Beating Burnout - Two things that help

What do you do when you think you might be on your way to burnout?

What will stop you getting there and what might help you recover if you are already there?

In a previous post we looked at the signs that tell you if you are burning out, you can read that post here. We’ve also shared some helpful things around what gets you to that point and why you need to act if you are heading there; you can read about that here.

If you identified five or six of the factors in the previous post as applying to you, then you’re probably dealing with what might be termed “low level constant burnout’. A huge number of people suffer from this, so you’re not alone. However, that doesn’t mean you’re ok, you probably still need to make some significant changes. Once you go past seven or eight then you need some urgent changes before its gone to far.

So, what helps?

I’m sure if you’ve ever shared how you are feeling with someone else you’ve already had some suggestions.

Maybe someone told you what they told me when they said the answer was for me “to not stress about things so much”.

Well, that’s a good thought, but is it a realistic one?

I don’t know about you but telling me not to stress about things so much didn’t help at all; because I couldn’t! Stress isn’t something you can turn on or off completely. Some of us are wired to be conscientious and hardworking and we have drive that makes us want to succeed, so when we encounter stressful situations or problems our answer is to take it all on and just do more, and work more, and try more, until the situation resolves. And if it doesn’t resolve? Then what?

Here's what I learnt – you can help with your stress levels by removing yourself from some situations ( toxic relationships, poisonous work environments etc) BUT you can’t get rid of stressful situations completely – life is full of stressful moments, left field curve balls and unexpected relationship issues – that’s life and life happens to us – and stress while we deal with it is a natural reaction.

So, if you can’t control what happens to you, you can’t completely eliminate stress. But you can change some things about the way you run your life which will really help.

Here’s a couple of ideas that will always come up if you are looking for help with how you’re feeling:

Make sure you take your holidays

Of course you should. For your health, for your sanity, for your family and your body, YOU SHOULD TAKE ALL YOUR HOLIDAYS!

We all know that… right?

Of course we do.

But we don’t all do it.

Do you? Can you?

According to HR Review [1]   A staggering 69 percent of workers do not take all their annual leave, according to data by RotaCloud.  Across all industries, the average person gets a leave allowance of 32 days (31.8) but only takes 27 (26.6). This leaves a full week of time off (5.2 days) left unused each year.”

So, what’s up? Isn’t this a problem mainly of high performance driven business and office environments? Don’t all those ambitious career professionals and executives skew the figures? Apparently not ! this is a problem for all of us.

HR Review quotes “The nation’s hospitality workers take the least amount of their holiday entitlement, according to the research. The study of 7,000 employees found that restaurant, bar and pub staff take on average, just 16.

When researching the big question of Why do workers not take more time away from work?

A separate study of 2,000 workers, found having too much work to do was cited as the main reason why a fifth don’t take all their entitlement.(18%). This was followed by having nobody to hand work over to and having a mountain of work to come back to (both 16%)

Stressing too much about what would happen while they were away was a reason given by 14%. Also, sadly  as many as 11%)claimed it was pointless taking holiday as they would have to work all the time anyway.

So, simple fact, taking your holidays and relaxing will help you reduce the risk of burnout.

But you know this don’t you…it has become increasingly hard to switch off on holiday.

Thirty years ago you booked your hotel, went to the beach or walked in the mountains, had some nice meals and forgot about the office and everything back home for a fortnight. Today, withour great willpower and intentionality that’s not even possible – because technology means that email, texts, calls, social media and internet messaging just invades our life almost as much as they did at home.

Some employers and professional practices even mandate their workers be available on the phone in case there is a problem at the office.

That is a main reason why holidays are not the panacea they used to be.

But the biggest reason why holidays will not completely solve your problem is that your problem isn’t so much about what you do when you are off, its about how you live when you’re on.

And you know that to, don’t you? Especially if you’ve got anywhere near the stage I got to where after a great holiday you’re back at work only a week or two and you’re exhausted again, the brain fog is thicker than ever and you can’t wait to get to your next holiday.

YOU SHOULD TAKE ALL YOUR HOLIDAYS, YOU SHOULD DISCONNECT FROM LIFE BACK HOMW AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WHILE YOU’RE THERE, ITS VITAL THAT YOU DO. BUT IT’S UNLIKELY TO BE THE FULL ANSWER.

