672: Avoiding Pet Sitter Burnout
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Have you ever wondered why burnout often hits right after you’ve “made it” and proven you’re reliable? In this episode, we unpack what burnout is (and isn’t), and why it’s less about long hours and more about chronic overload, emotional labor, and a lack of control. We talk through common burnout triggers in pet sitting—unsafe pets, last-minute requests, unwanted services, always-on expectations, and team-related decision fatigue. We outline warning signs like dreading notifications, resenting great clients, cutting corners, and fantasizing about quitting without a plan. Finally, we share what actually helps: decision filters, simplified services and fewer exceptions, protected recovery time, letting go of perfectionism, reclaiming agency, and practicing gratitude as a stabilizing habit.
Main topics:
Burnout myths and definitions
Decision fatigue and overload
Triggers: safety and scope
Warning signs in business
Systems to regain agency
Main takeaway: Burnout is information that you are experiencing. Burnout is information about what’s going on. You have to dig into it. It’s not a verdict.
Burnout isn’t a moral failure or proof you “can’t handle it.” It’s a warning light telling you something in the business is out of alignment—boundaries, pricing, services, expectations, systems, or recovery time. The goal isn’t always “work less,” it’s work with clarity, limits, and intention. If you’re feeling the drift, don’t shame yourself—diagnose what the signal is pointing to, then change what needs to change.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Pet Sitter Confessional, its hosts, or sponsors. We interview individuals based on their experience and expertise within the pet care industry. Any statements made outside of this platform, or unrelated to the topic discussed, are solely the responsibility of the guest.
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Burnout, pet sitting, chronic overload, decision fatigue, systems, policies, mental health, client requests, employee management, work-life balance, sustainable growth, decision filters, standardization, recovery time, gratitude.
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:00
Hey, burnout in pet sitting isn't caused by loving pets too much. It's caused by systems that quietly break under pressure. Burnout shows up after growth, after success, after being reliable. Welcome to pet sitter confessional. Hi. I'm Megan. I'm Collin. This is an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter, we'd like to thank our sponsors, pet sitters, associates and pet marketing unleashed. Of course, we also want to thank our Patreon supporters, who are other pet sitters and dog walkers just like you, and they love the podcast. They have found value in it over the past 672 episodes, and they want to keep the show going. So if that sounds like you, you can go to pet sitter confessional.com/support, to see the ways that you can help out. When we talk about burnout, as a pet sitter, we need to first define what it is and, more importantly, what it isn't. So burnout is not weakness. It's not saying I cannot go through it anymore. I just need to buck up or I'm not good enough anymore.
Collin 01:00
It's also not saying that when it happens, it means that you are a bad person, or that you are weak. I think many times we say the word burnout and instinctually, or even kind of underneath the surface, we can think, oh, that person. Or if I say I'm suffering from burnout, it means that I'm weak and I can't handle what it takes to run a business.
Meghan 01:22
Burnout is chronic overload and a lack of control, not knowing yourself enough to stop yourself before you get to that point, or knowing the triggers that get you to that point.
Speaker 1 01:34
Well, it's also lack of control in not having the proper systems in place to rein us in of when I am out of control in my business, it means that it feels like things are just racing down the tracks. I know we're we're watching the downhill skiing parts of the Olympics with our kids, and that's just you start heading downwards, and you can't really stop at any point. Once you go off the bench and you're headed down. You just are. And in business, that happens when we don't have good policies and procedures, when we don't have the nose defined in our business, it happens when we bring our guilt and our shame, in a lot of cases, to our business and the people that we're trying to serve, and we deal more emotionally with them than actually facts are what's healthy for us.
Meghan 02:30
When we think of burnout, we think I'm working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, 365, days a year. But it's not just about the hours alone. The burnout comes from more than just the hours you are. Yes, you are tired, but it's more than that. It's also not just about taking a day off. You know, burnout is not solved by taking a day off or taking a moment to breathe. Those things can help, but there is more foundational work that needs to be done.
Speaker 1 02:58
The Hours part, I think is really important, because oftentimes it can be tied to, well, I'm working a lot, so I should be concerned about burnout. The real issue is, what's the content of those hours? How are they structured? What are you doing and working on in them? Are you taking breaks? Are you having Do you have good habits in those hours, you can put in an 18 hour day consistently, and if structured well and done well, you won't burn out. But it's when we do it poorly and we do it rashly, that's when we have
Meghan 03:33
issues, or we go to post something on Instagram and we find ourselves scrolling and not actually posting the thing, and we look up three hours later and we're actually not been productive like we should have been. Some common myths that we see are, you know, if I cared less, then I wouldn't be burned out. And we are here to say that's not true. You can care less. You can just send off that message and not care about what auto correct put in. You can care less about how your employees do their job and take their foot off the gas, of checking in with them, but you may still be burned out. We also see the myth of, well, this is just part of owning a business. I quit my nine to five so I can work 24/7 and that's just the way it is, and it's how I'm going to have to operate no matter what. I think that's not true.
