It’s important to remember that burnout is a human condition. Other animals aren’t affected by it because they don’t experience the world in the way that we do. Our cognitive processes have a large part to play in burnout as do the unrealistic expectations that many of us carry.
Human beings have a unique ability to take arbitrary things and make them mean something entirely different. This ability to interpret and to reimagine is one of our best assets, just look at the world we have built. But it has a downside; these leaps of imagination can be detrimental to our well-being. What do I mean? Consider the scenario where I’m late for work because my child was ill and I had to find childcare. I can spend the whole journey to work assuming to know all of the poor opinions my boss may now have of me (uncommitted, ill-prepared, disorganised) or I can acknowledge that sometimes life gets in the way of plans and that the reason that I respect my boss is because he is emotionally intelligent enough to get this.
Or, I can be weighed down with work and deadlines and make the decision to plough on and if this is not my norm I’ll probably get away with it for a while. But there will come a time when my norm shifts and I find myself constantly playing catch up. Now I can’t sleep for worrying about work, now I am arguing with my partner about all the late nights I’m working, now I’ve stopped taking breaks even though these were probably the only thing getting me through. Now I’m locked in tunnel vision and unable to see a way through, so I resort to fairy tale world where the prince just has to persevere and hack through the forest long enough to find his soulmate. Meanwhile I find that she’s upped and left with a guy she met at her evening class who has time not only for her but for himself. Is it only me, or have you ever thought that people who can ace time management are pretty awesome?
Let’s face it, sometimes stress can feel good. It can be uplifting to believe that our boss thinks we’re capable of taking on an extra account. It can feel good to hear our colleagues talking about stress as we sail by, with our next promotion firmly in sight. It can mean that we feel invincible and validated. But let’s not forget the law of gravity; what goes up must come down and out of nowhere we might notice our mood is impacted, our sleep is less consistent or we’re not getting through our workload as quickly as we expected. We can find ourselves resentful, why does she always give me the new client or the extra work? We can begin to feel that we’re just not up to it, that younger colleagues are hot on our heels or that we need to work harder than ever before just to stay on track. The sense that things have slipped can start to grow within and privately you might even begin to identify as a failure. Feeling like you’ve dropped the ball and let everyone down. Whereas in reality the ball is a bomb and unless you gently put it down and step away it’s about to go boom!
So burnout and self-esteem can become interlinked and as your self-esteem deflates it can drive the need to prove yourself no matter the current cost. Some questions around this might help nudge you back on course. When did you begin to feel like this? Since when did you equate your ability to cope with your value? Are you being hit on multiple fronts? Is this a work thing? A home thing? Or both? How did you cope in the past with stress? How did you feel at high school and how did you cope with exams?
The thing to understand is that we are all have different capacities to tolerate stress and the way that you handled exam stress might indicate your level of tolerance. However, stress is cumulative and your life aged 16 is likely to be significantly different to your current situation so even if you found exams to be a breeze it doesn’t mean that you are not susceptible to stress. We all are! My advice is learn your stress signature; recognise your triggers and know your stress symptoms. Be prepared too by knowing your preferred stress management responses but remember these must be effective and not temporary fixes.
But stress predates our teens; imagine that at birth, we come into the world with a stress container and this stress container is already populated by our genetic disposition to stress. Without any input from the individual if there is already a propensity to stress in the family it will likely go into our container. Research tells us the family trauma can be inherited in our genetics and so regardless of fairness it isn’t a level playing field right from the get-go. Some of us experience more stress and at a younger age than others.
When we look closely at the stress container we can see three elements:
- What is happening to me now.
- What has happened to me in the past.
- What has been passed on in my genetic code.
It stands to reason then that some of us are more predisposed to burnout than others. That means that some of us are less predisposed but not because we are stronger or better in any way but because we have escaped the burden of family trauma either during our lifetime or before it.
Understanding our own personal reaction to stress, the elements that are already in our container and our set of coping tools is key. Without positive intervention and/or effective ways for the individual to manage their own stress we know that stress is like an iceberg. When you finally see it on the surface it has been building often below cognitive awareness for a long period of time. It’s not like a layer of ice you can scrape off your windscreen but, more like your car has been buried under a ton of snow and you’re buried in a snow drift with no thaw imminent.
The term burnout refers to exhaustion: emotional, physical and mental. This particular variant of exhaustion is caused by excessive and, prolonged stress. Human beings are particularly vulnerable when they feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained and unable to maintain the constant demands put upon them.
There are several myths around burnout, remember I mentioned interpreting arbitrary things in an entirely different way? The most dangerous is that if you are experiencing the symptoms of burnout then you are in some way deficient or weak. When we buy in to this belief, we actually become the instigator of our own misfortune. The inability to understand that we are human beings and not machines can exacerbate problems because even though we know at some level that we are struggling it is our interpretation of what that means that causes more problems.
This can lead to a decision to push on and through. Perhaps, we justify it by saying that we only need to work a few more weeks at this level or perhaps, we urge ourselves on because we have a holiday booked down the line. The problem is that once we have the symptoms, we can’t just push on without sending the stress container into overflow and forcing ourselves into a breakdown situation.
Everybody who owns one charges their mobile phone. Nobody would dream of going on a journey without the means to charge it and so it is with human beings, we need opportunities to recharge. Along the way many of us have forgotten that we are human beings and not human doings and just like our mobile phones if we don’t make opportunities to recharge, our batteries go flat.
Burnout is not failure. In fact, in my opinion failure is not failure but it’s been badly marketed and now has an awful press. Imagine a world where failure was seen as an opportunity for feedback. So instead, of hiding how you’re feeling and trying to push through you took it as a sign to stop and revaluate. Consider the following questions:
- Do I want to perpetuate these feelings?
- Where is the main stress in my life coming from?
- What can I do to reduce my stress?
Mental health and wellbeing are the individual’s responsibility and doing things every day that keep your battery topped up are important, but we also have to consider other areas of our life. What are our immediate relationships like? Am I in a toxic relationship? Toxic job? Toxic mindset? Just like you get your flue checked or your boiler serviced what are you doing for you? When do assess and take stock? What was the last time you did a life audit to see what was working for you? Or you are still sat in the snow drift praying for the thaw?
If you are experiencing burnout:
- Ringfence your breaks.
- Step away from your computer.
- Identify the stressors and know your stress signature.
- Ask yourself what you need and listen!
- Speak up about workload.
- Set boundaries.
- Do not hide behind the belief that this will just go away.
Best regards,
Carol
Carol Hickson is a Therapist, Life Coach, Workplace Trainer, MHFA Instructor and a mental health and resilience Author. She builds mental health and wellbeing strategies for businesses, audits staff wellbeing, creates training programmes, coaches staff and shares best practice to mitigate psychosocial risk in the workplace.
www.theresilientworkforce.co.uk