Meet Biohacker extraordinaire and founder of the Bulletproof way of life, Dave Asprey. We hope you already know who Asprey is – you’re into wellness, right? – but, just in case, he’s the reason your bf drinks butter in his coffee, the reason half of our favorite wellness protocols have become more mainstream, and his podcast is one you should definitely be listening to.

In his book ‘Game Changers: Interviews with 450 High Achievers About What Drives Their Success’ Dave lays out the kind of life-optimizing, functional tips we love. We pulled this insightful excerpt below on burn out specifically. There is a full chapter on burnout — the ultimate life-hack for working smarter. Asprey’s 13th ‘law’ in the book is ‘Do not push your limits for too long’.

This piece requires a pen and paper, or at least a little solo time to reflect. Here’s Dave… 

“It is not only type-A folks who fall prey to burnout. As I’ve learned from my discussions with some of the world’s foremost healers and spiritual leaders, they, too, have suffered the consequences of giving all of their energy to their craft and putting other people’s needs above their own.

In fact, it’s such a problem that years ago, Jack Canfield created an invitation-only group of personal development leaders who meet twice a year at resorts to focus on taking care of themselves and one another. I have been honored to join those retreats and have frankly been blown away to see so many legends of personal development talking about how their passion for helping others had nearly burned them out. During those retreats, they focus on self-care as though their lives depend on it, and, given that these healers help to serve millions — or tens of millions — of people, that’s no exaggeration.”

How Not To Burn Out… 

Asprey includes prescriptive Action Items at the end of each chapter. Take some time and evaluate your own habits surrounding over-work and burnout… 

one: Think about Your Habits and the things you do on a regular basis that make your body think it is under threat. Stop doing them.

two: Evaluate your energy and write down the top three things that suck the most energy from your life and, also, that give the most energy to your life.

+ What percentage of your time do you spend on the things that suck energy?

+ What percentage of your time do you spend on the things that generate energy?

+ What are the things that suck your energy and feel like threats to your nervous system? Which of these things that suck your energy can you simply stop doing?

+ What is the easiest thing you can do to convince someone else to do one of the energy-suckers that make you weak? Whom will you ask to do it?

three: Prioritize daily self-care even (or especially) if you spend much of your time caring for others. (Yes, this means you, moms.) Schedule it the same way you would a dentist appointment or a job interview.

+ How much time every day will you allocate to self-care?

+ What time of day will you do it?

+ Write down a weekly and a monthly self-care act that takes more time, and schedule them for the next six months. Open your calendar. Do it now.

+ What is your weekly recovery task?

+ What is your monthly recovery task?

four: Assess your goals Write down thirty-, sixty-, and ninety-day goals. Weigh all new requests for your time against those goals. Say no to anything that isn’t aligned with your goals, or get someone else to do it. (You’re going to need a journal to do this one.)

+ When will you write your goals down?

+ Where will you write them down?

+ Have you blocked time on your calendar to write your goals out?

Loving this advice? Dave dished out plenty more when he was a monthly
TCM Guest Editor. Discover more of his best biohacking tips here.