How to feel love for life and energy again in a week

AVAlexander Volchek

Over the past few years, I've spent so much time with my children, and I want to spend even more time with them. Or it can be a normal state in life to want nothing. There are no one-minute, instant solutions. You cannot make the right decision from a state of burnout.

AVAnna Volchek

I'd like to talk about those times when you don't want anything. When you feel so empty, with no desire for anything in the world, when you can't do anything and don't want anything. There often seem to be different reasons for that state. It could be burnout, a lack of belief in yourself, or depression. Could we explore each of those directions and look at what's there, how it affects a person, and how a person themselves affects that state? What do you do when you don't want anything?

AVAlexander Volchek

Does a person actually have the right to be in a state where they don't want anything?

AVAnna Volchek

What do you mean, “have the right”?

AVAlexander Volchek

Well, do they have that right? Because you're basically presenting not wanting anything as a problem. In society, in the modern world, not wanting anything is described as a problem. Doing nothing is a problem. That's the basic message. A person can't not work eight hours a day, can't not travel, can't not pursue something—people love the word “hobby.” A person must always want something. They must want to develop, want to read books; they must want something all the time.

AVAnna Volchek

But you're speaking from society's perspective, from social judgment. What if we look at how a person feels inside?

AVAlexander Volchek

That's what I'm talking about: how they feel inside. That's the fundamental point I'm leading up to. To work through the subject of “I don't want anything,” we have to find the problem in it. You're presenting it as a problem: someone has an inner state of “I don't want anything,” and that's a problem. But if they want to eat a lot, is that a problem or not? That seems to be a problem too. I simply want to approach this point: when we talk about and explore not wanting anything, or a person explores that state for themselves, the first thing to tell yourself is that, in general, wanting nothing is a great or normal state in life. Speaking honestly for myself, I'd often very much like to want nothing. Nothing at all. Could I enter a state where I don't want anything, absolutely anything, nothing, completely nothing? Since we're declaring that we don't want anything: I don't want anything. To live in that state—but I want to be in that state of “I don't want anything.” That's very important. I want to be in it without approaching it as something bad for me, right?

I don't want to be there in the sense of having negative emotions about not wanting anything. I want to be in a state where I want nothing, where I simply want nothing. I'm glad about it. I'm happy about it. I'm living. Look, this is the most important point, the most important starting point for examining this subject at all. If someone watching this video is in this state or has experienced it, then to analyze “I don't want anything,” you need to begin by telling yourself that, in general, it can be a great state, a good state in life.

AVAnna Volchek

Okay, let's say we agree with that. Or, more precisely, we accept it. But what if a person is experiencing certain negative, difficult things physically, emotionally, and psychologically associated with not wanting anything? For example, if we're talking about burnout: “I'm burned out. I'm burned out at work. I'm burned out, I don't know, at home, in my family relationships. I'm burned out.” What is burnout in that situation?

AVAlexander Volchek

So now we're beginning to explore “I don't want anything,” looking at the reasons a person is in one state or another. You're saying that one reason someone might not want anything is that they reached a situation where the actions they took led them into a state of burnout.

AVAnna Volchek

For example, yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes. They don't want anything because they're sick of going to work for fifteen hours every day, and that work makes them unhappy inside, for example. Or they're sick of spending all day, every day, taking care of children. It's very important for them to identify this for themselves. It doesn't mean everyone will be sick of it. Again, my wife spends a great deal of time with the children—we have four. With all the hours she spends with them, she isn't sick of it; she's happy. Honestly, the more time I spend with my children, the happier I am. There are specific situations when I might say, “I'd probably like to do this alone,” or “I'd like to be alone at that time tomorrow.” But overall, I'm happy whenever I have the opportunity to spend time with my children. I've spent so much time with them over the past few years, and I want to spend even more time with them. I've worked so much in my life, and I want to work even more. But the opposite situation, a genuinely opposite situation, does arise, and it's always important to find the cause in it.

What is the cause, the real cause, of your burnout or of your not wanting to do anything? We're talking about not wanting to do things, about burnout. Why am I emphasizing this so much? It seems obvious, doesn't it? It isn't, because for one person, working a lot makes them even stronger, and they want to work even more. For another person, with practically the same combination of salary, bosses, job, professional work, and development—with a completely similar combination—everything that's happening fills them with total revulsion.

AVAnna Volchek

What should they do? It's as though the battery has been switched off, as though someone has unplugged them. They're burned out. What should they do? And how do you distinguish burnout, real, serious burnout, from some kind of fatigue? Is it actually a serious state? Does this state exist, or is a person simply giving a collection of physical and psychological sensations that name?

