Evolution of Burnout Recovery

Reading and Talking about Burnout!

Caught you!

The reason you are reading about it, you are living the emotion.

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You join a school, because you prioritize balanced life.

But now as a school career counselor, apart from deadlines and work pressure, you also give away your mind space and heart space to your students and their families. Sometimes we are so consumed by handholding a family and a student, that we put our own family and ourselves on the back burner. The spirit to give back and serve people gives you joy and satisfaction. But it can rob you of your wellbeing and peace.

I understand that every profession has its own set of challenges and phases of burn outs. But any helping professional battles with many other role challenges apart from the routine job pressures. Counselors are at a higher risk of emotional imbalances. Hear me out.

Thank you calls- On average, I get at least 10 calls per day seeking a small advise or help in decision making for their career, subject, university, destination, etc. But you can imagine how long these conversations can go if you truly want to guide someone precisely!

Responsibility of a life- The thought that I can influence a student’s life with my advice, is in itself a lot of pressure.

Over providing by a school counselor is so organic but it can be detrimental for you. On a quest to provide more opportunities and avenues to our students, we tend to over burden ourselves. As a return, parents and students only take you and your services for granted.

Excitement Projects- This is mostly true to me, that I love to give back to my community of counselors, my school community and my parents and student body. And yes, I over burden myself by committing more than what I can manage without compromising my personal space. I also know it’s true for many counselors because as a community we are heart people, and we are here because we really want to contribute.

Love your work- Simply put, we love our work so much that we end up working more hours than expected of us??

Personal reading and research- Passion to make an impact drives us to keep ourselves abreast of changing education and career landscape. Not just this, but also the impact of geopolitics in student movement, placements, future of jobs, etc.

Unrealistically Ambitious parents/ students- Every counselor bumps into some parents and students who don’t understand best fit course and university at all. They make counselor’s life very tough by either pushing the counselor for a higher ranked university. If the counselor disagrees, relationship between the counselor and the parents/ students gets affected.

Students torn apart between parents- Classic case of one parent focused on traditional education for their child and the other wants to be liberal in their approach. But the student lives in limbo and keeps struggling to keep their parents happy. Counselor is quietly called by all the 3 stakeholders separately to share their emotions and their choices and asked to bridge the gap.

Non transactional decisions- Career decisions are practical as well as emotional. We have to balance the two wings by sharing facts about the profession, at the same time understand student’s interest, aptitude and passion. One step further, to understand a student’s background and environment where they have been raised and matching it to their profession so that they organically fit in and grow.? After identifying the right fit, the journey of getting parents to agree to the plan and see value in that path is very time consuming.?

Emergency student/ parent calls- This is a hard reality in our profession. Especially during application time, no email or message can wait for even 24 hours to be replied.

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Sharing some Counselor hacks that worked for me- Take it or leave it ??

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Realistic commitments only- No commitments without a calendar check, emotional check, mind space check and family check.

Step back and step down – Self reflect and think if you are over providing and over committing! Dare to say NO in barter of peace, happiness and sustainability.

Be kind to yourself- Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! And Sleep well and timely. Don’t burn midnight oil. It’s not sustainable. Prioritize self-care. Please put it in your calendar. Fix an appointment with yourself and make it on time ??

Excited for life- Life is beyond work. Please prioritize your health, well being and family. It’s important to work consistently in the right direction. And it doesn’t matter if you get there some years later than what you planned.

Quit work-a-holism- I have done this to myself. As a reflection, I feel it’s not worth it. All work and no play makes you dull sooner or later. Please fill colors in your life with family, friends, personal travel (work travel not counted!) and experiences.

Mindset alignment- You can’t connect to every student and every parent. How much ever you want to help, some people don’t need it, or they think differently, let go. Abstain from giving free advice pleaseee.

Separate Personal and work contact- This helped me a lot and switch off work notifications post work hours all times (but application period).

Setting right expectations- You may plan to create a work contract that parents can sign. Clearly lay out boundaries and timelines. Also give responsibility and time commitment to your parents and students, like, no last-minute requests for LORs.

Mindful emotional connect- Again please create boundaries in your emotion involvement with students, parents and any pastoral care the family needs.

Slow life is the new luxury- Speed is great but it’s at a risk of burn out. So slowing down my mind has truly given me time for self-reflection and self-connect. It also means clear thoughts, ideas and quality work.

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