5 Ways to Combat Burnout

>You can increase your creativity and inspiration by
Job burnout happens when the stress orsetting up supportive environments that
prolonged frustration of a job or careerconstantly trigger inspiration. If your morning drive
contributes to emotional and physical exhaustion.to the office finds you discouraged by listening to
The ability to cope with general life stressors isnegative morning news, consider creating a new
strained. This combination results in a lack ofenvironment by listening to your favorite music or
motivation, fatigue, irritability, and sometimesto inspirational talks.
depression. Job burnout presents a significant3.Eliminate drains
challenge for everyone supporting the burned outA drain is anything that wastes your time, drains
individual.your energy, and has some negativity around it. It
The challenge of burnout can be especially taxingcould be circumstances, habits, things or people.
for creative, goal-oriented people. When theseDrains have an opportunity cost. When you focus
people blame themselves for their situation, theon a drain, you don’t have time to create,
feeling of exhaustion only gets worse. They feelrespond to opportunities (or even notice them),
helpless. Their efforts get them nowhere. Theor do what you really want. You miss out on
cycle of working harder, seeing little or no resultsother opportunities which might be more fun,
and getting increasingly stressed out is extremelylucrative, creative or significant.
disparaging.4. Uncover your job values
As a career coach specializing in helping peopleYour values are the behavior and activities to
through this exhausting cycle, I’ve foundwhich you are naturally drawn. When engaged in
tools that combat burnout. If you suffer fromthese activities, you feel most like yourself:
burnout, applying these tools will help you increaseconnected, excited, glowing. Your life has a feeling
your energy and take your life back from yourof effortlessness. Most of us lead lives which do
draining job.not grant us the chance to feel this way. If you
1. Create an emergency escape routetake the time to identify your values, you will be
An emergency escape route takes some of themore aware of why there are conflicts between
paralyzing stress off you. You facilitate theyou and your job and be more able to identify
planning for your next step. Some first steps inthe needs you have sacrificed.
creating your escape route can be finding ways5. Define success for yourself
to create a money reserve and in preparing aUntil you take the time to define success for
current resume.yourself, it will be defined by others (your boss,
2. Design support environmentsyour parents, your partner), your culture, the
Environments are the circumstances, objects, orpast, or advertising. One way to define success
conditions surrounding you. An environment canfor yourself is to complete the sentence, “I
be your eNetwork (email, web, electronicknow I am being successful by . . .
community) or your vocabulary.