Have you ever felt like you are stuck in this cycle you can’t break out of? Burnout is something that we hear a lot about today. There are so many articles written about burnout that you wonder if it’s become a plague in our society.
What are the signs of burnout? How do we know if we are feeling it?
Burnout occurs when you feel like you are losing a piece of yourself or have a loss of identity.
For example, three years ago you were feeling great about your health and well-being. You were in great shape, eating healthy, and had a great relationship. Fast forward to today and all of a sudden your job has consumed your life. It started slow. You started to order takeout for lunch every day because you felt like you didn’t have time to make lunch at home before work. That slowly turns into you skipping the gym after work because you need to get that extra hour in a day. Then you start to neglect to be present when you are at home with your spouse because all you can think about is all the work that you didn’t do during the day.
Disinterest In Things You Once Enjoyed
This is one of the signs of burnout that make it obvious in hindsight but isn’t obvious at the moment. The two things that I love to do most are writing and running. When you begin to lose interest in something you once loved doing, that’s a sign of burnout.
When you lose interest in things that you once enjoyed, it sucks the joy out of life. It can create this perpetual loop of feeling like everything sucks and you’re not going to continue to feel dull and miserable.
Perhaps you overcompensate by over-consuming caffeine and try to will yourself to keep pushing forward day after day and still feel exhausted.
In the past when I have felt burnt out, I start to find less joy in almost everything that I do. Life doesn’t seem to have as much meaning anymore. Connections with other people don’t feel as meaningful.
You start to become a shell of your former self. Your presence is where you are but you’re not present.
How do you break free of this?
Take a break in your mindset and stop trying to rush through everything in life. Start a journal that is all your thoughts without judgement. Don’t be afraid to write anything down. Take 10 minutes to focus on your breathing or meditate. Sometimes just sitting for 10 minutes and focusing on your breathing can feel like a miracle. There’s been moments where I have done that and opened my eyes feeling like a completely new person.
You Have No Boundaries
When you are ambitious and want to “prove” yourself at work. You often eliminate all boundaries to work to get that promotion. Feeling the need to prove yourself constantly is a sign of burnout. When you constantly feel that need to prove yourself you start to work on weekends, after hours or even on vacation.
It can be difficult to set boundaries after you have already allowed them to be crossed. If you’re in a new workplace, be sure to set those boundaries right away. If you have been in the same job for several years, slowly start to create boundaries. Perhaps you may still check your email after hours but you don’t reply to them. It takes time to rebuild your boundaries after they have fallen. Rebuild them by setting up your out-of-office when you’re not in the office. Don’t answer the phone at 6pm when you’re done with work.
I used to work in the medical industry and this would always happen too. I would get calls at 7:00pm during the week or as early as 6:00am before I got into the office. The sales reps that would call knew they were crossing a boundary that I was allowing them to cross. Eventually, I stopped answering the phone after hours and they eventually figured out to call the office instead of me.
Have a conversation with your manager about setting boundaries and get their recommendation. If they are completely deaf to the conversation, maybe you should look for a new job.
Analysis Paralysis
When you’re feeling burnout, every decision becomes a big one. Have you ever wasted 15 minutes deciding what you want to eat for lunch?
There will be moments where a five-minute task can turn into a 50-minute task because you are overanalyzing it. This is because you’re trying to rush through your work so much and looking for shortcuts. We look for shortcuts when we feel like we need to get ahead. The reality is that many of those shortcuts we try to figure out take us longer.
The best way to overcome analysis paralysis is to make a decision on what direction you want to go in as quickly as possible and accept that you can’t do everything.
People that want to be the “hero” tend to have the most analysis paralysis. This is because they’re looking for a hack to get the work done of three people and overthink it. Eventually, this leads to unintentional procrastination and the workloads pile up.
https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/break-free-of-analysis-paralysis-ca6a70195200
Conclusion
Burnout sucks. If you feel like you’re going to have a panic attack at work every day, you probably need to take a break.
If you are feeling any of the signs of burnout, don’t ignore them and keep pushing through. In most workplaces, the more work you take on becomes your standard, you end up taking even more work until you can’t anymore.
Have a chat with your manager at work. Have a chat with your partner or spouse if you haven’t been present lately. Make sure that you can get all the support around you that you can get.
Do you feel stuck? Do you feel like you need to have an extra edge in life? Start to live you live more relentless and sign up today for new content 3–4 times a week on health, self improvement and running.
https://running-relentless.ck.page/992082391e
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
—
Photo credit: Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash