6 Strategies For Burnout And Workplace Stress

In this talk, you'll learn 6 actionable strategies to combat burnout. Discover how to alleviate workplace stress and reduce its impact on your personal and professional life. Gain valuable tools to navigate challenges, foster resilience, and cultivate a healthier, more balanced work experience.

Transcript

Welcome to Six Strategies for Burnout and Workplace Stress.

I'd like to start with the story of Kelly,

Who is a single mom with two kids.

She got involved with the wrong man,

And she had a series of really bad financial decisions that left her with no life savings.

So Kelly is working multiple odd jobs,

One in which she is an admin in customer service,

Often dealing with disgruntled clients,

And she finds this job really taxing and draining.

Between juggling raising her kids,

Managing a household,

And also working her three odd jobs,

She feels completely overwhelmed.

She feels that what she does is never enough,

That she can never make enough,

And she never ever feels well-rested enough.

Kelly also doesn't have a support system.

Perhaps you can resonate with some part of Kelly's story.

It doesn't matter if you're a CEO,

A stay-at-home mom,

A manual laborer.

We all know what it's like to feel overstretched,

Overdone,

Cooked,

Crispy,

Fried,

And being burned out,

Just left with no vital energy.

I know for myself it feels like my spirit has left my body.

There's no more spark.

There's no playfulness and lightness.

Everything starts to feel really heavy and serious and exhausting.

So if you've experienced burnout,

Especially from work,

We're going to talk about some strategies and approach that you can take to recover.

So let's talk about burnout and what that can mean.

So burnout is a state of vital exhaustion,

Mental,

Physical,

Emotional depletion.

And oftentimes that's going into your life force energy reserves.

And you can tell when you're overstressed,

When you've been chronically stressed and tensed,

Because you're probably noticing more wrinkles.

You feel like you're aging faster.

You see the bags under your eyes and that sense of no excitement or passion for life.

So burnout can lead to emotional exhaustion,

Which is over caring,

Overdoing.

If you feel like you have over cared for other people,

That can lead to burnout.

If you feel like you keep working and working and working and trying and trying and trying,

And it's inconsequential,

It's not making a real difference or impact,

That also leads to the feeling of burnout.

And it can also lead to a sense of depersonalization where you feel emotionally distanced from people and life around you.

There is a sense of cynicism,

Your attitude,

Kind of a negative vibe that's there.

And you don't feel compassion or empathy for others.

That feeling is not there.

So these are some signs that can lead to burnout.

And from work,

It comes from,

You might have a demanding job,

Or you're dealing with really difficult,

Awful people.

Maybe there are politics and power struggles or high expectations,

Really long hours,

And you're overworking yourself,

Or you don't have control or autonomy in your work,

Or you're being micromanaged,

Personality conflicts.

So any of these things can lead to greater workplace stress.

And it can lead to a feeling of being alone and feeling helpless.

So if you have ever felt this way,

Which a lot of people have felt this in their life,

Especially over the last several years,

It's important to stop and recognize when we feel like we're done.

So if you have any of these symptoms,

Like the physical symptoms of just feeling a lot of fatigue and you're getting sleep,

But you don't feel well-rested enough,

You're getting hypertension,

You can't sleep well,

It leads to having a lower immune system.

And there's also emotional signs.

Like I said,

The depersonalization and the detachment from other people.

There's also feeling like overreactive when you feel highly triggered by small things,

By things that normally wouldn't bother you.

You're feeling rage now over it.

And again,

Helpless.

And it also leads to anxiety and depression.

So if you're at a workplace that there is constant feelings of attack or threat or even feeling completely bored,

That there's no advancement for you,

No opportunity,

This can lead to burnout.

So anytime you're in an emotional cycle where it doesn't move,

That's when you really have to take stock of what's happening.

So in Kelly's case,

She doesn't have an emotional support system because of the pandemic.

She's separated from friends.

Everybody's kind of in their own bubble,

Doing their own thing,

Trying to survive.

And when we don't have that social and emotional support,

It can feel really hard.

So let's talk about what can be done.

So the first thing is to,

Especially at work,

Write down the things that are stressing you out.

So it might seem a bit mundane to do this because you know what it is,

But to write it down and see what's bothering you,

What's hurting you,

What's making you suffer,

Write those things down.

What are you afraid of at work?

What's eating you up?

What's keeping you up at night?

Write these things down very clearly so that you can actually see where the stress is coming from.