Speaker 1 04:17
It really isn't, and that toxic aspect comes from when we see what other people are out talking about, or, in a lot of cases, not talking about. And so instead, we can think, well, this just, I just, this is just what it has to be. I heard, I've heard about grind, and I've heard about grit, and I've heard about the hustle and, and that's just what I am doing right now. And And this falls off the rails when we just never stop doing that, and we don't ever think, what if I did something differently? Because our mindset says, well, to run a business, it has to be hard. Well, that's true. Running and operating your own business is one of the hardest things you will ever do. But it doesn't mean that you have to get to that point of burnout and. That's that line that we have to walk.
Meghan 05:02
Another major myth is that once I hire help, burnout will stop. Not true at all, because instead of now doing the field visits, you are now managing a person which can sometimes be even more exhausting and more mentally taxing than just going in and cuddling with a puppy for 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 05:19
Well, especially if we don't have good systems in place, and we hire and think, Okay, finally, I can just bring somebody on and point them in a different direction, in the direction I want to go, and they'll take it, and they'll do what they need to without going how I set them up for success. Do they have structure? Have I trained them? Do I have policies and procedures, especially around and this is really where this hits. Hits home is in the decision fatigue that happens on a daily basis when you're working and managing with other people. Oh, they said this. What do I do? Oh, this happened. What do I do? Oh, they want this. What do I do, having those lined out at least a little bit in a handbook in policies is one of the best things you can do, because instead of you having to go, oh, they wanted to request time off, let me think through this. Oh no, here's my time off policy. I wrote it two years ago, and copy and paste right? It's in the manual. That kind of thing is such a lifesaver. And many times we think about in our business and our policy is dealing with our clients or in our in how we deal with things, but it's even more important when you have to do that and respond consistently, when you have a team.
Meghan 06:32
That is something important to note, though, whether you do have a team or not, you can experience burnout. Your tasks may be different throughout the day or the week, but the end result can be the same of wanting to pull your hair out and wanting to just quit the business entirely. Burnout can show up in a myriad of ways in a pet sitting business,
Speaker 1 06:53
this shows up when we say yes to unsafe pets. So think of that that dog or that cat that's kind of on the edge behaviorally of accepting you in their home, and you have to be on edge every time you walk into that place. It could also be you're dealing with a pet that you've never interacted with before and don't have a long history with, and you're trying to understand who they are and how they're going to accept you get into that space. And if we are carrying around that burden and that fatigue and that weight of I have to go and see Baxter today, and Baxter is the one where I have to be on edge and I have to mind my p's and my Q's, and in all those things, we live in a heightened state all the time, and it's in and so we because we have to be so aware, we have to be so conscious of what's going on, it really starts dragging us down and takes up an inordinately large amount of our mental space and capacity during our day.
Meghan 07:54
You talk about that mental space, it is really eaten up when we say yes to last minute requests. These are killers of our mind, of our mental energy. We have to onboard somebody really super fast because they need us today or tomorrow, and we have to get it done. We have to push things off to the side that maybe we really needed to do, or things that we wanted to do, but because of this last minute request and this client, we are now having to put things on hold.
Speaker 1 08:21
It's also just the newness of everything. Of this is one of the wonderful things of having a consistent client base as we look to nurture and grow them and keep them for year after year, because now the mental burden of learning all of the intricacies and intimacies of every single client, what their pets like and don't like what you're supposed to do and not do. All of that actually lessens a little bit, and when we take on last minute requests. Now, not only are we having to go the holistic approach of understanding and knowing the scope of the work and the person and the pet that we're taking care of, but also we have to do it quickly, and we still have to do it at our level of excellence. So now there's this added pressure to us to perform, perform well, and feel like we've got to do a miracle here for this person so they can go do the trip that they need to take.
Meghan 09:13
These aren't always brand new clients, though. It could be a client that maybe you haven't seen in a few years, or even a client that travels regularly but just forgot to book the visits that they needed, and now need you today for a week long trip. So burnout comes in many forms of yes potential clients that reach out that you're trying to get onboarded, but also existing clients, maybe they've again, they've changed something, or you now have to push things off to the side. Burnout also manifests when we say yes to services that we don't actually want to offer. Maybe the dog walker down the street has started offering this, and you think it would be so cool, but you did one, and now you're like, I don't, I didn't really enjoy that, but because I started offering this now I guess I have to, or we see this constantly with overnights. You know, people wanting to sleep in their own bed and and. Not wanting to do them anymore, but because they have a roster of 75 clients that use them regularly, they don't want to give that up. They don't want to say no to that money or to let clients down. But overnights are exhausting. That's the truth. That's the truth of it for most people, is packing up on a daily or a weekly basis, going to somebody's home. It can be very mentally taxing
Speaker 1 10:22
well, and you hit that on the head of I don't want to let these people down, and that's the burden that we carry. And I see most often when people get stuck offering services that they personally don't want to it's either that they feel kind of guilted into continuing to offer the service, or they're desperately trying to stop offering a service and grow other things, and are struggling to grow the other things. And so they think, Well, if I just stopped offering my current suite of services, I won't have a business. And so I just have to hold on and do these as long as I can so I can grow these other aspects of my business. Then this means that we show up and we are we're jaded. We are frustrated. There's some contempt and anger about this, and yet we continue to do it for whatever reason that is.
