Life burnout can be distressing and cost you time, money, and even important relationships. Life burnout can be the result of job stress or stress at home, and is one of the chief causes of workplace anger. Burnout psychology is a hot area of study in recent years as professionals try to determine why some people seem able to remain busy and yet not experience true life burnout; while others suffer burnout more easily. How do busy people avoid burnout? Read on for five tips to avoid burnout from some of the busiest people around.
- Be sure to take regular time off. It may not seem like really busy people are ever taking time off, but they do. The key is turning all their focus on work when they are at work, and turning all their focus to vacation when it’s time to relax. In other words, they are following the old adage to work hard, play hard. Busy people who avoid burnout make their vacation time sacrosanct. No email, no texting, no work talk, and all phone call go to the messaging service.
- Learn to sense your own breaking point. One strategy that busy people can learn is to become in tune with their own emotional state. When you learn the signs that you’re reaching your personal breaking point, it’s time to shut everything off for at least a few hours, and ideally for a weekend. Go for a long hike, take a night out with friends, or just take a sick day from work. The same rules apply as with vacation, though: no work stuff.
- Learn how to organize at work. This strategy will not only help you avoid burnout: it’s also something that effective managers know how to do, and practicing it might just give you a boost up in your career. What you need to learn is how to delegate. Every job has aspects you’ll hate and others that you’ll love. Fortunately, people are different. What one person despises, another person might genuinely enjoy. Find the people around you who love the jobs that you can’t stand and delegate to them. Take from them work they dislike but that fills you with joy, or at least satisfaction. Burnout doesn’t exist where there’s joy in your work.
- Find your passion and fuel it. You might be lucky enough to find your true passion in your job, but that’s not always the case. Find something, whether it be a hobby or a volunteer opportunity, dance classes, martial arts training, or a religious activity, that you can pour yourself into. If your passions are being fulfilled and enhanced, you’ll be much more likely to avoid burnout.
- Don’t ever neglect exercise, no matter how busy you get. It’s easy to think that we’re so busy there’s really no time to exercise. But a good workout clears the brain and recharges your sense of enthusiasm. If you work out hard, your brain doesn’t have time or energy to worry about the day’s stress. All it can do is focus on the task at hand. When you go back to work, you’ll feel recharged and rejuvenated.
Even if you’re already experiencing signs of job burnout or life burnout, it’s possible to turn things around by following some of these steps. They’ll not only help you from going further down the road of life burnout, but also help you backtrack to a healthier emotional state.
