we're walking into. But with that also comes a mental burden, mental fatigue of worrying about people's talking to you through the camera, we've had this happen a lot over the past just a year alone. And being mentally prepared of going that may happen. Because otherwise what we do is we sit during the visit worrying and thinking and planning and it consumes us of going, what if they're going to talk to me, or they're gonna talk to me, maybe they're gonna talk to me, or they're talking now about now have it out. And it really weighs on us. So either a that's a conversation that we have to have with a client to request that they not do that only in extreme situations or emergencies. Or B we can also prepare for that mentally and just go look, they're going to talk to me, and I have to be ready for that. Because many of us worry about missing visits or not knowing exactly what's coming up. Even if you're using a software program, sitting down and reviewing what's coming up. Mentally go through the checklist for each one of those clients, review the notes understand what those expectations are. Did anything happen last time that you need to be aware of coming this time? Has it been a year or six months since they booked you last? Maybe let's go ahead and reach out now and ask for some follow up just to make sure that everything is on the up and up for this really giving you a sense for what your week is going to look like so that you don't have any surprises. Plus, when surprises do come up, if we've reviewed if we've rehearsed the week, if we know it well, when things come up, it's easier for us to get in there understand where the changes need to take place without a consuming too much of our time. In addition to preparing for our week or our days, we also need to make sure that we are looking at eliminating things from our life so that we can ease the mental burden. We actually talked a lot about this on episode 476 about how we personally try not to schedule too many things on Monday so that we free up that time we free up that mental space. If we run and we try and operate at 100% or 120% Every single day, the burden the fatigue builds up and it wears us down. Instead, find where you are comfortable at 80% capacity or maybe even lower of the demands on you so that you can still get the same or similar results. That way when stresses come when your time gets tight when the busy seasons come as they do every year around the major holidays. You are ready for them. You're are well rested for those and that's the other thing too. Getting enough rest is an amazing way to help combat mental fatigue. When we talk about Getting good rest. What it does is it not only rejuvenates us physically, but also mentally, it allows our brain to process everything that we did that day and store it in the constituent parts of where that needs to go. Long term memory, short term memory, the learning, everything gets put in place, or in my case, a lot of it gets deleted, right. But your brain gets to process what happened that day, when we skip out or we skimp on the sleep, our brain doesn't get that ability, and our body doesn't get the rest. So these little things build up over time. And we can't fully try and wipe the slate clean enough. And yet, we keep adding more and more and more to that. So getting enough sleep is a huge one. And then during the day, making sure we're taking those nice deep breaths, we're finding small moments to relax, we are creating space, right? That is such a huge time. Sometimes it's a physical space, I need to physically remove myself, from my work from the pets from the clients need to physically get away from them. Maybe it's timewise, I need to create space on my calendar for me. So I can get away from those toxic aspects or the people or the things in our business that are causing us burden and fatigue, creating that space, blocking out that time committing yourself that hey, this this hour on my on my calendar right now, I know it says taking a break. But right now this is the most productive thing I can do for me and my business is going and laying the grass or reading a book or booking a tree house in a nearby city and going and staying there for a night or two to just focus on you and unburden yourself from the little things that build up over time. Reaching mental fatigue, mental burnout doesn't happen overnight. And so all the stuff that we've talked about here, we can't expect to get rid of it. Get rid of those things. In one event, or one night away, or in one hour laying on the grass or in one coffee with a friend. It's the habits that build it's the habits that actually get us moving in the right direction, so that we can maintain the balance that we need in our life. And that looks different for absolutely everybody. So we encourage you to take that time. Carve out that space and learn who you are, and learn what space you need and learn what burdens you are carrying around so that you can work on letting them go. In
Meghan 27:35
the end, do what you need to do to reduce your worry. Find where your brain spends its time worrying or thinking be introspective. Ask yourself the hard questions. Find ways to get a process in place, set those boundaries and fight for your personal life.
Collin Funkhouser 27:50
We'd love to know how you combat mental fatigue in your business and in your personal life and some of the tools and processes that you have in place. You can send those to feedback at petsitter confessional.com. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Pet Sitter confessional or send us a voicemail 636-364-8260
Meghan 28:09
Thank you to pet sitters associates and our awesome Patreon supporters for finding value in the show. Thank you also to you for listening and taking your most valuable asset your time and listening to this today. We very much appreciate you. We'll talk with you next time. Bye