Here’s a second helpful idea - but not as helpful as you might think:

Develop your time management skills

Early in my career I was privileged to have my employer pay for me to attend a time – management course. Everybody who was going to be promoted to manager grade was sent on this course. I took it to heart. I was the king of time management! My colleagues sometimes commented, “I don’t know how you get so much done in a day, you’re so focussed”. And I was focussed. Focussed on getting everything I could done as efficiently as I could.

It should have helped.

It did.

Then it didn’t.

After a few years, I kept bumping up against the same problem. Maybe you’ve experienced the same?

The problem is – The opportunities available to a capable person always exceed the time available.Anyone, with any drive in their personality, will always find that the workload always expands as the time available is created.

I discovered that traditional time management makes you more effective but most people tend to hit a wall where it stops working for them, or even makes things worse on the tiredness, stress and burnout front.

The reason?... There is a limit to the time available, it is a FIXED COMMODITY.

The problem is not the time available, or even if you use it effectively and efficiently; it is the ability to create sustainable margin in that time, which is really what you need. But, most of us find ourselves just managing a growing list of demands with a limited asset.

We also find that time management is subject to the law of diminishing returns – the more you use it, the more you have to settle for small – or microscopic- improvements; while the opportunities available and workload just seem to expand. But deep down, you already knew all that didn’t you?

YOUR SHOULD LEARN TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS THEY REALLY HELP TAKE SOME OF THE STRSS AND PRESSURE OFF YOU. THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU. BUT THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO PROVIDE A FULL SOLUTION.

The next articles in this series take things a stage further and hopefully will set you on the path to some more permanent solutions.

[1] https://hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/annual-leave-is-not-fully-used-by-the-majority-of-workers/143748

How to avoid being your own worst enemy – owning your journey to beating burnout.

Unusually Tired?

Drained by mid-day?

Take Your holidays and after only a couple of weeks back at work you’re totally exhausted and running on empty again?

Wonder why?

Wonder how to break out of the cycle?

Many of us have assumed a position which damages us and damages others. A position that wears us out and drains us of joy and energy and passion. A position that takes simple tasks and makes them exhausting and unfulfilling.

That position? It’s called “YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY”

Have you ever been in the position of being your own worst enemy?

I think at some point we all have. It doesn’t need to be a big thing, it doesn’t need to be a single event or two; more often than not, for most of us, it’s a series of small things. A repeated set of small decisions where we fail to prioritise what is good for us, what is important, and instead let life run us into the ground with its urgent things. That way of living never works out in the end, and for our own longevity we need to end living like that.

If you answered “yes” to some or most of the questions I asked at the start then you should consider if you are heading for “Burnout” , or maybe you’re already there. Global levels of “stress” and “burnout” have been increasing rapidly for more than a decade and they seem to be hitting record highs each year.

According to pollster and market research agency Gallup, three out of five people said they felt consistently exhausted at the end of a working day, and that it was getting worse. Also, according to the research, common factors reported were, more intense working hours, an increase in “immediacy” and “urgency” as the use of technology has increased, the ability of that technology to invade our down time, and peer pressure due to social media output.

In other words, it’s becoming harder and harder to disconnect and simply be.

A more recent Deloitte report (1) found that 77% of respondents had experienced “burnout” in their current job. In the face of all these facts, why aren’t we paying more attention to what our body is telling us? Why do we keep on making those same decisions over and over again and expect things to get better? Why are we often our own worst enemy?

There are a few reasons to consider:

• We are great at selling ourselves the wrong answer. When we don’t want to face up to what we see in the mirror, or think that admitting we may be struggling is a sign of failure, we are great at convincing ourselves that things will get better. The most common “little fib” we tell ourselves is “this is just a busy period” or “it’s just for a season”. We may be right of course, but when that scenario has persisted month after month with little change we need to wake up and realise we are deluding ourselves.

• Busyness and stress have become “normalised”. It’s a fact that in our society we have come to view high stress and constant busyness as ‘normal’. For many careers it has become a ‘badge of honour’. We think well ‘it’s inescapable’ or ‘it’s the same for everyone, that’s life today’ (with the unexpressed implication of ‘what’s wrong with me, why can’t I manage when everyone else seems to be ok, why am I so weak?”) The truth according to the surveys is that its not true, other aren’t managing, they are struggling too – but they aren’t telling you for the same reasons as you aren’t telling them.

