So you think you might be struggling with burnout, either way you know you’re exhausted and overworked and the question is, what do you do next?
After experiencing burnout myself and now more than four years working with clients from all across the white (and sometimes blue) collar professions, both in the UK and further afield, there are a couple of key steps that almost everyone goes through before they accept that yes, they have burnout and no, it won’t get magically better on it’s own or with that one simple change that every spam advert on Instagram recommends.
In an effort to try and help you move from overwhelm and exhaustion to real sustainability and enjoyability at work, here are four of the most common burnout fixes that just don’t work (and yes, I’ve been there, got the t-shirt and am here to help you save the time and pain of making the same mistakes!)
The diet overhaul
We’ve all been there, feeling exhausted and like we’ve been reaching into the biscuit tin seeking the meaning of life a little too often, but burnout often comes with it’s own physical and diet issues. Eating fast food because cooking feels too overwhelming. Bribing colleagues with donuts to make up for your snappy behaviour. Numbing out with wine and using caffeine and pick and mix to keep you pepped.
So in amongst the McMuffin wrappers and Haribo packets it’s easy to think ‘all I need is to clean up my diet and it’ll all be ok’.
It’s an easy fix, right? A few more massaged kale salads, a daily green smoothie that looks more like the creature from the black lagoon than the fancy picture you see on insta.
The question is, are you eating this way because of the way your life is set up? If so, you’re pushing a boulder up a muddy hill and piling even more work on yourself by diving into weekly meal prep.
I am never against anyone cleaning up their diet and know that it’s an integral part of a long-term burnout prevention and management strategy to take care of your health, but for the love of god, stop looking for the answers at the bottom of a bottle. Whether it’s a bottle of wine or liquidised salad, the answer is always more complex than the bottom of the bottle.
Taking a day off to recover
Once upon a time I worked for a firm where I was seriously struggling with the workload, both complexity and volume, with a hand-off manager who thought it was ok to duck my calls for weeks at a time and that a creative solution to resolving my overburdened workload was to assign me not one, but two trainee solicitors. Brilliant…
I was so desperate for a day to get my head down, get my work done without the endless phone calls and bullshit that I booked a work from home day (remember when those were hard to come by?).
Unfortunately our internet went down the evening before my wfh day and I was told it couldn’t be fixed for nearly a week. I was beside myself, desperate for a day away from the office to catch up and recover, and was in such a state that my partner went out and bought a mobile internet dongle so I could still work from home, wrapped in my dressing gown for comfort.
It all went well until I logged into the delegated access banking and they flagged my mobile internet dongle – shutting down the banking system for the entire firm… Whoops!
Throughout my career in law I took more odd days of holiday to rest and relax, catch up on sleep/life admin/deal with family dramas than I ever managed to take as actual breaks away. It was an unsustainable working pattern that I have seen repeated again and again in my clients.
It speaks to the wishful thinking that we can somehow get on top of the workload that always massively outstrips capacity, and that when we get there life will somehow we easier. That if we can just organised enough then all our problems will resolve.
What changes when you get there? Well, not a lot. You’re even more exhausted and likely to suffer a pro-activity backlash (you know the one, where everyone has the audacity to respond to the work you’ve cleared off your desk, by requiring you to do more again? The cheek!). And what have you sacrificed to climb this Everest of Overachievement? Time with your family? Sleep? Nutrition. It’s ok, they’re only the things that make life worth living…
Employing work to rule boundaries
This one comes in around the time as the comments that ‘management don’t care about us’ and ‘well I’m not making a difference anyway, am I?’ come to the fore.
I’m always in favour of someone working their contracted hours, provided there are two significant conditions in place. First of all, that this is a genuine attempt to set some boundaries and have a better work-life balance as opposed to simply trying to withdraw/escape/passive-aggressively strike back at the people you think have given you too much work. It’s ok, we’ve all been there.
The second condition is that work stays at work. Or your home office. Whatever that looks like right now.
It is absolutely pointless putting yourself under a crazy amount of stress to leave the office/shut the laptop on time, only for you to ruminate on work all night long and be shaking with the need to finish off those emails.
We work in the real world. I would love to be your magical fairy godmother and wave my magic wand over your work, eradicating the need for deadlines, erasing your overflowing inbox and magically disappearing those moaning Minnie clients.
I’m good, but even I’m not that good.
Trying to work to rule often falls apart before the end of the first week because we haven’t addressed the underlying issues that cause us to overwork again and again. We haven’t addressed the fears that fire our overworking neurons, whether we’re fingers to the keys or lying on the sofa in frustration.
Frankly, the desire to pull back usually comes more from exhaustion and frustration than it ever does the desire to enjoy one’s self outside of work and live a full and well rounded life, and as such, it’s most often doomed to failure.
Quitting your job or career
The comment I dread more than any other. The person who messages me and says how they have loved my blogs and read every word… and decided to quit their job as a result.
Sometimes this outcome is inevitable, in a working environment too toxic to continue, or with management teams who just don’t listen or knowing deep down in your bones that you’re here through a few quirks of fate more than the drive to really do what you’re doing.
But please, for god’s sake, speak to someone before you make the leap.
More often than not, issues of burnout have arisen in multiple employments or multiple roles and we’ve gotten very good at employing ‘change is as good as a rest’ as a lifestyle, or applied wishful thinking that the next role we won’t overwork, won’t volunteer, won’t be surrounded by people who see how good we are if they get out of our way and leave us to it.
There is nothing worse than speaking to someone who has leapt from the frying pan to the fire and found that, wherever you go, there you are.
I can’t make a toxic environment less toxic, but I can help equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to make a fully informed choice without being fuelled by fear.
You deserve more than that.
PS Do you want to know more about burnout and the impact this year of pandemic, recession, lockdown and adaptation has had on a previously struggling workforce? Whether you’re looking for help for yourself, your team or the people you love, this workshop may just help.
On Monday 7th December I am holding my final public-access workshop for the year where I will be taking you through:
· What burnout is and how it shows up
· What causes some of us to struggle whilst others are remarkably resilient
· Why battle-fatigue has risen in impact this year
· Understanding your basic needs and how they impact burnout-resilience
· How to create a resilience action plan through this winter season
Drawn from my corporate training sessions, my original Burnout Prevention Session and the Burnout & the Impact of Covid-19 workshops I released earlier this year, this is a massively expanded and more detailed workshop that will give you a great understanding of what and why we are so impacted this year.
Click here to find out more and reserve your place