Meghan 11:11
Well, that's also why it's important to run your numbers so you know exactly when you can cut services that you don't want to be offering, or when they're not profitable anymore, or when it just doesn't make sense. Burnout really creeps in when we feel like we have to be on call mentally 24/7 again, that I'm not nine to five, I'm now on 24/7 especially if you're doing overnights and you're having pets that are waking you up in the middle of the night, or you're having strange sounds in the house, or you're having employees that are doing overnights, and you just feel like you're constantly on all the time.
Speaker 1 11:44
The point of rest is to get this rest, and sleep is supposed to regenerate us and heal our bodies when we keep our eyes pried open to our phones up until 1135 because we're anxious and we're worried about the latest request that's going to come in for the next day. And then as soon as our eyes pop open at 5am 4:30am the next morning and quickly go look at our phones and figure out what's going on, our body is living in a state of heightened stress, constant it's chronic stress, and this stress, this leads to a lot and a lot of major health issues in people's lives, not just heart conditions, not just weight gain, not just all of that stuff that is impacted by this. So too is our mental health. When our brain doesn't get a chance to shut off, that means that we things compound. We get short fused. We're not able to handle another little breakout of chaos or another little fire that we have to put out because we're already maxed out. And that's that day to day operations where we feel like and here's another really weird part of this is many of us developed this habit of always being on, to always catch the issues. And because we were always on and we always caught the issues, we were able to resolve them, and things were fine. And so we start to believe that in order for things to be fine, I have to always be on so I can always check didn't catch the issues, I
Meghan 13:13
feel like you're talking directly to me, right? No, no, I feel called out. No, no, no. Hopefully I'm not the only one out there.
Speaker 1 13:21
I think it's just a business owner thing. Of, we develop and we get into these lanes of, almost like superstitions, of, well, because I've always done this, and everything's always turned out fine, then I have to always do this, and then I just have to continue doing this, kind of whatever the consequences may be.
Meghan 13:37
Yeah, we carry that emotional labor with us always, whether it's anxious clients. Oh, you know that we have all have those, those helicopter parents that leave 1000 page notes and and contact you constantly when they're on their trip and always respond to your message, your update immediately after you send it. You know, though, that can be really taxing, also sick pets, whether they're young puppies that have issues, or old, geriatric dogs that are about to cross that rainbow bridge, because we have seen these pets on a regular basis. This can really, this can really impact us.
Speaker 1 14:13
I was talking with one of our employees recently about a client that we have, and that dog is getting older and older, and it's sleep, and it's deaf, and now it's sleeping really soundly when we come in and they made a statement of, yeah, I come in and I never know if today's the day, and that's quite the burden for us to carry on, and quite the burden and wait for I'm at the door, I'm opening it, and anxiety is just there, and then there's a relief, and then the next day, it's there again. And then as you're driving down the street, you get more and more anxious, and it can back its way up throughout your entire day as you're fixated on this one spot, or it's now the level and intensity of care for the sick pets, of the constantly changing notes, the constantly changing to. Directions and locations of things. I mean, we've been through this where that pet is just freshly post op, and then the client has a family emergency and has to leave right away, and the staples aren't even healed, and the medication hasn't even been picked up, and we're stepping in to say what's going on and trying to orientate ourselves. And then every single day and visit is now new, new new new that is a massive pressure. And if we don't have the right outlets and we don't have the right systems, it never goes away. It just adds up
Meghan 15:33
talking about things that don't go away. Staffing issues here, right? Like we have these employees for a reason, because we want to serve more clients in the community, and we love our employees a lot. Some of them, frankly, cause more drama than others. And so these staffing issues, not only just do I have enough staff to meet my client demands, but also staffing issues, maybe amongst team members or you having to deal with HR issues they're managing people is not for the faint of heart. And so when we are the CEO, the business owner, we do have to handle the fires with
Speaker 1 16:12
our employees and the emotional aspects of the employees too.
Meghan 16:15
Yeah, they bring everything into this job, all of their personal experiences and what they're going through right now does, at some level, impact how they do the work for you well,
Speaker 1 16:26
and what they want to talk to you about and the issues going on. I mean, think through this, okay? You have an employee, they've started to underperform, and you sit down with them to do a review, and you say, Hey, I've noticed some things have been slipping. Here's XYZ, and your times aren't okay. Is everything going okay? And they turn to you and they say, my mom is in the hospital, and I don't know how much longer she's she'll be alive. Whoa, okay? Like we didn't wake up this morning thinking we were going to have that kind of emotional conversation and that emotional weight on our lives. And now I have to, we have to walk through this. I'm an employer, but this person's hurting, and I've got to do this, and I've got to do this, and I've got to check in on that. I'm going to make sure everything's okay. And we want to do that. We want to have that connection and that that, you know, but what we tend to do is, then we go, now, this is my responsibility to make sure that this person is okay, or it's my responsibility to step in and make sure these are going well, and instead saying, I can only do so much, and when I start to be impacted, when you start to be impacted, it's time to really take that big step back.
