Avoiding Burnout

Avoiding Burnout

So far, we have looked at identifying your personal burnout pressure points and have shown how you can check yourself for burnout.


This section shows you some of the practical steps that you can take if you are at risk of burning out. We have already looked at many of these in detail in previous sections. This section acts as a reminder of these important skills.

Understanding Where Pressure Comes From
Before you can take action to counter burnout, you need to understand why you are at danger of it. The tools in our Pin-Pointing Stress section can help you in this.


If you need more help in identifying the most important sources of stress in your life, then use the Schedule of Recent Experience to get a view of the long term stress you are experiencing, and keep a Stress Diary to see what is causing stress in your day-to-day life.


Too much to do, too little time…
Where excessive workload is the problem, then three major groups of tools may help: First, look at the tools in our Work Overload section. Use the Job Analysis tool to see if you can cut away low-yield work. Review your management of time to use this to its full, and delegate tasks to other people where you can.



Second, consider whether you are being too accommodating. Should you let people know that you have too much work to do? Should you be politely turning down new work that people pass you? If this is the case, then improved assertiveness skills may help you to do this in a positive way. Remember that you will have to say “no” at some stage, otherwise your commitments will get bigger and bigger. You must learn to say no to commitments that you should not take on, otherwise you will be in severe danger of becoming intensely stressed and exhausted.



An obvious point is to check that you are using all of the resources available to you. Included within this, make sure that you are using your support network as fully as you can and that you are getting the help you need when you need it.



Finally, be aware that it is just not possible to do some jobs. Sometimes organizations commit themselves to projects that they do not have the capabilities, resources or skills to complete. These quickly become “projects from Hell”. Beware of these projects - they can be traps from which it is difficult to escape, even if you are at severe risk of burning out.



Political and people problems
Where politics seems to be a problem, you need to check that you are allocating enough time to managing your stakeholders and that you are correctly managing your support network. It is very easy when under stress to stop communicating with people, and this can lead to political problems that compound with other issues to create a toxic cocktail of stress.



Alternatively, a major cause of burnout can happen when too many people lean too heavily upon you. While it is important to provide support to the people around you, some people will suck up as much support as you can give and demand still more. This can be both tiresome and intensely disappointing, as you never seem to be able to meet their needs.



While distancing yourself from people is a symptom of burnout, it is also a defense against it. You need to find the fine balance between being reasonably open and available to the people you live and work with, while at the same time distancing yourself from people who drain you of emotional energy. A way of doing this may be to involve other people in providing support.



Another area where you need to find a balance is with the different (and often conflicting) demands of different groups of people and organizations. An obvious conflict is between work and family: Both really want as much of your time and energy as possible. You need to find a way of reconciling both, while still leaving time for yourself. However, this is also true of almost all of the people or organizations you deal with. All have their own goals and values, and all have their own ideas of how you should behave. In many cases, these goals will conflict with those of other organizations and in many cases they will conflict with yours.



As the only person who is an expert in your own life, you need to find what seems like a reasonable balance and then defend this assertively.



Avoiding Exhaustion
In the introduction to this section, we saw how exhaustion was such a major factor in burnout. Elsewhere on this site, we look at the importance of sleep and rest in detail.



Going on a good, long vacation is one of the best ways of avoiding burnout. Choose a vacation that does not expose you to the stresses you experience at home or which distracts you from them. Leave your laptop and mobile phone behind. Forget about work completely until your return. Rest, and enjoy life. Being a workaholic is not something to be proud of.



Similarly, make sure you get enough sleep and rest, and that you frequently use relaxation techniques to calm down and relax.



Protecting the Meaning of Your Job
The other major cause of burnout is disillusionment with your job, particularly when you get a great deal of the meaning in your life from the work you do.



The emphasis here is on protecting the parts of your job that give you meaning and satisfaction. If you have trouble in justifying this to yourself, then think about the people you serve: if you burn out, then they will not get the benefit of the energy and enthusiasm you can provide: You owe it to them to enjoy your job!



It is possible also that the job itself is badly designed and that contradictions inherent within it are causing much of the stress you are experiencing. Use our Job Analysis tool to check this out. Alternatively, if frustration with lack of career development is the problem, use our Career Planning tool.


Summary:
There is a lot that you can do to avoid job burnout. Perhaps the most important thing is to recognize that you are at risk, and take this seriously.



This article briefly shows you the sort of things you can do to avoid burnout. These mainly focus on managing workload, dealing with people problems, avoiding exhaustion and protecting the meaning of your work. If you can do these things, then you should be able to avoid burnout and continue to get satisfaction from the work you do.