3 TIPS TO AVOID CAREER BURNOUT

Most people are just getting familiar with the word ‘burnout’, which is why they throw it at the slightest opportunity they get. It is instructive to note that burnout is not a joke.?

In fact, if what you call burnout is something you slept out of in a week or two then you were probably just tired from work and needed some time to refresh.?

According to experts, recovering from burnout could take up to a year or two. You can see that it is not a joke. But then it starts as a joke.?

So, let’s do a quick exercise by answering the following questions: Do you feel uninspired 70% of the time you get up from your bed to prepare for work? Do you all of a sudden hate your place of work? Are you complacent with tasks because of the feeling of constant numbness? Do you zone out of almost every conversation your colleagues are having? You feel like your responsibilities are beyond you, which then leads to frustration? Are you becoming dissatisfied and angry at everything lately?

If your answers come out positive to all the questions above, then you might be tip-toeing around the corridors of burnout! And these are the three tips to help you run away from that experience.?

TIP 1 - STOP STOKING THE FIRE

When something is engulfed in fire, the first thing you want to do instinctively is to put off the fire. The same should be replicated when your mind (about your career) is on fire! You don’t ignore or postpone the symptoms of burnout, because it is so abstract yet very close to us. And the scary thing is that most 9-5ers are one step away from it.?

My first advice to you is to agree that you are less than an inch close to experiencing burnout. It is after this realization that you begin to take caution! Because if you fail to slow down at this point, there might be no saving you from burnout!?

The next thing to do is to drop the many weights you are carrying. Drop them! Move from being an overachiever to being a performer. Just do your bit. This is not the time where you want to be seen as the hardest worker in your company, because you are sitting on gunpowder.?

Just so you know, people ‘die by working’ and according to Bloomberg, at least 120,000 people die from work stress in the USA every year. So, this should be enough reason to stop the fire! Reduce the workload. Stop going. Just stop!

TIP 2 - BOUNCE ON THE STRENGTHS OF YOUR COLLEAGUES

There’s something beautiful in the way Danfo buses help their stranded colleagues’ buses in Lagos, Nigeria. They use their uses to push the faulty bus until it kickstarts. This goes a long way to show that we need each other.?

I remember when I experienced work burnout towards the end of last year, I made my office a communal workspace, to help me get back on track. This was a strategy not to make people other than my teammates and close friends know what I was going through.?

My colleagues; knowing what was happening to me, literally pushed me. They weren’t doing my job for me but I saw things through their lenses. They helped me edit writeups, arrange presentation slides, and recommended books to read.?

Now, imagine what would have happened to me if I did not open up to my colleagues. They wouldn’t have even known that I was in a crisis, talk more of helping me get out of it. If you feel like you are experiencing burnout, move closer to your office’s smart and resourceful colleagues and get the healing.?

TIP 3 - RELAX, RECHARGE & RESTORE

Career burnout is not the only office-related (i.e poor leadership, lack of organizational care, sabotage, lack of resources, unethical and illegal requests, overemphasis on ROI, etc); it could also mean exhaustion stemming from your ambitions. I mean, your quest for success in your career!?

Ordinarily, success requires effort; effort induces stress and stress can lead to burnout. You can now see another link between success and burnout. Albeit, I am not implying that success is always accompanied by burnout. But because of the need to do so many things at a time to carve our successful paths, there’s a tendency to get worn out.?

This message is to people who within their career find themselves doing more than one job at a time. Because of how prone you are to get burned out, you must learn these 3 Rs:?

1. Relax - this is a stage where you take a leave from the office to engage in an alone honeymoon phase. This is where you will romance yourself by giving yourself treats. It helps a lot.?
2. Recharge - This is a stage where you massage your brain by not thinking of work and also reading comics, storybooks, and anything that doesn’t remind you of the hectic aspect of your career.?
3. Restore - After all is said and done, you must choose to love your career again. The honeymoon stage will help you take it back to the days where you had butterflies just from thinking about your career.?

Try to follow these steps because quitting your job and moving to another job is not an option and doesn't cure career burnout. You will only find yourself carrying a cocktail of emotions whenever your new job presents what made you quit your previous job. This is a leading cause of residual burnout (PTSD).??

BURN BRIGHT, NOT OUT!

Image sources from google.