How to Avoid Burnout// Are you feeling burned out? Are you constantly overwhelmed? Is your mental and physical health starting to suffer? In this video you will learn how to recognise the signs of burnout, combat against them and improve your health by living a balanced lifestyle. You will also find out how you can still increase your happiness and get your productivity and fulfilment on track without sacrificing your personal life. Enjoy simple tactics to design your life and how many successful people have stopped feeling overwhelmed by life and achieved balance.
KEY POINTS
Focus on What You Can Control – Don’t stress and feel anxious about what is outside of your control. Focus on what you can do.
Disconnect – Take a break. Remove yourself physically and electronically from your work. Don’t spend all of your time in your office.
Prioritize Your Sleep – Make sure you’re getting at least eight hours of sleep. Turn off electronics one hours before bedtime, as this will increase your melatonin and help you sleep better.
Exercise– Spike your energy at the beginning of the day with some exercise. This will also spike your mood. Exercise is proven to create a 12-hour mood boost, equivalent to taking antidepressants.
Nutrition – Eat well. Choose the foods you know will be healthy for your mind and body. This will help you feel healthier and stronger.
Clear Your Mind – Could you benefit from re-engaging in a spiritual practice that you have, or a religious practice, or simply meditation to calm the mind and give you clarity.
Ask for Help – Let people know you are feeling down and express that need for help.
Steer Clear of Bad Habits– Alcohol, medications, drugs can make burnout worse. Steer clear of anything that can add fuel to the fire.
Be Social – Put yourself in social situations. We are social beings; we are meant to celebrate and enjoy life with other people.
Make Time for Yourself Everyday – What is the number one thing you enjoy? Make time for it, schedule it into your day.
TRANSCRIPT
Your health is your wealth. Without your health, you are nothing and you can’t expect to find the success, the fulfillment, and the happiness that you desire with poor health. The good news, however, is that many aspects of your health are influenced by your everyday life and work burnout is one of these things which if not dealt with can have serious consequences for both your physical and mental health. So today I’m going to teach you how to identify burnout, how to use strategies to fight against it and how to restore balance to your life.
Hi, my name is Eric Partaker, and I’ve been recognized as a CEO of the year. And I’m also the author of two bestselling books, including The 3 Alarms. Now, I feel super well-placed to talk about overworking and burnout because I nearly died from a heart attack about 10 years ago. Now you may have never faced a situation like that, but I also know that you probably have at times thought that you’re working too much and you need to work less or that you’re on the verge of burning out. And I invite you to pay attention today because we’re going to go through some burnout symptoms and what you can do to correct that so that you’re feeling a lot more balanced and in control of your life.
So what are the symptoms of burnout? Maybe you’re feeling that your mood’s down suddenly, or you’re always tired or you sleep for long periods of time, but never feel like you’re completely restored or you just don’t feel like you’re compelled to show up as you normally would for your work. And maybe you’re getting a bit of a distaste for absolutely everything, even the people and the things and the hobbies and the activities that mean a lot to you, but nothing seems to really matter anymore. You’re just like, ugh, fed up with it all. Those are all great signs that maybe burnout is actually happening or that it’s very close and it’s on the horizon.
So, how do we overcome burnout? Well, I’m going to give you some strategies right now. Number one, you need to focus on what you can control. Sometimes when we feel burnt out, we’re actually feeling anxiety and pressure and disappointment and frustration about things outside of our control. So what is it that you can really control within the situation and are you doing your best within those things? Focus on what is within your control. Don’t stress yourself and feel anxious or frustrated about the things that are outside of your control. Usually when we’re feeling burnt out, we don’t realize that actually a lot of the things that are contributing to the burnout are actually things that are within our control, that we can change, that we can do differently, that we can do in a way that’s more positive and beneficial for us. So focus on what those things are and ask yourself, are these things in my control or not? And be honest, be truthful and then change the things that you can.
Number two thing that you need to do to address burnout is disconnect. You need to pull the plug. You need to remove yourself physically and electronically from your work. What does that actually mean? Well, if you are sat in your office all day long, you’re going to feel super burnt out. You need to exit that environment. Get out of that office situation. Don’t spend all of your time there. Similarly, when you leave that office physically, you also need to leave electronically. It makes no use to leave the office and then still have all of these notifications coming up on your phone reminding you of all the work things that you should be thinking about or doing the next day. Turn off the notifications, turn off the phone if you can. Disconnect from your work both physically and electronically.
Number three, you need to prioritize your health. And I’m going to give you four things that you need to focus on to do that. Number one is your sleep. We need to make sure that we’re getting eight hours of sleep. If you’re feeling burnt out, you probably need even more sleep. You might need eight, nine, 10 hours of sleep. So are you getting enough sleep, and to help you sleep better, make sure once again, those electronics are off, especially in the hour before your bedtime because that will increase the melatonin production in your brain and melatonin is the hormone within our brain that induces sleep. If you don’t have enough melatonin, you won’t be able to sleep as well as you can. So you’ve got to get your sleep in order. Number two, you also need to get your exercise in order. Our bodies are meant to move. If we’re sat there stationary the whole day, working all the time, it actually affects our mood. We will feel less and less happy.