AVAlexander Volchek

People come to us with burnout. In most cases, one of the things to work on is the fundamental understanding that a person has burned out because they don't understand what actions to take next, or because they don't allow themselves certain actions. I didn't bring up the example of doing nothing being normal for no reason. The point is that when someone is doing nothing, they often start destroying themselves. Likewise, if they're burned out from work, they keep doing it but don't find other solutions for themselves. For example, I go to work and burn out there. I keep going, and my relationship with my boss isn't working. I've always given this example: if your boss thinks it's normal to swear at people or throw, I don't know, tomatoes at employees, you have a choice. Either accept that pattern of behavior, that arrangement—I don't agree with it—accept it or don't stay there. But stop complaining, stop going into burnout, or change direction: find another solution for yourself. Under no circumstances, under no circumstances, keep going around in endless discussions about how your boss is an asshole.

When we're looking at burnout at work, the first thing you need to do to begin resolving any of this is to make an agreement with yourself. Simply agree that for the next three months, “I'll go to work with a feeling of love. I'll go with interest. I'll go with a desire to work.” This is the only way to begin getting out of it. The only way. Why is it the only way? Because if you've reached a profound state of not wanting to live at all—the other side of this subject of doing nothing is the various suicidal tendencies that can arise—if you've reached a state of thinking there's no point in living, and so on, because you don't need to work now... or, more precisely, because you're burned out from work, for example, or from being at home with the children, you cannot find a solution in one second or one minute. There are no one-minute, instant solutions. The only entirely reasonable one-minute, instant solution is to give yourself permission to agree that for the next three months, every day, every day, “I'll approach what I do as something I like.” Be calm about it. Accept it as a given.

Simply accept it as a given. When a person does this within that state, they'll reach a state of normal perception from which they can then make the right decision. If you completely lack the desire to do anything, and that is leading you into depressive aggression or a depressed state, if you're burned out from work, the very first thing to realize is that you aren't capable of making the right decision. You cannot make the right decision from a state of burnout. You simply cannot. You can go to...

You simply cannot. You can go as often as you like, to anyone you like, get any advice, go to different coaching sessions or courses, go to anything at all. But you won't be able to make the right decision. It's impossible. Objectively impossible.

AVAnna Volchek

Is there a connection between burnout and a lack of meaning? A lack of meaning—when you don't see a point in an action, when it feels pointless—and that pointlessness brings you to burnout.

AVAlexander Volchek

Of course, that can be one component, one of the components, because burnout takes different forms. Anya, burnout can come from spending your childhood being told you must study endlessly, work endlessly, and that nothing will ever come of you. “You're nobody. You're worthless.” For decades, a person tries to prove they'll succeed. But then they enter an environment, for example, where that's quite difficult, and they burn out because they keep trying to prove something that cannot be proved. A person doesn't need to prove to anyone that they'll amount to something. If they try to prove to someone that they'll succeed, then of course, one hundred percent, they'll reach that state. They'll burn out. Why does a person burn out? Because they take actions that lead irreversibly to failure. That's the starting point. That's why they burn up, why they burn out. If I go to work and put in the effort solely to prove I'm a star, but don't get a response, I'll burn out. If I go to work wanting to prove to everyone that I'm right and it doesn't work, I'll burn out. If I raise children not because this is real life, not because this is love, not because it's wonderful, but only to prove to my mother that I can be a father, I'll burn out.

One of the fundamental causes of burnout is the desire to prove something to someone. That's a wrongly formulated goal. When you talk about having no goal to move toward, let's be honest, genuinely honest: there is always a goal. There won't be burnout without a goal. There is always a goal.

AVAnna Volchek

You're just doing something that isn't connected with it.

AVAlexander Volchek

You're just doing something that isn't connected with the goal. Or you aren't aware of why you're doing one thing or another in the first place.

AVAnna Volchek

Are burnout and depression connected? Can we say they're different levels of the same dimension, or are they fundamentally different things, different states in essence?

AVAlexander Volchek

Burnout probably always has an object: something you're burned out from. Of course, you could say, “I'm burned out from life,” but generally, there is an object. “I'm burned out from being with this person.” “I'm burned out from a particular activity.” Depression is simply depression; it arises without an object. That's the fundamental difference. Depression has no object, but it has a cause. Once again, everything has a cause. That's the most important thing. Everything has a cause. One of the simplest things you can do, one of the very simplest, whenever you're in a bad state, is ask yourself, “What is the cause?” It's a very simple action. Then try to see more causes behind that cause. We don't see this or look for it. In general, people aren't able to go into cause-and-effect analysis. They want very simplistic examinations of causes, simplistic conclusions. Someone says, “I'm burned out from this job. I'm simply burned out from this job.” But why did they end up in that job in the first place? Why did they take it? How did they end up there at all? What drove them to go there? What was it that brought them to that place? That is what matters.

AVAnna Volchek

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