Meghan 17:28
Of course, we want to be empathetic with our employees and give them the time off that they need at the same time again, we do have to put that CEO owner hat on and say, well, brass tax, I have to make payroll and I have numbers to figure out, and I have to allocate these other visits to other employees and do more route planning, because you aren't able to cover these visits. And it's a lot to handle
Collin Funkhouser 17:52
all of these stack on themselves, and get more and more complex, especially as we grow. And one of the reasons that we grow as businesses is because we provide an excellent service. We're reliable, we're professional, we show up, we solve problems. What happens with that? More people trust you. More people look to you. Your community sees you as the go to which does what? Adds more complexity, adds more things to your plate, adds more clients, adds more, notes, admin, time, Route, planning, scale. All of a sudden we we are elevating where I'm scaling my own burnout here, not all growth is the same. Any growth that adds or increases complexity instead of increasing your freedom will always cause burnout.
Speaker 1 18:42
An example, scaling and growing from you to 500 employees with no systems or processes will cause burnout instantaneously, but growing in such a way where you can add some admin time, some some help training, some help marketing, some help in other ways. That is also growth, and it's taking and allowing you to be more free, because instead of you having to be the sole source, now other people are sharing in this, the burnout really does appear usually, usually appears after you've proven to be reliable, after you've proven yourself, after you've had great care and great customer service, then the burnout starts to kick in, because more things start to happen, more visits, more team members, more clients, all of that takes place.
Meghan 19:35
We actually did talk about sustainable growth on episode 668, so if you haven't listened to that and you want to grow sustainably, go listen as a pet sitter. You know how much trust goes into caring for someone's furry family member, but who's got your back for over 25 years, pet sitters Associates has been helping pet care pros like you with affordable, flexible insurance coverage, whether you're walking dogs, pet sitting or just starting out. They make it easy to protect your business. Get a Free. Quote today at pets@llc.com as a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use code confessional at checkout. That's pets@llc.com because your peace of mind is part of great pet care. I feel like this has all been very doom and gloom so far, but there are some warning signs, some red flags that you can notice before you get to burnout. So dreading notifications when you get that ping on your phone, that it's a new client request and you go not again, that could be a sign that you are in burnout.
Speaker 1 20:32
Well, I mean, this can come from many things. If you're going through a season of high turnover in your business and you get that ping to your phone, your heart will race because you are just dreading that it's going to be another resignation or another bad review or another bad news thing. And the notifications, like we need some of them in our lives. We need to have them to know what's going on if you use software, you've got to know in clients book. But there are ways to take more control over these as opposed to just letting them rule your life. And it's really that chronic anxiety and not your in your brain is heightened and alert and aware all the time, ready to respond, because what you're sitting there is, all of a sudden, you're in fight or flight mode constantly as your because your brain, apparently, your body really and brain, they don't know the difference between being chased by a bear and a bad ping on your phone and somebody quitting at the at its core, your basal brain doesn't know the difference. And so we've got to put in systems to control that, otherwise we'll just be at high stress levels all the time.
Meghan 21:41
If your inbox is at 5000 and you need to get rid of some emails, start hitting unsubscribe. Start on a Sunday, and go through the week and see how many you can unsubscribe from. That is a great way to get less stress.
Speaker 1 21:54
Just declare email bankruptcy, select all and delete just go ahead and do it.
Meghan 22:00
I'm sure there are some emails that are important, so would not recommend that. But another warning sign for burnout is if you are starting to resent good clients, clients that always sing your praises, that have been with you for year after year, that leave you a really good review or a tip. When you're even starting to resent getting requests from those kind of clients, it is a time you need to look at yourself and think about whether you're in burnout. And this comes
Speaker 1 22:25
from the fact again, of when we are already dreading, or we are resenting, doing any visits. And then even my favorite ones come along and I go, Yeah, I got to get out. Oh, okay, let me fit that in. Let me, let me take care of this. This this is a sign that you are really struggling to have a good relationship with your business, and we've drifted from the core promise that we've made to serve people with excellence.
Meghan 22:52
If you find yourself cutting corners that you used to care about, that can also be a sign of burnout. We do not want to replace quality for quantity, even if quantity is two steps, we still need to take the full four steps or whatever the project requires in order to get it done. Clients are going to notice when you are not giving them your full attention, or when you aren't giving the pets or their home the full attention that they used to get. They're going to notice when you start slipping and when you start forgetting things or not doing things that you used to do, or not reading their notes or abiding by their wishes
Speaker 1 23:27
well, and this can really come in, and you'll find yourself when you are in a visit, or you have team members who are in a visit, and you are on your phone more, and you start disassociating during the visit because you'd rather be anywhere else, and you don't double check the harness like you used to, and you stop double checking the doors, or you are writing the SOP for the visit for your team to do, and you're not spell checking, you're just throwing it in AI, copying and pasting immediately and moving on to the next thing without giving it a second Read. And what happens then is the corners, the things that got you to the business, that you have, that reliability, that trust, that professionalism, those are the first thing to slip because those take the most awareness and the most presence in our days, and when we start to pull back from our business, we lose that touch.
