10 Ways to Handle Burnout
How are you feeling right now?
Is your back aching? Or maybe your shoulders? No, you havenât had an injury; itâs just kind ofâŚthere.
Or maybe you've been losing sleep lately? Or having memory problems? You've been feeling empty, helpless, and down for âno reason.â Youâve been procrastinating a lot more, too, havenât you? (Itâs okay. I wonât tell.) But who could blame you? Just thinking about work makes you feel a sense of dread. Itâs become downright boring. At best.
Well, friend â it sounds like youâre experiencing burnout. And burnout sucks. Worse yet, if you donât get it under control, it will start to control you.
Donât worry. Iâm here for you. Letâs handle this.
10 Ways to Handle (and Prevent) Burnout
Burnout is a form of exhaustion. It covers all the bases: mental, emotional, and physical. Even if you have a sit-down job with relatively low demands, you can still experience burnout. No one is truly immune. Even people who adore their jobs experience burnout from time to time.
The number one reason? Going too long without a break!
Taking a full-blown vacation might not be an option for you. I get that. But can you take a weekend off to just loaf around your home? Maybe play your guitar? Take your dog to the park? Catch up on the latest season of whatever on Netflix?
No matter how important you are to your job, youâre not as important as you think. If your business isnât a complete disaster, it can go a day or two without your being there. Relax.
2. Keep Eating (But Hide the Snacks)
There are two types of people:
Those who overeat/binge when experiencing burnout
Those who stop eating when experiencing burnout
Neither type is better than the other. To be honest, both of those reactions are pretty terrible.
Hereâs the thing: if you stop eating, you wonât be getting the fuel your body (including your brain) needs to function, which will make your exhaustion just that much worse. On the flip side, if you start over-eating, youâll start to pack on the pounds (it happens quicker than you might think!), and that will add to your feelings of sluggishness and depression.
Even if youâre not feeling it, try to keep your meals ânormal.â Set timers if you have to just to stay on track. Stick with a normal eating routine.
But keep your snacks out of armâs reach. I love to chow down on a pint of Ben & Jerryâs as much as the next guy, but if that pint is hidden away in the back of the freezer Iâm going to be less likely to turn to it the minute Iâm feeling âboredâ or uncomfortable with my job.
If youâre feeling exhausted, whatâs the one thing your body craves most? Sleep, right? So, give your body what it needs! (Duh.)
Generally speaking, the more burned out you feel, the more sleep youâre probably going to require. And, I know, it might be hard to get into the habit of sleeping again (especially if you've given it up in favor of âmore importantâ things), but youâre going to have to force yourself. For your bodyâs sake. And your sanityâs.
Exercise always seemed like a chore to me â and sometimes it is! â but itâs also worth it. And it doesn't have to be as horrible as it sounds.
Simply moving around more can count as âexercise.â Do you usually sit in your chair for hours on end and eat lunch at your desk? Try getting up from your office area and walking around a bit, and maybe having your lunch outside. See? Youâre already moving around more than you were. Thatâs exercise. Itâs not much exercise, granted, but it still counts.
Once you start exercising, even the tiniest bit, youâll notice yourself starting to do more. If you stick with things you enjoy (walking around, bicycling, playing with your cat), your body will start to crave that feel-good feeling and want more of it. Exercise gets easier the more often you do it â make it a habit.
5. Try to Remember Why Your Work Doesnât Suck
This can be difficult if youâve been feeling burned out for a while now. If youâve gotten to the point where everything seems hopeless, this can feel downright painful. But try to think backâŚ
What do you enjoy about your work? What made you start working in the first place? What are your overall goals and dreams that are intertwined with this job?
If you can manage to focus on the positive instead of the negative, even if youâre not âfeeling it,â your brain will start to make little adjustments toward being happier. Itâs sort of the âfake it âtil you make itâ principle.
Iâm a big fan of setting goals. Not just when Iâm burned out, but for everything. But, in this case, goal setting serves a few functions:
It keeps you organized. Staying organized will ensure you donât create extra work for yourself. (More on this later).
It gives you a clear idea of what needs to be done. By setting clear goals â and clear action steps to achieve them â you avoid overworking yourself further.
It shows the light at the end of the tunnel. When you have a goal in mind, rather than a seemingly endless ocean of work, life seems a little less hopeless.
If youâre already feeling burned out, youâre more likely to put off âunnecessaryâ tasks for âtomorrow.â This is a terrible idea. Do it now.
Whatever youâre putting off now, youâll end up having to do later â creating more work for yourself in the long run. Donât add to your stress when youâre already stressed. Do what needs to be done and move onto the next step, one step at a time. The easiest way to do this is to know what âstepsâ need to be done: by setting goals!
7. Donât Overbook Yourself
It might be âtoo lateâ to implement this strategy now, but keep it in mind for the future. Be realistic about how much work you can handle. If youâre taking on too much work because you âneed the moneyâ then chances are your rates are too low. If you overburden yourself, of course youâre going to burn out.
Remember how I said youâre not as important as you think you are? It was way back on number one, but it still holds true all the way down here on number eight.
Relinquish some of your power and hand over some tasks to someone else. Preferably the tasks you donât feel like doing yourself (the ones that make you most dread doing your job).
Try joining groups or communities of people in your same field of business. Chances are, theyâre going through â or have gone through â what youâre going through right now. Even if youâre not a big joiner, finding one other like-minded person to talk to can still make a huge difference.
Thereâs no magic cure for stress; however, if you âcureâ the cause of your stressâŚyour stress will go away. So why are you so darned stressed?
It might be uncomfortable (or even embarrassing) to think about, but the time has come to start asking yourself the tough questions. Would you still feel this way if you had more clients? If you were paid more? If your work activities were more aligned with your core values?
If youâre at a total loss to whatâs been causing you stress â leading to your burnout â try making a list of your day-to-day activities. Next to each one, write down how you feel about it (âtense,â âfine,â âbored,â âanxious,â etc.). Then try to come up with solutions for the activities that elicit a negative response.
Once you've gotten this bout of burnout under control, start taking steps to prevent becoming burned out in the future. Do you need to take on less work? Make time for more sleep? Those are easy preventative measures to take.
Whatâs less easy is when your burnout simply wonât go away â when it continues to linger around even after things are âbetter.â When this is the case, you may need to take stronger actions.
If you've been continually neglecting your own needs to meet that of someone elseâs, and that person still isn't pleased (or youâre not pleased trying to please them), then you may simply be unsuited for the work at hand. This may mean âfiringâ a client from your life.
Iâm not telling you to do anything drastic straight out of the blue; however, if youâre truly unhappy and you know that itâs because your work (or client base) just isn't ârightâ for you: do something about it. Even if it means re branding and starting over from scratch, do it. Your health â your happiness â comes first. Because burnout sucks.
Originally posted by Tom Ewer for http://blog.bidsketch.com