7 Subtle Precursors To Burn Out

There’s such a thing as being too busy.

Firing on all cylinders day after day will take its toll and before you know it, you’ll not only wear out, but it can actually change you.

You need balance.

Burnout in life happens when there is a lack of balance between the things you have to do to survive and the things you need to live a good life.

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By definition, burnout is a form of exhaustion that is caused by excessive and prolonged emotional, physical, and mental stress.

Being burned out can make you feel emotionally drained and uninterested in keeping up with life’s demands.

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you you’ve been going through the motions your soul has departed.” — Sam Keen

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There are a few obvious, and some not-so-obvious signs that you’re heading to a state of burnout.

No one to talk to

If you find yourself without someone to talk to about your feelings, this could lead to a pattern of holding everything thing in and trudging ahead without any consideration for what you’re going through.

Extended periods of time without the ability to share your feelings and thoughts with someone will put you on the fast track to burnout.

Whether you reach out to a trusted friend, family member, life coach, or therapist, finding someone to talk to can help you purge any toxic buildup that if left unattended can pave the way for burnout.

Overwork

“Nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.”― Steve Maraboli

Work is a big part of life, and thus has a large impact on our state of mind. Too much work leaves little space for anything else, and not enough work can lead to dissatisfaction and insecurity.

Take some intentional actions to create clear boundaries around where your work ends and the rest of your life begins.

Here are some tips that can help:

Recommit to your personal core values-What do you care the most about?
Adjust work beliefs-What do I need my work to do for me?
Create a life calendar-What things have to be a part of my life, without exception?
Build-in forced stopping points-What boundaries do I need to make sure I don’t miss the things that matter, just so I can work harder?

Low motivation and high irritability

Fatigue can happen for a number of reasons, but if you’re losing daily motivation even in simple tasks, this can be a red flag.

Small things begin to irritate you when you’re running on fumes.

When you’re trying to work through burnout you can lose your sense of perspective, which can lead to you doubling down on creative hacks to get through productivity slumps.

Which in turn makes you more irritable.

In order to combat burnout effectively you first need to acknowledge that it is real.

Recognizing the signs, like some listed here, can help you refocus.

Lack of energy
Avoiding social situations
Work no longer satisfies
Productivity wanes
Lack of concentration

Think back to a time when you felt great motivation and were full of energy. Remind yourself what meaningful things came of those efforts, and determine how to get those pillars back in place.

Therapy or a life coach can be very helpful in this self-analysis and will keep you focused on the goal rather than dwelling on where you are.

Negativity

It can be challenging to remain positive when you’re stretched thin and feeling overloaded in life.

When you catch yourself being a Negative Nancy, it’s time to evaluate the root cause.

Ask yourself how you’re feeling physically. Are you tired, hungry, lacking energy, or worried about your job, kids, finances, or health?

Identifying what’s at the root of your mood and putting an intentional focus on isolating and solving that first, can help quell any negativity and keep it from spilling into other areas of your life.

Make it a practice to occasionally check in with yourself and ask, “what’s really going on right now?” when you’re feeling negative.

The simple act of asking the question can help put some mental guardrails around the issue and keep it contained.

Victim mindset

Of course, that happened. That’s just how my life is.

Nothing works out.

When you find yourself chirping this mantra, day in and day out, you’re likely on the path to burnout.

It can feel like things are happening to you instead of feeling like you’re in control.

The fact is that we have a lot more control over our daily well-being than we give ourselves credit for, and when we neglect our self-care and become perpetual giving trees with no balance, burnout is waiting right around the corner.

Take control of your life by controlling your day. Make time for what matters to you before anyone or anything else can impose demands.

Use a calendar and schedule what you need for your well-being on a daily basis and this will limit the likelihood of being imposed upon.

Boredom

It’s possible to be both bored and on the road to burnout.

You may think that burnout comes from doing too many things and boredom would be a result of doing too little.

But, the reality is that neither state of being is related to how much we’re doing as much as it is to what we’re doing.

If the stimuli don’t change, how can we remain interested? The monotony of tasks becomes increasingly unsettling and we become decreasingly engaged.

As one study cites, a positive response is unlikely to emerge when we are in a state of passivity or low arousal.

Our results indicated that seeking challenges in particular negatively predicted job boredom and positively predicted work engagement. Seeking challenges fueled other job crafting behaviors, which, in their turn, predicted seeking more challenges over time, thus supporting the accumulation of resources.

The bottom line here is that you can impact the degree of burnout by not only recognizing what you’re able to do to relieve the symptoms but also getting creative and engaging in “job crafting”, i.e. increasing structural and social job resources and challenges.

This activity of continually challenging the daily routine and modifying the existing structures can predict less job boredom and more work engagement, which can keep burnout at bay.

No clear purpose

If you feel as though your career or daily existence has no deeper purpose other than earning a paycheck or going through the motions of life, taking some time to rediscover your purpose can help keep stress down and burnout away.

Maybe what you do every day has a greater meaning than what you think.

Think about your day, and ask yourself how you make life better for others. Odds are, you do that in more ways than you think.

Make a list.

If that still doesn’t feel like enough, simply ask how you can add more meaning to each day.

Consider using a tool called the PERMA Model to help identify your motivations in life.

Dr. Martin Seligman selected five components that people pursue because they are intrinsically motivating and they contribute to well-being. These elements are pursued for their own sake and are defined and measured independently of each other.

These five elements are:

Positive emotion
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishments

PERMA is an effective predictor of distress (burnout). This means that proactively working on the components of PERMA not only increases aspects of well-being but also decreases psychological distress.

Intentionally focusing on the five areas that determine your well-being can help clear away all the excesses that could be adding unnecessary stress to your life and get you back to basics.

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Burnout is no fun.

You’ll likely know when you’re heading straight for it too. It’s disruptive to your sense of well-being and can generate a certain uneasiness that can make things feel just a bit off.

You can’t ignore it or plow through it as if it’s not happening, because one way or another, your body and mind will keep the score.

The key is to dial into what you want and your definition of success in life, and prioritize what you need to enrich your life so it is more aligned with your personal core values.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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