Meghan 24:22
This also comes into play when you have employees, and you're not checking the payroll as much as you were before, and you're not double checking the hours that were entered and and so you are having a higher labor cost than you actually should be because you're not double checking that those hours were correct,
Speaker 1 24:37
yeah, or you're not double checking the routes like you used to. Of me. I used to have really tight routes, and now I just don't have the time, or I just don't I just, I just don't care anymore. And so I'll throw some slop together and move on that. And again, that that is a sign that what used to be something you cared about, of profitability and streamline and efficient. Should see when those start being pushed to the side, we've got some real big red flags waving right in our face.
Meghan 25:07
Another big red flag is if you fantasize about quitting, but not knowing what you do instead, you don't have another plan, not even a Plan B, but just something else that you that gets you excited. You You just really want to just quit, be done with this whole thing, but you don't have something else. On the other side, you haven't invested in something else.
Speaker 1 25:28
Yeah, and when we start saying anything else, anything other than what I'm doing right now, would be better. I'd rather do anything else. And if we can't pinpoint something, it means that we are running from something, as opposed to embracing and having a plan. If I'm not walking towards a destination and I'm just running away from where I currently am, that is a disaster waiting to happen, because now we are going aimlessly. We are not going to be you know, our timelines are going to slip. We're not actually being productive and doing something good and beneficial. If we just sit and think about quitting, it means that our business is going to suffer,
Meghan 26:10
or when we start feeling trapped by our own reputation of we've had a stellar, five star, 120 reviews. We've been in business for 15 years. We are top notch. We are the best of the best, and we are the best in the city, but we start to feel boxed in by that of I have to constantly perform at an A plus plus plus level, 120% every single time, execute well. And of course, you know, at the end of the day, that is what we want. We don't want to let clients down. But when we start to feel trapped in that reputation of having to uphold that day after day after day and fearing that slip up, you know, we are human, slip ups are going to happen, but when we start fearing that of we can never let that happen, because my reputation is just going to crater in my community and I have to do everything possible and burn myself out and go hard every day so that doesn't happen. That's when it's troublesome,
Collin Funkhouser 27:09
and it can be in small things at first of maybe you really pride yourself on always congratulating your team members whenever they're done with their series of visits, and you always have a very personalized comments to them, and you don't want to do that anymore, but you feel like you have to. It's this, oh, I feel like I have to do this. And it's a wonderful thing to do. It's such an encouragement to your team to be able to do that. But when I feel like if I were to stop, horrible things were happening, would happen, or, how about this, you build a reputation on being quick responding to clients, and you always respond within two minutes of them getting back to you. And now you don't feel like you can stop. And now we're trapped in that, and we can't do anything else, or the quality of photos that you take, or the kind of updates that you write, or the kind of copy that you put on your website, or the advertising that you do, or the networking that you are able to do, and these levels that you were doing. If we don't feel like we can pull back from those and do something different, it means that we're trapped, and now it's like, like a rat in a cage. We're going to go insane, and we are going to do everything we can to get out from
Meghan 28:17
there, because a lot of times, as pet sitters and dog walkers. We have this caring nature of we don't want to let people down. Our clients trust us with their homes, their pets, their their most prized possessions, and so we don't want to let them down. We want to always be there for them. So we feel like we are needed. We are always needed. There's always somebody that's taking a vacation, or there's always somebody that's going to work and needs me to walk their dog right, like we are needed, and that feels good, but then we have to balance that with actually being healthy of because there is always someone who is going on vacation and because there is always someone who's going to work well, when does that leave time for me as a person? When do I get my time, because if everybody else is always pulling at me and requiring things of me, well I need time to be healthy myself.
Collin Funkhouser 29:07
Well, this is, I'm gonna throw a word out there, and it's, I don't know if it's gonna be triggering or not, but flexibility. How many of us pride ourselves on being extremely flexible with our clients, or flexible with the schedule, or flexible with the booking, or flexible with the cancelation or insert that that can be very attractive to clients here, but really what this is is chronically undefined boundaries. I that was something that I really had to understand in that my flexibility and my desire to be flexible was actually me being scared and concerned and unsure of where to place the boundaries in the business to protect me and to protect our family, that I just kept parading it around as I'm flexible. We're super flexible, and again, that's a good thing. Be flexible. Know that you can change as you need to, and that like a willow, we're going to go back and forth as things need to so that we don't break however, when we don't have those hard stops, those hard nos or and have the clear yeses in our life and in our business, it just means that everything is unpredictable then and and I am trying to just adapt to absolutely everything which is impossible to do.
