Burnout can be described as a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that leads to feelings of incapacity to cope with work, family demands, and life in general. It manifests as a profound lack of energy, enthusiasm, time, inner reserves, and a sense of losing oneself.
Symptoms of burnout include a loss of passion for work, avoidance of relationships and colleagues, increased fatigue throughout the week, irritability, and frustration with feelings of being trapped by a job they no longer enjoy but unable to leave due to financial commitments. Recovery from burnout can be slow, taking up to 18 months, with repercussions for the individual as well as their family, friends, and colleagues. As the adage says, prevention is better than cure.
Here are 3 tips to help you prevent burnout and to recover from it:
1. Understand Stress
Stress, in moderation, can be a motivating force. However, prolonged stress can lead to detrimental physical and mental health effects. Chronic stress results in elevated levels of cortisol, causing various health issues such as heart problems, weight gain, weakened immunity, memory loss, and impaired brain function.
The Champion Health Workplace Health 2023 Report indicates that 76% of employees experience moderate to high stress, with 9% contemplating self-harm or suicide. This stress is linked to burnout. These findings underscore the urgent need for action by individuals, leaders, and organizations to mitigate the growing burnout crisis.
2. Know Yourself
Focusing on self-awareness is crucial. Knowing yourself better allows you to prioritise what truly matters in your life and your future aspirations. Allocate personal time for self-reflection to understand your values, vision, strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, and physical and mental warning signs. You are the engine that needs fine-tuning, so cultivate the discipline of self-care. This self-awareness will help you devise personalised strategies for coping with stress.
3. Set Boundaries, Learn to Say No, and Ask for Help
Understanding your own needs and the external environment empowers you to evaluate the consequences of your actions. This includes setting firm boundaries in both work and personal life. Recognise that allowing breaches in these boundaries is a choice, often in favour of someone or something else and to your detriment. The Eisenhower Matrix, differentiating between urgency and importance, can be a useful tool. Practice saying “No” to low importance, low, or high-urgency tasks to regain control over your schedule and life. Start with low-stakes decisions and progressively build this habit, as it might face resistance.
Delegation and asking for help are essential strategies to prevent burnout. Waiting until burnout is imminent is waiting too long. Delegating not only ensures tasks get completed, often at a lower cost, but also develops your colleagues.
In Conclusion
Avoiding burnout requires a new way of being in the world around you. An experienced executive coach can provide invaluable support for the strategies outlined above. Preventing burnout is not only a personal benefit but also contributes to a healthier, more productive, and more fulfilling life.
By Joseph Ogbonna
An executive and leadership Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF), with excellent supporting skills in strategic thinking, accessing inner wisdom, mindfulness, organisational development, project and programme management. Joseph enjoys helping leaders to solve business problems when they pay attention to self-knowledge, learning and drawing on their inner wisdom. This is especially so when they do ethical business, generating income and growth whilst having a positive impact on their employees and helping to create a fairer society. He looks out for opportunities to work with established entrepreneurs and with people of Black heritage, to elicit more benefit for themselves, to employers and to society by trusting their inner wisdom.
By Obehi Alofoje
I’m a qualified psychologist, behavioural change specialist, and productivity coach with over 15 years of experience, who works with high-performing individuals and teams on a range of challenges including productivity decline, stress management, and inclusive leadership strategies.
