Don't Fear the (Burnout) Beast
Don't Fear the (Burnout) Beast
Put out the fires with holistic productivity!
Welcome to All the Tasks Fit to Print, my newsletter on all issues productivity-related for authors (and other solopreneurs)! Watch for my new book, Holistic Productivity: Essays on a New Vision for a Well Balanced Life!
Anyone who has burned out fears it.
Too often it is thought of as something similar to fatigue—you worked too hard, and now you’re tired! Unfortunately, burn out is much more complicated than that. Burnout is so psychologically impactful that it affects our overall health, sometimes with long-lasting consequences.
If you burned out once, you know how all-encompassing it is and how much it can derail your entire life, not just your career/creative/hobby goals. And yes, you can experience burnout with a hobby just as much as you can in a job or with your creative practice. It’s an equal opportunity scourge!
Often, I get clients coming to me who want to re-engage with their projects but are wary of spending too much effort on focused work. They’ve experienced burnout and they are (rightfully!) skittish about going through it again. They are looking for time management techniques to keep them from overworking to the point of crashing.
However, the problem is usually not solely about time management. That’s part of it, sure, but burnout is far more complex than that. Technically, “burnout” is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged and excessive stress.
Rather than just resulting from working long hours, burnout can come from multiple directions such as:
An excessive workload: This is what we think causes burnout. An overwhelming volume of work, forcing us to handle more tasks than one can manage, especially without sufficient resources or support. Intensity and pressure to maintain constant high-energy and highly demanding work along with tight deadlines can lead to chronic stress.
Lack of Control: We don’t think about this enough, but a lack of autonomy can lead to frustration and stress. Little to no input in decision-making and/or a lack of control over work-related activities, resources, and environments can push anyone to a breaking point.
Unclear Performance Expectations: If the target is always moving, you exhaust yourself trying to keep track of it and keep with it. The ambiguity of unclear objectives, expectations, or performance criteria can leave you uncertain and anxious. Make that a long term situation, and burnout is guaranteed.
Work Environment: Whether you work in your home or at a business location, the environment around you feeds into your mental wellbeing. Dysfunctional relationship dynamics are not limited to the home-front, either, since toxic relationships can exist with colleagues or managers. Bullying isn’t just a schoolyard phenomenon, and has driven many people from an otherwise great job. Feeling isolated or unsupported within the work environment creates stress and uncertainty too.
Lack of recognition or appreciation: Yeah, we all sneer at “participation trophies” but too often that swings too far in the other direction, where hard work and commitment are taken for granted. Lack of acknowledgment for achievements or hard work creates resentment, which builds over time into rage and despondency.
Mismatched values/ethical misalignment: Working in an environment or for a company/client that conflicts with your personal values/ethics creates “moral injury,” whereby a person experiences a betrayal of self-perception (“would a good person support this terrible thing? How can I be a good person if I do?”). This can lead to shame and self-loathing, which leads directly to burnout.
Monotony and Lack of Variety: This is a big one for me, since if I get bored I can quickly become self-destructive. Repetitive tasks and stagnation in a role feed into feelings of helplessness. Variety and intellectual stimulation are critical for engagement. “An idle mind is the devil’s playground” and in this case, the devil is burnout.
Lack of support: This can take the form of team members not holding up their end of the project, a supervisor or client not providing guidance or feedback, or colleagues failing to back you up in difficult situations. It also includes family and friends failing to help you and support you in your goals. This all leads to frustration, of course, but also leads to feelings of isolation and overwhelm.
Which all means that dialing in your calendar and time blocks and pomodoro sprints might not actually prevent burnout. I’m sorry.
But the good news is, the more you know, the better prepared you will be to fix problems before they burn you from the inside out. When you get down to the core reason for burnout, it’s not “overworking” it is a lack of balance in your emotional landscape. Feelings of despair, isolation, frustration, and fear take over, unbalance your psychological well being, and crash you into a huge wall of burnout.
Which means that the solution to preventing burnout is to create emotional balance, but it can be hard to achieve if you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
The first thing I do is have my client sit down and go over that list, above. Do any of those issues resonate with you? You don’t have to tick all the boxes; if one or two of them apply, they can lead to burnout whether you are working 20 hours or 80.
Once you know what you are dealing with, you can create countermeasures. In some situations, you might not be able to solve the issue completely (lack of control and monotony affect a lot of people with office jobs, for instance) but being aware of them is crucial. Only when you know what the actual problems are can you find the level to create balance and prevent yourself from hitting burnout.
Are you stressed because you're tired from overworking? Or are you fatigued because the work is monotonous? Or are you depressed due to a feeling of moral/ethical misalignment?
If you're feeling tired, then rest. Powering through it will just lead to burnout.
If the monotony is dragging you down, set aside time to do some freestyle dance or art or, heck, improv comedy classes! Don’t feed the burnout monster by just sitting around channel surfing or doom scrolling, which are entirely too passive to engage your brain (they feel active, but that’s the dopamine talking).
If a moral/ethical misalignment is squeezing your organs but you are not in a position to remove yourself from the situation, make time for activities that help recenter yourself in your beliefs and/or ethics (prayer, yoga, volunteer work). Focusing on your quandary through complaining about it endlessly or wallowing in self-pity is not a proactive way to address your sense of disconnect.
Burnout is a multifaceted phenomenon that transcends fatigue from overworking. Its roots can be traced to a variety of issues, so understanding those stressors is the first step toward effective burnout prevention. Practicing holistic productivity safeguards your mental, emotional, and physical well-being by identifying and addressing the specific problems affecting you in order to create a balanced life!
Watch for my new book!
