How to prevent burnout

We’ve never met at least I don’t think we have but I bet I have a good idea of how yesterday went for you and how today’s already panning out.

From the moment you woke up this morning to the time when you eventually fall asleep you have a daunting list of things that need to be done.   From the first electronic chimes of the alarm telling you to get up, to switching on the radio or TV – what’s happening in the world, what are we going to do about it?  Check in to social media to create that burst of FOMO as friends and others post filter enhanced shots of them living their best lives and a maybe a little bit of LinkedIn to see who else you know got promoted overnight.

Kids, school, the morning commute, the delayed train (again) the unexpected traffic jam (again) – jump into work, straight into emails that bring us overnight news of more things that need to be considered, done, accelerated or fixed.

·        Decisions to be made – there’s an app for that

·        Things you have to remember to do – there’s an app for that too

·        Things you never got round to yesterday, last week, last month – there’s an app for that but you forgot to download it

And at the end of the day you got

·        Less done than you’d hoped

·        Tried your best to please everyone and still didn’t manage it

·        Got little of what mattered to you done

And tomorrow you get to live it all over again.  Groundhog day.

Most of us have days like these, sometimes a week.  When it goes on and on, this is our point of burnout and most of us don’t see it coming.  We often think of burnout as being all connected with our work, but it’s the cumulative effect of our complex lives and our mindset that tells us we’re expected to master it all.

I could spend time discussing how over half of workers in the US and UK say they’ve experienced burnout.  I could explore why Millennials now in their thirties and forties are the worst affected but you’ve not got time for a long discussion right?   So here’s the University of California’s five big culprits and some thoughts on what to do if this is you.

Demand overload is an obvious source of burnout.  All jobs have peaks and troughs.  Many of us try to surf the peaks instead of using the troughs as a tactical point of recharging our energy.  When you’re at the gym doing reps or if you’re training for a long distance race you don’t beat yourself up for having a rest day – it’s logical if you over-exert you’ll injure yourself and go backwards.

But the restless drive in you, the way you’ve been trained and disciplined to achieve encourages you to do more – take that break when your vacation comes.  Hey cancel the vacation because showing you’re willing to go the extra mile will earn that promotion, a bigger team and then you can relax.  It is all an illusion, kidding yourself.   Remember – downtime is energy recharge, logical, tactical, sensible so that when the big challenge comes, you’re primed and ready.  Mindset over matter.

Lacking control in the workplace  comes in at number 2 on the California stress scale.  Turns out we humans, despite what we see on TV aren’t that fond of surprises, we like to build our lives around scaffolding so that if the ground wobbles a bit, we know what we can lean on.  

The challenge is we often imagine that scaffolding to come from only one place.  Work, health, friendships, money, a relationship, a life-partner and when the normal sadly everyday earthquakes come along we cling to one thing, we believe nothing is stable, all is lost.   

What can you do?  Remember there’s more to the scaffolding than work alone and those points of compromise where work itself is the thing that’s compromising the scaffolding holding up other important parts of your life.  That urgent deadline tempting you to cancel the family vacation won’t be remembered in a decade’s time by anyone other than your family.

Poor reward systems   sometimes anxiety comes from having to compromise on our values, sense of what’s right or working against our strengths in order to pay the bills.  Everyone’s done jobs they’d prefer not to, in order to pay the rent.  Anxiety creeps in when we feel that we’re being taken advantage of, when we scan social media and take in the stories of others’ perfect lives and beat ourselves up that we don’t have the house, car, six or seven figure salary, stripes on the shoulders, impressive job title.   This in the end is down to you.  You set your expectations and you can change them.   If you feel you’re worth more, tell someone or find someone who’ll value you more highly.  

Socially toxic work environments  office cliques and big bad bosses have been around for ages, yet the anxiety is often caused by two things – our willingness to let it affect us, our learned belief that we are either helpless to do anything about it or worse, actually deserve it.   Nothing could be further from the truth.   To a degree though you can’t change the people around you, you are part of that eco-system and you have the choice to set a better positive tone, to join in with the bullies and become one yourself or hide under a rock and add to your stress level.  Toxic work environments are classic places to breeding low self esteem so not only do you feel bad but also feel unvalued and of no value to anyone else.   If you can’t beat them, move on.  You’re the boss of you.  Period.

The fifth reason is inequity and conflicts in values  we all have our own values, unique to us, stemming from our childhood and built over life.  We often don’t know where we got them from.  Today’s trends in companies is for them to have values too.  Except they don’t start in childhood, they are invented to align to a purpose and to an extent to set clarity for employees, investors and potential employees.   It leads organisations sometimes to evangelise about their values, to decide they are to be adopted by everyone in return for the pay-cheque.   There is however a difference between respecting values and adopting values

Ultimately if you’re working for an organisation that consistently demands that you act, believe or do things in a way that feels contrary to your beliefs, it is time to move on.   Anxiety leading to burnout is a clear risk and pretending you’re someone in work and then trying to wash that away out of work is unsustainably tiring.

A quick word on productivity

Productivity books have their place, there are always neat tricks and tips for not doing things the long way if there is a shorter route.   But remember even machines need downtime and servicing every now and again and you’re not even a machine.  Be efficient by all means but remember as you divide your day into 24 hours, a proportion of that has to work to keep you alive, safe and well.   You cannot invent time, you can though create positive energy.

A quick word on sleep

Our bodies are designed for moments of wake and moments of rest.   Let me introduce you to the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN for short which is in a part of the brain called the hypothalmus.   The SCN is triggered by light and our circadian rhythms which guide biological functions across the day, including our digestive systems, depend on everything being in balance.   And one of the most important elements of that balance is sleep.

When we are anxious, under pressure, working to deadlines, through increased anxiety or simply attempting to cram too much into the day we look through prioritisation for big things in the 24 hour cycle and the biggest of that is sleep.   It’s often the first thing that is compromised in order to find more time in the 24 hour cycle.   It is of course again an illusion.  Cut down on it, and new problems emerge elsewhere.

A quick word on “making more time”

How many of us coaches get told for clients that they’re going to make time to do something.  No-one, not even the cleverest physicists have been able to make time.   But there is something good in saying you’re going to make time.  It’s deciding what is important and what isn’t.

You can’t make time.  You can use time for something instead of something else – substitution.  But you can’t do addition.  Just pull that all-nighter to make up time – you’re not, you’re deleting sleep for work.   Just push on through and catch the Zs on your vacation – it’s biological nonsense, your body can’t recover sleep deprivation through a vacation.

A quick word on “positive strategies”

Sometimes you do need to invest time in order to help improve your situation.  Whether that is setting aside time to support your mindset, perspective, update your sense of strengths, skills and self-worth, find a new role, new boss, new company, new hobby, new friends.   Very often we succumb to burnout because we have lost the sense of our own purpose.

Try this for each day this week.  Take a sheet of paper and at the end of each day write down one thing you’ve learned and one way you helped someone else.   Ah I hear you say I’ve not got time for this.  It’s a minute or two, that’s all – you’ll spend more time making coffee.   At the end of five days take a step back and notice;

·        All the gifts you have, that others rely on you for – your own awesome self

·        All the gifts you’re developing, making you an even better version of yourself

If you love this article and want to work with me on improving your own mental fitness – reach out.  Whether the full-service Careers. Redesigned. programme or my six week mental fitness bootcamp, you’re in safe hands. Schedule a 15 minute chat right here Here's my diary link

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