• Unwillingness to take ownership of our problem. The first two factors have an unwelcome accompaniment. Because we don’t want to feel a failure or weak. Because we are afraid to admit we are struggling. Because everyone else seems to be ok from their ‘public face’ we just soldier on – we don’t take ownership of the outcomes of our own many small decisions and instead we blame others for how we are feeling – we blame the boss, the family, our spouse, our colleagues, that horrible person at the coffee machine and even the

  government or that eternal culprit ‘the system’.

So, having read this far where do you begin to find help and recover?

The first thing you must do is TAKE OWNERSHIP OF FINDING THE SOLUTION TO HOW YOU FEEL AND THEN ACT ON WHAT YOU NEED TO DO.

The second thing is to REALISE YOU ARE NOT ALONE FEELING LIKE THIS, INFACT YOU’RE THE MODERN MAJORITY.

That’s what I’m here to tell you in this article – you are not alone, there are answers and you can feel better, permanently. I’m also going to tell you that some of the traditional answers you have tried, are not solutions at all but are only ‘temporary sticking plasters’ that ultimately can end up allowing things to become much worse. So, if you want to understand why the good things you’ve been doing haven’t stopped you getting worse you will need to stick with me for a little while as we follow through on giving you the resource you need in these ‘Beating Burnout’ posts.

So, the first step to stop being your own worst enemy and taking ownership of the solution is to understand whether what you are experiencing is just a temporary blip, a bug you might have picked up, just getting a little older; or might be something where you need to change your way of living, reacting and perhaps coping.

Why do you need to do this now?

Psychologist Dr Emily Anhalt (2) explains that “stress and anxiety that is not mitigated and supported always becomes Burnout – and that if it is not recognised, puts your body through stress that eventually leads to (physical) illness”. That means you need to do something now, and the first thing you need to do is know what you are dealing with – simple tiredness, illness or age, or something more difficult. Burnout is more than a bad day, or a difficult project you are in the midst of. It is more than a few sleepless nights while you finish off some important piece of work. It is more than feeling hassled or upset because of a family problem. Berkeley UC psychology experts identify three distinct components that indicate more than a passing tiredness and which instead ring the alarm bells on ‘Burnout’.

• Exhaustion – that is, you are consistently and for a significant period of time feeling wiped out emotionally, physically or cognitively (or all of the above). Rest or sleep don’t help you feel better for very long at all. When I went through ‘burnout’ some years ago the biggest indicator for me was that sort of exhaustion. I remember the last Christmas before I woke up to what was happening, thinking if I can just make it to the Christmas holidays I can reset and rest up and will feel better. Unfortunately, nothing was better. That Christmas I could hardly get out of the chair and remember thinking I’m shuffling around like and old guy and I’m only 48! I was also unable to get more than an average of 1-2 hours sleep, and some nights none at all, as a few essential systems in my body had gone into overload. Don’t let yourself get that far – I let things go on for too long before I realised I needed to act and own what was happening.

• Cynicism – You find yourself getting increasingly grumpy, more critical than you would like, you might even be getting short tempered. You find yourself irritated by your work, your colleagues, and your team. Worse still you can’t see anything positively, and suspect that peoples motives are much worse than you are able to understand.

• Not Up to it (inefficacy) – You used to be able to stay on top of things, nail great solutions and inspire others to achieve more; now, well, you feel the opposite much of the time – you are drowning under the demands of your workplace, weighed down by the demands of your homelife when you get home, and despite the fact you know you haven’t lost your ability to do your job well, you suspect that you really aren’t doing it that well anymore.

If you recognise yourself in one of those you might be ok. But you might not.

If you see yourself in two or three then you need to do something now… You need to TAKE OWNERSHIP OF RECOGNISING YOU MAY NEED TO MAKE SOME CHANGES and then YOU NEED HELP IN FINDING OUT WHAT HELPS YOU.

The other sessions in this resource contain some hopefully helpful content, so stick with us and watch out for the next post.

Life is complicated. You want to get it right. We want to help.

1 www2deloitte.com - Workplace Burnout survey

2 Dremilyanhalt.com

Notes:

Whilst we want to help you, it is important to recognise that our thoughts are not those of medical experts and as such you may also need to seek the help of a professional counsellor or medical practitioner