Are you worn out? Pessimistic? Feeling stuck? Have you lost interest in the things you used to enjoy? Before you make any life-altering decisions like quitting your job or leaving your partner, consider that you may be dealing with burnout.
Burnout happens when you’re in an uneasy or mismatched situation, and it can spell trouble for both your professional life and your personal life.
The danger in not recognizing burnout is that bouncing back from it isn’t easy. But, being aware of your potential for burnout can help prevent it — you can make changes before a crisis.
There are six primary areas of your life that have the potential to trigger burnout when they’re out of balance: control, fairness, values, community, reward, and workload.
While these areas aren’t restricted to the work environment, we’ll look at them here in that context.
|
Source |
Positive |
Negative |
|
Control |
You have:
|
You lack:
|
|
Fairness |
You have:
|
You have: discrimination or favoritism |
|
Values |
You feel:
|
You have:
|
|
Community |
Your environment fosters:
|
Your environment fosters:
|
|
Reward |
You have:
|
You lack:
|
|
Workload |
You have:
|
You have:
|
Barbara Fredrickson has written about the “positivity ratio,” the tipping point for whether you flourish in life or you fail — which is 3 positive things to 1 negative thing.
Your job might be extremely stressful, but you can still feel satisfaction in it if you have significant positives, like you’re paid fairly, have great relationships, and feel like you have input in decisions that affect your job.
It’s when your negatives outweigh your positives that you have a huge potential for burnout.
A Vera coach can help you identify your sources of burnout and work with you to formulate a plan to beat it.
Together, you can determine whether these are organizational issues or something that’s more personal. If it is something more personal, you have more control over how you are able to change it. If it is something organizational, like being understaffed, a coach can work with you on strategies to deal with it. And sometimes it is a combination of both.
Often, just by speaking up for yourself you can avoid burnout.
If you’re struggling with burnout or think you might be headed there, make a call and set up a time with a coach. We can help you find the positive and walk with you to determine what to do with the negative. We’re here to help!