Sustainable Work/Life Balance versus the Exhaustion Funnel

Here’s a helpful, short exercise to help you maintain a sustainable, healthy balance in life.

This is especially important for conscientious people, where self-esteem may depend heavily on work performance.

Pic 1. The top circle, below, represents a well-balanced life – it’s larger because it contains a wide range of activities, both work AND leisure-related.

As we get busier or work stress increases you’ll often see the circle reducing, as we give up more & more of the ‘less important’ things. As the circle becomes smaller, this is known as the Exhaustion or Burnout Funnel (see pic 1 above)

Things seen as less essential are usually things that are fun/pleasurable/selfish. But these are also the activities that protect us from burnout.

Burnout is unmanaged, chronic stress leading to mental/physical exhaustion. It happens when we ignore our body's signals & try to push through. Pic 1 also lists some common symptoms as people descend down the funnel.

So how do we retain balance? It’s about considering how much of our time is spent in activities that are nourishing, versus depleting.

Exercise: consider a typical day and note down daily activities. Break them down roughly by hour, or min. 10 activities.

Then label each activity as either Nourishing (N) or depleting (D).?(Some ‘N’ activities may not be pleasurable, as such, but give us a feel-good sense of mastery or achievement.)

Some could be an N/D combination or could vary

See Pic 2 (below) for an example.

Pic 3 shows how our ‘activity circle’ shrinks as we descend down the exhaustion funnel.

Questions to ask yourself

• What is the balance of Ns/Ds?.. ie the balance of negative to pleasurable things in your life.
• Has your circle become smaller? What things have been deleted over time? E.g., do you no longer have time for morning exercise or to take a proper lunch break?
• What did your circle of activities look like when life was at its best?
• Are you making some of the ‘D’ tasks worse by procrastinating?
• Is there a way to lighten some of the ‘D’ activities (see my list, pic 2)
• Are some colleagues or people in your life usually depleting rather than nourishing? Is there a way to approach this differently? E.g. reducing time with depleting colleagues with some advance organisation, or by sharing the load with someone else?
• Is there a way to make any of the ‘D’ tasks less depleting? – e.g., being stricter with meeting agendas so they don’t drag on, or leaving time between meetings to give yourself time to absorb and take a breath before the next one?
• Are you doing things in your leisure time that initially feel Nourishing but actually aren’t – eg too much screentime, or drinking alcohol to relax (both of which negatively affect sleep)? Can you replace these gradually with something genuinely nourishing, e.g., reading or going for a walk with a podcast?
• If ‘D’ tasks can’t be changed or avoided can you at least approach them mindfully or reframe them – remind yourself why they are important; what else do they allow you to do?

And remember that a key mistake people make is to keep working harder for ever-decreasing returns (and in ever-decreasing circles!), because, as fatigue increases, concentration is impaired. If this is happening to you, you may be in the red zone and it’s time to take a step back and reconsider.

(Based on work by Prof Asberg, a burnout expert).

If this isn't enough and you need help digging yourself out of burnout or overwhelm, or coping with work stress then I can help. See www.rethinktherapyconwy.com/uptrainedbrain or book a free, no-pressure, call to discuss your needs.

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