5 Ways To Overcome Burnout

As we come upon a three-day weekend, this is a great time take a break and to reflect on the impact of the last year on ourselves and our teams. Take a few minutes to assess where you and your team stand and the steps you can take to overcome burnout.

What do we mean by burnout?

While burnout includes many of the same symptoms as stress, there are three specific feelings that differentiate burnout:

• Feeling tired or exhausted
• A lack of enthusiasm and increased negativity towards your job
• Decreased ability to perform your job

Prolonged burnout may manifest itself in physical symptoms – anxiety, fatigue, stress, body aches, stomach issues.

Signs To Watch For:

• Your passion fades
• You feel numbness – no highs or lows
• Little things make you disproportionately angry
• Nothing satisfies you
• Everybody drains you
• You’re becoming cynical
• You self-medicate
• Your productivity is dropping
• You don’t laugh anymore
• You can’t think straight

When To Seek Help

• You are experiencing more than a few of the signs for several weeks
• You are having unusual physical symptoms
• Reach out earlier rather than later

Recovery
Burnout is real. We don’t often think of our work as taxing our mind and body in the same way that we think of the impact of athletic training and performance but there are a lot of similarities. As in athletics, RECOVERY is as important as training when it comes to avoiding burnout!

Overcoming Burnout
If you or your team members can identify with these signs, consider five ways you can work individually or as a team to overcome burnout.

#1 Self Care

• Vacation or weekend away
• Yoga/Exercise
• Sleep
• Reduce or eliminate alcohol and caffeine
• A hobby that creates something
• Take a walk
• Breathe

Overcoming Burnout
If you or your team members can identify with these signs, consider five ways you can work individually or as a team to overcome burnout.

#1 Self Care

• Vacation or weekend away
• Yoga/Exercise
• Sleep
• Reduce or eliminate alcohol and caffeine
• A hobby that creates something
• Take a walk
• Breathe

#2 Rediscover Your Passion

Take Inventory:

• What have you enjoyed doing in the past?
• What patterns or commonalities do you see?
• What new projects or work could bring this out again?
• What do you do that impacts others?
• Ask others about how what you do impacts them.
• Find a new project that allows you to use your talents. 

#3 Control Device Time

• Set boundaries in the evening and morning
• Start your day with time in nature/outside/
• Don’t look at your phone first thing when you wake up
• Stop social media that is not positive
• Take a day/week without screen time

#4 Proactively Reduce Stress

• Say No
• Trust In Your Abilities
• List Stress Inducers and Ways To Eliminate
• Implement A Change of Scenery

#5 Connect

• Reach out to new people at work
• Engage in deeper conversations with someone you trust
• Leaders – invest in one-on-one meetings
• Empathy – the #1 skill leaders use to overcome burnout

Next Steps For Overcoming Burnout

Recognize it takes time. Start with 1 – 2 small things each day and then re-assess in 2 weeks.

• Are you feeling more positive/seeing more positives?
• Is there anything new you enjoy
• What relationships are developing.

 We’d love it if you’d share what you’re doing for yourself and for your team! 

Share with us…what’s working, what challenges you’ve faced, and the progress you are making.

Debbie Waggoner, CEO of Nodus Performance Consulting has a solid track record of success with Fortune 500 companies, working with individuals, teams, and organizations to improve performance in the areas of leadership, talent development, and teamwork.