So we have external stress,

Which is the stress that is caused by the things that are outside of us,

Right?

Like the people that we work with or outside events that we can't control,

Like the things that happen at work.

And then there's the inside stressors,

Which is how we respond internally to what's going on.

How are you responding internally?

And so that's an inside job.

So we have to work inside and outside.

So the inside job is,

What are you telling yourself about what's happening?

And how are you talking to yourself?

What are you saying to yourself about it?

And just noticing if there's anything that's degrading or judgmental and having an awareness around the self-talk and the stories that you're telling yourself at work,

And especially about yourself.

Because once we get into a bad situation,

It's easy to go into the negative self-talk and feeling deflated,

Feeling I'm not good enough.

I'm not doing enough.

I'm doing something wrong.

The bad things that are happening are because I'm doing something bad.

So just noticing where there's a loop of negativity.

And once you can see what's triggering your stress,

You can start to work towards the solutions.

So being able to see it clearly is helpful.

The second thing is to reach out for help.

So burnout can force us to make changes to our person.

Because sometimes burnout is coming from the way we are.

Maybe we're a helper,

We're a giver,

We're a doer.

And we just,

That's all we know what to do because that's what we did as a child to function and survive in our family.

So if you're somebody who's not accustomed to saying I don't feel well and being emotionally vulnerable,

Then asking for help,

Then it means that you need to start changing your MO.

You gotta change it up.

And asking for help means,

Well,

Hopefully there is trust and safety that you feel to actually reach out for help.

That when you do reach out for help,

You're gonna be heard and you're going to be listened to,

Taken seriously.

And that could be a manager,

Another coworker.

It could be HR to express what your concerns and your problems are and what you need and what you need to perform better.

So it's really important to be able to express yourself and say something's not right here and I need help.

So I know for a lot of people,

Especially if you're someone who gives and does for others,

That can be hard to do.

The third thing is to learn how to manage your time by managing your energy.

So notice when you keep working through that point of being tired and restless and angsty,

Like if you keep going through that and you keep ignoring your body,

Then that's gonna lead to burnout because the body functions best and it performs optimally.

Science has shown when we take breaks.

So our ability to shift between doing and non-doing from being active to completely passive and resting,

This oscillation between these two states leads to higher performance,

Not just for our body,

But performance in our work and anything that we do.

So learn how to manage your energy and manage your time by identifying what's the most important task for today.

What do I need to focus on?

And consciously integrating breaks,

Making those breaks happen,

Not just waiting until you're exhausted.

Setting boundaries is the fourth thing.

So again,

If you're somebody who's always saying yes,

Learning how to say no,

Learning how to have boundaries around your,

And even having emotional boundaries,

Right?

If you're dealing with a client or a coworker who's like emotionally taxing and pulling you down,

You need to set limits with that person.

If anybody is making you feel bad,

Then you've got to set limits with that individual.

And that can be through language,

It can be through your action.

So usually there's an expression of this is my boundary,

And then the action of detachment,

Of letting that go.

And then the fifth thing you can do is of course,

Be committed to your daily meditation practice.

Practice breathing,

Just taking a breath.

So I'd like to give you a quick hack,

Which is just breathing in,

Holding your breath for at least 10 seconds,

And then after 10 seconds,

Letting it go.

Just holding your breath is a great way to recenter in the moment.

And then lastly,

Actually I'm gonna add a seventh thing after the sixth thing,

But to be physically active.

So exercise helps to complete the stress cycle.

If you've been attacked in the forest by some predator and you've actually outrun the predator,

You've burned off that cortisol,

That releases the stress hormone.

So when you engage in any intense physical activity,

You always feel better afterwards and that helps to reset your system.

And then lastly,

I want to go to that emotional and social connection.

That's something that fills our battery.

When we have people that we can connect to,

Spiritually,

Emotionally,

We go out,

We have fun and we engage and even the affection that we get from other people and we share with them,

That helps to recharge our system.

So these are seven strategies to combat burnout and bring stress into balance.

Even if you're not at burnout,

It's important to always,

I think,

Reflect and contemplate where you are in work.

There's always room for growth,

For expansion,

For improvement.

So just taking time to check in at least once a quarter to see where am I,

Where would I like to be,

How would I like to feel?

I hope you found this helpful.

Thanks for listening.

Reviews

Very helpful - thanks 🙏

I appreciate this talk and it is what I needed. It is very helpful and I will come back to it again. Thank you 🌻 Blessings 🙏

Thank you. So beautiful. So practical.