Meghan 30:26
Yeah, I guess a lot of times this burnout comes from us having not unrealistic expectations of ourselves, but thinking that we can do everything. And that's just simply not true. You know, we I, you know, there's a phrase of mom guilt? Of, well, if you're a stay at home mom, you feel guilty for not working and contributing to the income of the household, and vice versa. If you're at work, you're feeling guilty because you're not at home with your kid. And I guess the same thing can be true here. Of, we have this pet sitter guilt. Of, we want to serve our clients. We want to be there for for everyone, and to be there for their needs, so they can take their trips and they can have a nice, long lunch at work and not worry about rushing home. And we want to be there for solving other people's problems. But at what cost does that come?
Speaker 2 31:13
What cost and cost is another thing
Speaker 1 31:16
right we we tend to put, well, this is putting others before yourself and parading it around like, well, I'm selfless, and we have to be very honest with ourselves, of it is okay to be selfish about you when it comes to your well being. And if we're not okay, the business won't be okay, the clients won't be okay, the team members won't be okay. And this comes from so many different facets, and I think that's why Megan and I were I feel like we're saying a lot of like, Oh, also, and also, and it can have come from this, and also and and we haven't even touched pricing, or, if you haven't talked about the impact that pricing can have on burnout, when, when we chronically undercharge, and now I'm really busy again. If you want to be busy, take your prices to zero. You'll have more clients than you know what to do with, and you'll never sleep, right just boom. Growth hack right there. Now it when we chronically undercharge. I'm now what? I'm forced to overwork. I'm forced to take on too many things. I'm forced to never take a day off. I'm forced to do these things because we don't have the margin in our life. And just like it was earlier when Megan you mentioned about feeling trapped in our reputation, when I feel trapped in my pricing, I've boxed in now and I can't do the things that I need to do to take care of myself. And now that resentment kicks in, that frustration kicks in, and that cycle continues to move.
Meghan 32:44
And that's exactly why airlines say you need to put on your oxygen mask first before you help the person next to you, because if you're dead, you cannot help the person next to you, or if you are so winded that you can't see straight, you are no good to anybody, including yourself.
Collin Funkhouser 33:03
We also have to recognize here that these things that we're talking about, of setting boundaries, pricing, you know, the confusing being flexible of or the notifications and just turning those off, or fantasizing about putting like all of these are really hard decisions. We really need to appreciate just how difficult these decisions are, raising your prices. Yes, it is hard. We need to move past it and do it because it's important, but when we put off these hard decisions, that the cost of putting off hard decisions is burnout. But there
Meghan 33:39
are actually things that you can do to fix burnout, and we are going to get there, I promise. There, I promise. We'd like to tell you about our friends at Pet marketing unleashed. We talked to a lot of pet sitters and dog walkers who say their website doesn't really feel like them, or they built it years ago and they haven't had time to update it since. That's exactly why we love pet marketing unleashed website templates. They're made specifically for pet professionals with beautiful, easy to customize designs that actually help attract your ideal clients. Plus they include a course that walks you through every step from customization to writing your site's copy and optimizing your page settings for SEO. Michaela and her team are awesome, and they take the guesswork out so you can finally have a website that feels authentic and one that works for your business. Visit pet marketing unleashed.com, and use code PSC 15 to save 15% on your website
Speaker 1 34:23
template when we look to actually fix burnout and not just say things or not just have platitudes or niceties things, there are four key areas that we can actually go to work in. And the first one that I want to talk about is actually building decision filters. This is, this is where you are able to have clear, yes, no criteria. You are able to know exactly what is and what is not a good fit for you. And an aspect of this is going, I have to line out. This is why having your client avatar is such a powerful thing. It's not. Just so that you can market to them. It's not just so that you can connect with them, and it's not just so that you can serve them well. It's also so that you know who to say yes to when they come across your email or when they go into your software, you can look at them and very clearly say, yep, that's who I need to work with. Or, No, that's actually not, I don't that's not who I'm set up to do. Niching also does the same. If you niche into cats and all those dog people come to you, guess what? You can say no to them without having to scrutinize or figure out or read in between the lines. And when we look at our decision filters, part of that is also going, what can I standardize and get off my plate? And I mean Michaela with pet marketing, unleash. That's what that is. Instead of staring at a blank page on Wix or on Squarespace or whatever that is, if I have a template to just go and use and make, all of a sudden, I have that much fewer decisions to make in my business. I'll also add that when we look to have these clear criteria we need to include having non negotiables around the safety, timing and scope of the work. So what kind of clients, what kind of pets will you actively take on? What kind of behaviors are or are not okay the timing here, what are my time blocks? How far out is too far out for somebody to book? How soon is too soon for somebody to book? Will you put them in time windows, or will you allow specific times? And the scope of the work that we do, it can also just go astronomically through the roof of it. Can start out with this. This is the scope creep of doing visits. Hey, while you're over, could you also grab the mail? Sure, no problem. Okay, well, while you're over and you've grabbed the mail, I do have some plants out front, okay. Oh, and I have chickens out back, okay, okay. And, oh, the cleaner will be there. So could you leave the door open, and could you actually help them get in? And could you also, could you also, could you also, what is your business designed to do, and what is it not designed to do, having a clear mission and identity as a business, not as a business owner, but a business. What was your business built for? That will help you reduce the amount of decision fatigue required to operate, because you have simplified. We've reduced the complexity of what we're doing.
