Burnout is the condition silently eroding our work & social lives. Here’s 5 common signs and what to do to avoid or mitigate the risks to your wellbeing…
Burnout is a process in which everyday stresses and anxieties gradually undermine your mental and physical health. It’s so prevalent the World Health Organisation now has it listed as a Disease! Unless your work involves training Dolphins or tasting new flavours of chocolate, its likely experiencing stress is a daily requirement of managing a growing workload. Reducing the risk of burnout requires fixing your environment, and your recovery strategies…
Our work lives are increasingly demanding, with ever more complex challenges at a near-relentless pace! Add in personal or family challenges and it’s easy to feel constantly overwhelmed. These increases in complexity leave us feeling in over our heads. But our typical response to growing workloads is to work harder and put in longer hours, rather than to step back and examine what’s not working and find a new way of operating.
People suffer from burnout as a result of chronic work stress, which affects both people employed and those navigating through unemployment. “At the extreme end people entirely shut down and end up in hospital having physical examinations. At the other end we find people showing signs of anxiety, low mood and feeling detached from day-to-day life.” Unless your work involves training Dolphins or tasting new flavours of chocolate (lucky you!), its likely experiencing stress is a daily requirement of managing a growing workload. Even if you’re immune to workplace stress, ongoing anxieties created by the Pandemic are likely undermining your Resilience and your wellbeing.
Resilience is as much about how you recharge as how much you can endure! (Read that again). Resilience is typically viewed through a “tough” lens. “We picture an Army Marine slogging through mud in warfare training, or an athlete gritting their teeth through pain to push through the limits of human endurance. You might believe that the longer you tough it out, the tougher you are, and therefore the more Resilient and successful you are. But this conception is scientifically inaccurate.”
Yes Resilience is about navigating adversity effectively, but the very lack of a recovery period is dramatically impacting you, your team and your organisations collective ability to be Resilient and successful. Research shows there is a direct correlation between lack of recovery and increased incidence of health and safety problems. A lack of workforce Resilience is estimated to be costing Australian companies $12.8 billion per year in lost productivity, translated in dollar terms as absenteeism, presenteeism and workplace compensation. Globally this number is over $60 billion! (That’s billion not million).
When examining pressure and stresses related to work life, it’s best not to leap to conclusions about aggressive or incompetent management, or “weak” employees with no Resilience. Instead, there are certain factors that protect a workplace from burnout, and certain factors that protect individuals. Without these factors a business and its employees are more vulnerable to burnout…
Workplaces – require a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, and a management style that finds a balance between results and employee wellbeing.
Individuals – require Resilience awareness and skills, including being able to positively influence their thinking, feeling and behaviour towards achieving beneficial wellbeing and performance outcomes.
So how do you know if you are close to Burnout? Here’s 5 signs – try to notice if any of these sound like you right now…
Any of these sound familiar? You only have to identify with one or two of these for this to be an indicator you (or others) might be close to Burnout!
There’s a few things you can do for yourself and others if you are a leader, to recover from or reduce the likelihood of burnout…
Acknowledge Superwoman / Superman are fictional characters i.e. nobody can carry the weight of the world on their shoulders!
Rest before reaching exhaustion, or require a longer Recovery from exhaustion! Rest or Recovery? — it’s a choice!
Know the activities that recover energy and ensure these are prioritised on daily TODO lists. Try as little as 15 mins downtime every 2 hrs!
A Friend, Mentor or Leader should say “We recognise you’re having a tough time, and that’s nothing to be ashamed about. What can we do to help you?”
Seek support, tools or training from experts for maintaining cognitive, physical and social Resilience day-to-day.
By taking affirmative action in the ways discussed above, you will be systematically building Resilience and putting yourself, your team and your organisation in a greater position to thrive through the current challenges, and those ahead! But you don’t need to do it alone… Ripen exists to teach people how to maximise their wellbeing! We are based in Australia, but our clients are global and since 2016 we’ve delivered Personal Resilience training to thousands of people and teams in 25+ countries and multiple languages. We specialise in working with remote or hybrid working teams across the globe.
Looking to give your teams wellbeing an instant boost? Get in touch