If you can spike your energy at the start of the day with a little bit exercise, just 20 minutes, even if it’s just walking at a brisk pace, but spike your energy at the start of the day with some exercise. And if you do that, you’ll not only spike your energy, you’ll spike your mood because exercising is proven to create a 12 hour mood boost equivalent in strength to taking an antidepressant. Number three, within health our nutrition, we need to make sure that we’re eating well. So if feeling burnt out and if you’re eating popcorn, pizza, ice cream and drinking a lot of beer, guess what that’s going to do. It’s going to make you feel worse. So are you eating as well as you could, because we are what we eat. So if you choose the things that you know will be healthy for your mind and body, guess what? It’s also going to help you feel healthier and stronger with regards to those burnout symptoms and feelings.
Last but not least on the health department to help you with combating burnout, you need to ask yourself, is my mind as clear as it could be? Could your mind benefit from maybe re-engaging in a spiritual practice that you have or a religious practice if you’re religious, or just simply a meditation practice to calm that mind and give you the mental clarity that you think, push away all those clouds that are in your mind mentally so that you feel stronger, so that you feel more capable, more confident and more sure of yourself and not so anxious, frustrated and disappointed as you tend to feel when you’re burnt out.
The next thing that you can do with regards to burnout is ask for help and support. This could be from a coach or a friend or a family member, but ask for help. Let people know that you’re feeling down. Let people know that you’re feeling anxious. Let people know that you’re feeling burnt out. It’s important to express that as a need, as a request for help for others. Make that need known, make that request known so that others know that you need support, that you need help. If you don’t make that known, you can’t count on people being able to guess and be able to understand how you’re feeling and what’s going on inside. You need to make it public. Maybe you don’t want to make it public with everyone, but at least make it public with someone, a friend or a family member, but ask for the help and the support that you need.
Next on the list is make sure that you’re steering clear of things that we use as a crutch when we’re feeling burnt out. So for example, alcohol, medications, drugs, any of that. If suddenly that’s in your life or to a higher degree than is normally happening, that’s probably a good sign that you’re experiencing symptoms of burnout because you’re using those things as a crutch. But here’s the devastating thing that those things can do for your burnout situation. They can actually make it worse. It’s sort of like you’re actually putting gasoline on the fire. If you’re burnt out, you’re in flames, think of it that way. And if you’re adding alcohol into the mix or prescription medications that you’re taking too much of, that you really shouldn’t be taking, you’re basically putting gasoline on that fire. You’re going to make the burnout symptoms worse. So if that’s going on, that’s another reason that relates back to the previous point of why you should be asking for help, reach out, tell people that you’re in need of some support.
Next up, be social. If you’re feeling burnt out, even if you don’t feel like you have the energy or you want to, put yourself in social situations. Put yourself in the presence of others, friends, family members. Put yourself out there because when we’re social, when we have to interact with others, it creates a strong response within us. We are social beings. We are meant to be hanging out and having good times and celebrating and enjoying life with other people. And if you’re not doing that, and if you’re feeling burnt out, it’s a perfect time for you to get even more social, for you to schedule even more time with family and friends. And once again, you might not feel like doing this, but trust me, if you just push yourself and if you book the outings, if you book the meetings, if you actually schedule in that time with others, you will feel better over time as a result.
Last but not least if you’re feeling burnt out and you want to combat those feelings, simply do something that you love and make time for yourself every day. What is the number one thing that you most enjoy? Is it reading a book? Is it spending time in a spa? Is it going out for a run? Is it spending some time chatting with a good friend? Is it time exercising? Is it time painting, listening to music, whatever it may be, but are you doing enough of the things that you love the most? And if you aren’t, let’s turn the dial up on those things because the more that we do the things that we love and that inspire us and hit us in our heart and our soul, the more it combats those feelings of burnout.
So do all of these things, or maybe just do one or two of them, but if you’re feeling those symptoms of burnout, take it seriously. But these are just some of the tactics and the tips that you can employ to create more balance in your life to help you overcome that burnout and to feel like you’re doing your best, not just in the work front, but also on the health, the home front, not just professionally, but also for you personally, because life is so much more than just working day in and day out.
And I’d love to hear from you. So don’t forget to leave a comment and a rating as well. And if you’d like to get a copy of my new book, The 3 Alarms, please head over to my website at ericpartaker.com. That’s E-R-I-C, ericpartaker.com where you can pick up a free digital copy of my new bestselling book, The 3 Alarms.