Meghan 37:22
I do feel like that decision fatigue. We don't give it enough weight when we are talking about burnout, because the number of decisions that we have to make every single day is astronomical, and this is even more astronomical if you have employees of where are they going? When do they need to be there? Did they acknowledge their schedule? Do they have everything they need? How are they mentally, are they ready for the day? That's just employees. Then you have to ask yourself basically all of those same questions, and that's just doing the actual field visits. This is not anything about the clients or admin time or taxes or updating your website or social media, the endless amount of tasks that we have to do every day and decisions, do I choose this opportunity to sponsor an event? Do I go with this marketing plan? Do I attend this networking event? There are so many decisions that are on our plate, and because they often feel endless, like that, 5000 email inbox that we're just never going to parse through. That is where we can start to have this mental taxing, of this burnout, of I can't handle this anymore, all of these things, of, if I don't make the decision, nobody else is going to and then these things don't get done because they're on my plate, and I haven't delegated them to anybody, or maybe I can't delegate them to anybody, and we just get in this hamster wheel of constantly having to put out fires every day, or having to make decisions. And this mental fatigue is really where this burnout starts to come into play.
Speaker 1 38:52
So we think of ways to simplify. Always simplify. Simplify, simplify. We talked about how, if growth doesn't simplify and lead to more freedom and instead more complexity. We need to think of other ways of growing and doing it differently. So we also have to reduce the surface area that we are trying to cover. And the big one here is fewer services. If we are offering every single thing under the sun, it may feel good because we're able to serve more clients in more and varied different ways. However, think of the mental burden it requires to execute each and every single one of those excellently. Think of the amount of admin time back in work, oversight and training it goes to making sure that every one of those is flawless. All of those are more and more and more burdens to you,
Meghan 39:42
it can be hard when clients are saying, We love the myriad of services that you offer and we want to use the pet taxi and the adventure hikes and the wedding services and the dog walking in the pet sitting and the nail trims and the grooming and all of this sort of stuff. But you have to look at from your perspective of, is this worth my meant? Old bandwidth of having to keep track of everything. Do I actually enjoy this? So yes, fewer services is definitely one of them. You can be a jack of all trades, but a master of none. So are you actually excelling in those services that you're offering? And if not, maybe it's time to cut them out. Look at the data, track what you need to with those services, and then if they're not profitable, or if they don't produce enough margin to make it worth a headache, then just cut them out. Another way to reduce the surface area is to have fewer exceptions. Think about it like this. We always park in the client's driveway, except at Baxter's house, or we always get clients mail on Wednesdays and Saturdays, except at Mary's house or she wants us to check it every other day. And now we have to make a special exception of Well, now we have to note what every other day is, and some not on Sundays and and all this sort of stuff. When we have more of these special cases, we have to make sure that we don't forget, or make sure that the note is updated, or the software is updated. That increases that burden
Collin 41:01
well, and this process of standardizing our services and standardizing our processes, and standardizing our walks and standardizing our cat sits, and standardizing and standardizing and standardizing that can feel like we are robbing the personality out of the visits, or it can feel like we are no longer customizing everything that the client asks or needs. Now, don't hear what we're not saying as we standardize. What I'm actually doing is providing a much better framework to provide the customized care. Nobody keeps their spoons in the same place, trust me, after 14 years, nobody does. They're always going to be different. But if I have a standardized process of identifying where the spoons are and a template that that goes in amongst the myriad of other information, I have just simplified my life and made it easier for our entire team to execute well at that visit. It also means that when those exceptions do come up, they are rare and they are easily noted and identifiable, which is why having nothing standardized and nothing documented makes the exceptions incredibly difficult and very easy to miss meaning. Yes, the mental burden is there, so we're simplifying everything and making it more much more straightforward, easy for us to comprehend, easy for clients to understand, and easy for our team to execute.
Meghan 42:26
But don't forget about yourself as you are going to fix your burnout, protect your recovery time. We talk about this, we are we try our best to stick to this. But those office hours, Monday to Friday, eight to five, nine to five, stick to those as best you can. You know, schedule those days off first, well in advance, before clients even go to book, before the next calendar year flips. You are already have your days scheduled off. You know, I'm not going to be disturbed and then make a promise to yourself that you're not just going to log on to just check your messages, because we all know clients are going to message. They're going to have things that come up, and you're going to feel guilty about not answering those, at least I do. So just don't check the messages. Take that time off. Protect that recovery time. You need it. You have to have it. Systems that don't rely on you personally. Make sure you have those. Is there someone else who can run your payroll? Is there somebody else who knows how to route, plan or approve visits or answer client phone calls
Collin 43:27
when you schedule those days off? First what you are doing is you're staking a claim on the importance of that time too often. We will wait to see when people don't book and then try and sneak in an afternoon or sneak in a quick day away, or sneak in that hour lunch instead going, I am important, and I am important enough to have this time where no one else can book this is for me. When you have that time to yourself, it is tempting to just sneak in some work. We then feel like we're not being productive, because we just came from all of the chaos. We just came from all of the noise, the motion, the movement, the mayhem, instead going this quality time, this quiet time, for me, it is sufficient to not focus on those messages or my business or anything else, and just focus on me right now.
