How to Avoid Exhaustion and Burnout
Aug 13, 2019
{Written by Jason}
"In a culture fueled by burnout, a culture that has run itself down, our national resilience becomes compromised. And when our collective immune system is weakened, we become more susceptible to viruses that are part of every culture because they're part of human nature - fear-mongering, scapegoating, conspiracy theories, and demagoguery." - Ariana Huffington
I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but there seems to be an inordinate, indomitable amount of pressure to hustle, grind, work hard and "crush it" in our current society. The mantra of "outwork, outperform, outdo" everyone is celebrated as the true north and the apex of our personal and professional endeavors. With seemingly every business and entrepreneurial guru on the Internet literally screaming about the importance of working your ass off to be a success, how the hell can we avoid these messages? (Well, unfollowing their accounts is one way to accomplish this, but we'll leave that topic for another post...)
Having experienced complete burnout, exhaustion, and stress-induced clinical depression, I can personally relate to how easy it is to get sucked into this mantra of "hard work is God" and treat it as the gospel truth. When you see someone super successful, it's natural to want to emulate their routine, work ethic, mindset, and business practices. But what if, in doing so, you grind yourself into the ground? What if your sleep starts to suffer? Or your relationships start to erode? Or your health starts to deteriorate? Or, worse, you end up in the hospital? When, exactly, does this hard work mantra start to become toxic, deleterious, and perhaps even dangerous for your long-term health and happiness?
I think there's a way to dance with this. I think there's a way to work hard and keep your life in balance. And it starts by practicing and prioritizing your self-care and personal needs. Self-care is about not only knowing WHAT to do but WHEN to do it. Part of your practice to avoid exhaustion and burnout is to be able to stop yourself and create a pattern interrupt before you spiral downward. It's being present enough to listen to your body's signals to realize that you are actually heading towards burnout. It's taking action before exhaustion gets a grip on you. And realizing that you DO have the time to take the best care of yourself and tend to the demands of other people in your life.
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
How can you avoid exhaustion and burnout by maintaining balance in your life? Here are some suggestions to help you manage your self-care better - especially if you're "busy" all the time. I mean, who the hell isn't these days? Spoiler alert: you can't use being busy as an excuse for anything anymore. It's boring, trite and you get no sympathy. Rant over. Let's continue with the tips:
1. Practice being present to your body's signals for support
When you get into a seriously focused workflow, it's all too easy to forget to eat, forget to sleep, hell, even forget to bathe! But it's so important, even in the midst of a very demanding schedule, to listen to what your body is telling you. If your stomach is growling, take a 30-minute lunch. If you're dehydrated, drink some water. If you need to rest, take a 20-minute nap. If you smell bad, for God's sake, just take a quick shower. Seriously though, stop ignoring your body and start honoring its requests for attention. If you don't... that's when the potential for illness, disease, and sickness begin. Give your body what it needs to thrive and stop ignoring it.
2. Prioritize self-care practices by creating calendar events and/or reminders
Ahhh, "but what if I forget to take care of myself?" you ask. An easy solution is to make your self-care practices non-negotiable by creating calendar events and/or reminders on your smartphone and computer. Brendon Burchard likes to say, "If it's not in your calendar, it's not real!" Which is to say, it's not a priority if you're not scheduling it. So, if it helps you remember to meditate in the morning, add it to your calendar each day so you make build that healthy new habit and incorporate it into your daily routine. Make it the same kind of automatic, non-negotiable part of your daily routine as brushing your teeth or making your morning coffee.
3. Use a Pomodoro timer to work in time blocks with built-in rest
Time blocking is an epic game-changer. You can download a free Pomodoro timer from the app store to your smartphone or computer, which allows you to set up time blocks during work hours. Here's how they work: you set three rounds of time blocks for work and rest. For example, I set mine for 25 minutes of work and then 5 minutes of rest. After three rounds of that, it automatically prompts me to take a 15-minute break. After the 15-minute break, the timer resets for another three rounds of 25 work minutes/5 rest minutes. What this allows you to do is complete tasks in a specific amount of time, along with prompts to help you rest. While 5 minutes may not seem like that much time, it allows you to get up from your computer, stretch, move your body, drink some water, have a snack, and give your eyes a much-needed rest from the screen. After using this timer, your whole relationship to productivity and rest will begin to quickly shift towards more balance and efficiency.
4. Trust that filling your cup first will allow you to be more effective
This is a big challenge for most people. It's still a big one for me, that's for sure! It's the perpetual illusion that if we take time for ourselves and our needs - nothing will get done. This culturally-indoctrinated illusion will rob you of having a balanced, nourished life. It's important to acknowledge that if you take time to make a healthy meal, do some yoga, meditate in the morning, or do some journaling, that the world around you will NOT crumble to the ground. There's this misperception that if you're not completely focused on your career, your family, your kids, and your side hustle that everything will crumble the moment you take a break for yourself. It's simply not true. Conversely, when you fill your cup first, you have so much more energy, stamina, and focus available to give to others in your life. It may feel completely unnatural at first to do this, but start to practice making yourself a priority. It seems antithetical, but you'll have more available to give to others if you give to yourself first.
5. Ask for help from others and learn how to delegate responsibilities
Control freaks in the house... raise your hands! I just raised my own hands, by the way. Boy, oh boy, one of the biggest causes of burnout is the idea that you have to do everything yourself. That "if you want something done right, you'd better do it yourself!" This old-school bullshit mentality has caused more adrenal fatigue and exhaustion than damn near any adage. If anything, by paying attention to the people that have really succeeded in scaling a global business or creating a huge brand, or having a loving family, there's one thing you'll notice: they learned to trust others and delegate responsibility to qualified people. By surrounding yourself with trustworthy, competent people who have different skillsets than you, you can begin to give them the responsibilities that you don't have the bandwidth for. Or, perhaps, you just don't want to do. And if you're an entrepreneur with a tight budget, explore hiring an intern from a local university, or find contract workers or a virtual assistant online. Just stop believing that you have to do everything yourself. It's the path to frustration, total burnout, and giving up on your dreams.
6. Take time away in nature to recharge and rest
Richard Louv once said, "Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day." Truly, there's nothing like a few hours at the beach, hiking in the forest, or taking a weekend away at a cabin to recharge your batteries and give you a respite from the daily rigors of modern life. The power of nature to reinvigorate us on a physical and spiritual level cannot be understated here. Now I often get the response, "I don't have time for a vacation!" - which means you REALLY need to get away. But that's not what I'm asking you to do here. What I'm asking you to do is to prioritize your sanity and mental well-being enough to take a few hours away in nature. Or perhaps a long weekend from Friday night to Sunday night to get out of the city. It doesn't matter how long it is; what matters is that you make spending time in nature a priority. The healing powers of water, trees, fresh air, and sunshine... they are very, very real. They are especially potent if you're a city dweller living in the concrete jungle. Even a few hours or a few days in the bosom of nature can be a hard reset that will help you come back to work and life supercharged and full of vigor again.
“Sometimes, you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself who you are and where you want to be.” – Gossip Girl
Want to take a deeper dive into your personal wellness practice on a mental, physical and soul level? Check out the 10-week Wellness Warrior Training course. It's full of juicy tips like the ones in this post.
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