BURNOUT

“You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm”

I have mentored and consulted with a few different professionals lately that are just burnt out.  They are holding themselves and sometimes their colleagues to a standard that is simply unreasonable and honestly unattainable from my perspective.  What I can see (but they cannot) is that this unattainable standard is feeding an inevitable burnout.

 I am not ashamed to share that I have a great therapist.  I started seeing her at a time when nearly everything I had believed to be true in my life was not true anymore.  One of the many things she has helped me with is understanding that I have a tendency to hold myself accountable to a standard that I would never hold anyone else accountable to in my wildest dreams.  She has asked me many times, if your son was in this position, if he had these feelings, worked like you work and sat down with you and asked for your opinion, your advice…  what would you say to him.  How would you judge him?   The truth is I would treat him with compassion, with understanding, with patience; and yet, I would rarely provide the same understanding and compassion for myself.    

The definition of burnout was published by Herbert Freundenberger in 1975, “burnout” he defines as requiring three different components:

1 – emotional exhaustion – the fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long.

2 – depersonalization – the depletion of empathy, caring and compassion; and

3 – decreased sense of accomplishment – and unconquerable sense of futility; feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.

The signs of burnout when experienced individually are typical of a frustrating day or two at the office, it is when they are experienced all at the same time and many days in a row when the real burnout begins to set in.  Burnout can also be expressed and experienced in different ways.  The typical ways I have seen are as follows:

• The Victim – Becoming so frustrated and tired with work and life that you have convinced yourself that you take no responsibility in your circumstance and everyone else is to blame.  Your circumstances and feelings are the result of everyone else working against you and you are blameless in it all.
• The Standard Enforcer – In a world that feels like it is spinning out of control, you attempt to take control by enforcing your standards on others and expect them to perform at a level that is equal to or better than yours.  Then you get even more frustrated when your standards are not met.
• The Emotional Cyclone – Every little thing that goes wrong in your day leads to an emotional and irrational reaction.  What would normally be a bump in the road feels like a sink hole that you are being sucked into.  The tears flow, the anger erupts for no good reason and your colleagues and family suffer as a result.

Much like the signs of burnout, individuals can express and experience burnout in one or many ways as described above…  the most severe being the victimless standard enforcer that is an emotional cyclone.  No one wants to work or live with THAT person.

So how do you get through it?  If you are on the receiving end of the burnout, it can be the most frustrating position to be in.  The person going through the burnout has to be ready to receive your feedback and people that are burned out are often NOT IN A RECEIVING FEEDBACK KIND OF MOOD!  If you are the one experiencing burnout, Emily and Amelia Nagoski would say that you have to “complete the cycle”.  Emily and Amelia are the authors of Burnout; The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. 

Given how prevalent burnout is becoming, I will dig more into this book and suggestions around getting through burnout (both the receiving and the experiencing) in a future blog.  For now, look at yourself in the mirror….  are you experiencing signs of burnout?  Are you on the receiving end of burnout?  Call it what it is, give yourself some grace, give others some grace.  Preventing burnout begins with taking care of yourself and recognizing that the impending feeling of burnout is a sign that something needs to change…. and that change must start with you.