Meghan 44:22
In order to let that burnout go, we also have to let go of perfectionism. Kind of this Done is better than perfect attitude. We don't want to put out sloppy work. We don't want to contact clients with auto correct messages of the wrong pet name. We don't want to put on our website a misspelled word or something that is egregious. But we cannot sit here and stress over every social media post that every i is crossed and T is dotted, because that also is going to burn you out. But letting go of that perfectionism and saying I did this video, and I know I stumbled over my words a little bit, or my hair wasn't. Done up the way I really wanted it to, but that's what makes me more relatable. That's what makes me more human. My clients are going to see me for for who I am, my authentic self, and so it is okay. I don't have to be Instagram worthy every single time I jump in front of the camera or or I write that client email newsletter.
Collin 45:19
What we're doing through this entire process, especially with setting the time aside, recognizing that I can put stuff out there and make sure that just I'm okay with it and not worry about other people's response. And as I shape and simplify my business and reduce that surface area and the decision fatigue and filters, we are reclaiming agency again. We talked Megan. I talked about how the burnout, a lot of that can come from feeling boxed in and beholden to expectations and things that are already set out there and we can't change from them. Remember, you decide how the business works. You, you not your employees, not the community, not your clients, not the networking, not a podcast, not a coach, no one. You decide how it works. When we operate outside of what is in alignment with us, we will always 100% every time fall into burnout, you decide, and while yes, it can be scary to realize, oh, man, all this is on me. I mean, you're not alone. You have people to ask questions, you have people to get feedback from, and that will encourage and support you. But if you don't want to operate your business a certain way, you don't have to do it. Here's the thing that big burnout doesn't want you to know. You can just change things to make it better for you. Remember, clients opt into working with you. We don't chase them down. We don't chase their approval. We don't chase them for because we need them. They come to us so that we can serve them, and we have a relationship and a partnership together with them. When we reclaim that agency, we can breathe a little bit easier, and we have that just much more freedom in our business.
Meghan 47:14
You want to know the biggest killer of burnout, it's practicing gratitude and mindfulness and thankfulness. Being thankful for your business. It doesn't matter if your revenue is $5 a year or $5 million a year. You are a business that is helping people, that is doing good things in your community. Be thankful for that
Collin 47:37
when we can look at our business, and especially when we can look back at how far we have come and the obstacles that we have overcome, the things that we have done, the people that we have served, the reviews that we have, the lives that have been changed, your life that has been changed. We keep all this into perspective with us every single day of you have done so much you will continue to do so much when we make those appropriate changes, and that at the end of the day, this business is something that you have agency and control over. That should be something we are always thankful for. How wonderful it is that I'm not stuck in a nine to five job where I can't change the walls. We run a business, and while, yes, it has frustrating moments, I am so grateful every single day that if we decided to change something, we can just do that. And it's so freeing and so wonderful to know and recognize that sometimes the feelings of burnout mean that it's time for to transition your business this we talked about these being red flags and warning signals to us, pay attention to those and go, What is this actually telling me? Maybe it's not. I just need to stop and burn everything down. Maybe it's not. I just need to close up shop. Maybe it's like, oh, something's out of alignment here. Something is not okay. I'm not failing. I just need to do something a little bit different.
Meghan 49:03
I need to change something about my business, or the way I'm personally operating in the business. I need to get somebody else in, pull somebody else so they can do other things that I don't enjoy anymore, or I'm not good at, or I just need, I do enjoy them, but I just don't want to dedicate the time anymore. What do I need to change? What? Yeah, exactly. What are these signs telling me? These are just the warning lights. We have to dig in and diagnose exactly what is going on.
Collin 49:31
Burnout is information that you are experiencing. Burnout is information about what's going on. You have to dig into it. It's not a verdict, it's not a final gavel on you know, this is end and everything's over. This is just telling you something is going on. And when we are aware enough to dig in, ask those good questions, that's when we really start making those important changes.
Meghan 49:56
Burnout isn't a personal flaw. It doesn't say you are a. Bad person. You have done something wrong. You are a failure. No, it's a system signal, again, the warning lights. What needs to change. The goal may not necessarily be to work less, but it's to work with clarity and limits and intention, to know what you're doing and to go after that mission, to steer the ship in the direction that you want it to go in. Think about what are you saying yes to that you secretly wish was a no? Really sit with that one. What are you saying yes to that you secretly wish was a no. You don't owe your burnout your business. We appreciate you joining us today. We hope you found value in this episode. We'd also like to thank our sponsors, pet sitters, associates and pet marketing unleashed. Most of all, we'd like to thank you for listening, taking your time. We are appreciative of you. We will talk with you next time bye. You
