Stop Burnout Before it Stops You!

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Stop Burnout before it Stops You!


You’re on fire, you’re churning out 12-14 hour days, you’re on top of your game. You don’t mind the late nights at work, and the non-negotiable meetings on the weekends.

Your personal life begins to fade into the background and you slowly begin to make excuses as to why you don’t have time to visit with family and friends.

You begin eating in solitude at your desk, you snack more, and your main diet becomes fast food.

You begin to notice that your world seems to be closing in around you. You become more reserved and unsure of yourself. You begin to make mistakes and you feel like you just don’t have the energy, the drive to keep up with others. You have the feeling of being overwhelmed with no end in sight.

The medical community calls this burnout syndrome. Burnout syndrome was actually coined by famed psychoanalyst Dr. Herbert J. Freudenberger in the 1970’s. Burnout syndrome is usually the result of years of excessive work and stress. Medical professionals focus on three major effects associated with burnout; they are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion is considered to be the keystone of burnout.

As consultants many of us face stressful situations daily. Our emotions are sent on a virtual roller coaster of highs and lows. In this world of technology, we are constantly inundated with calls, faxes, meetings and emails. Imagine a series of phone calls, the first call is from a client that needs a job done immediately - the next call is tech support - the next call is from someone that is angry because a project wasn’t completed on time, and then a family member calls.

You have just run an emotional gamut, and your body has responded by releasing acids into your system, raising your heartbeat and breathing. Ah, the wonderful beginnings of stress. Initially, individuals may begin to suffer from sleep deprivation, moodiness and have problems concentrating. Over a period of time, chronic stress contributes to heart problems, hypertension and a weakened immune system.

Who is susceptible to burnout? Everyone! Most likely though it hits the best employees, the ones that are driven, the “yes” people that are impassioned by their job. Many times these individuals suffer from a conflicted understanding of their own identity. When asked who they are, they tend to respond with “I am a Doctor, I am a Lawyer” their job becomes their identity, and when they begin to lose control of the reigns of their job, they also begin to lose their identity. There is also another group that are psychologically driven and feel the need to succeed - failure is not an option. Many of these individuals also fear the future; their fear is almost tangible. They feel that they must work at a frantic pace for numerous hours on end because they must provide for their family. These providers live in constant fear that their jobs may suddenly disappear, that there opportunities may vanish.

Herbert Freudenberger and his colleague Gail North divided Burnout into 12 steps.

1. Compulsion to prove oneselfThis stems from the desire to excel at the workplace. This compulsive desire to achieve must be demonstrated not only to their peers and co-workers but also themselves.

2. Working HarderThese individuals feel they need to work harder and take on more responsibility than their co-workers. By proving that they are able to handle more tasks and responsibility they feel that they are irreplaceable.

3. Neglecting their needsSoon, there is no time for anything except for work. Things that they used to value such as spending time with friends, eating a healthy diet and sleeping all take a back seat to their job. After all, there are monumental task that must be achieved, and they are the only ones that can achieve the goals through personal sacrifice.

4. Displacement of conflictsThings just don’t seem right. Something internally isn’t clicking. To recognize or give these feelings a name could send the individual spiraling into a crisis. Physical symptoms begin to appear at this stage.

5. Revision of valuesValues begin to become misaligned, since they are no longer interacting with friends and family. Their work, their job is the only thing that they have left to evaluate their self worth. Sadly this produces even more discourse and makes social interaction even more challenging.

6. Denial of emerging problemsOther colleagues are perceived as ignorant as lazy. They don’t try hard enough and surely do not want to succeed - they don’t care. These individuals become more cynical and belligerent. Their thought process begins to obsess more on time pressures and the amount of work they have-not how much they have changed.

7. WithdrawalAt the time when they need support from family and friends, they begin to withdraw even more. Feelings of hopelessness and being overwhelmed fill their day, and they may turn to alcohol or drugs to sleep, or to make it through the day. Intervention by loved ones is definitely needed at this stage.

8. Obvious behavior changesFamily, friends and colleagues can no longer ignore the changes. The individual becomes even more withdrawn and feels intimidated by any social interaction. They are beginning to feel like their work is meaningless, and worse yet, that their life is worthless.

9. DepersonalizationAt this stage, the individual begins to live life through tunnel vision, seeing no future and no past, they live entirely in the present. Their daily activities become a series of rote meaningless routines.

10. Inner emptinessAt this point a strange phenomenon occurs, fearing “loss of self”. The individual will begin to do everything to the extreme, trying to have a sense of self, a sense of living again. They usually begin a destructive pattern of overeating, drug or alcoholism, developing dangerous relationships that could destroy them and their families.

11. DepressionAt this stage, life loses meaning. Deep depression kicks in. The individual now exhausted becomes indifferent, apathetic, truly believing that life holds nothing for them.

12. Burnout syndromeTotal burnout, feeling that life has ultimately failed them. Many individuals that reach this stage become suicidal and a few may take their own lives. In the end, this person has reached total mental and physical exhaustion. This person definitely needs intervention and will need medical help as well as counseling.

How can we stop ourselves or our friends or family if we notice them traveling down this slippery slope?

Many of us accept stress as just a way of life. We embrace stress as a part of the day-to-day norm. Some people feel that they have to feel stress or pressure to get things done. If we truly look at stress, stress is simply fear. Fear of “what is going to happen if I don’t get this done”, or “I’m working as hard as I can but is it good enough”. If we redefine stress as fear…we can simply see that it is usually an “unknown” that stresses us.

What if I don’t get this project completed on time? The fear of the unknown could be, how will my boss/contractor respond? What if they don’t like my work? Will I get fired? Will they give me another chance?

We need to identify the stressors in our lives and identify them for what they truly are.

What are some actions we can take in our own lives to reduce stress?

Eat a better diet. Think about the fuel you put into your body everyday. Simply put, we know that we have to put the correct fuel into our car for it to work efficiently. Do we care more about our cars than ourselves? For our bodies to function at an optimal level, we need to give our bodies the correct nourishment.

Exercise! If you do nothing more than walk for 20 minutes a day, take the time to exercise. Can you remember the last time you laughed so hard you cried? You remember how good it felt? I’m smiling even as I type this because my mind raced back to when it happened to me. Did you realize that in order to change your emotional state all you need to do is change your physiology? Change your physical state.

Make sure you get enough sleep. Make sure you get quality sleep. Sleep is the perfect time for your subconscious mind to work on difficult problems. Try to get on a regular sleep schedule.

Equilibrium. You need to find it. Everyone has stress in his or her lives. As I said earlier, identify the stressor for what it truly is, and then ask your-self empowering questions as to how to deal with the stress. If you constantly say to yourself “Why does this always happen to me”, or “Why can’t I seem to get this done?” Guess what, your mind is going to come up with an answer to the questions you asked…. and I don’t think the response is going to be very inspiring. Ask yourself empowering questions and get back worthwhile answers. If you feel like you must get your body engaged to get rid of your stress that is great! Changing your physiology will change your state. Many people have different ways of handling stress, cooking, listening to music, dancing…these are all positive ways to get back to your core being and enjoy being you.

Spending quality time with friends and family can be extremely relaxing. Try to find engaging topics that will foster the relationship.

Climbing the ladder to success is important. But, before accepting a job or a project, remind yourself that your physical well-being and the relationship that you have with yourself and with friends and family are just as important.

Learning how to prioritize and to view things in the proper perspective is important. Avoiding the burnout is learning how to balance work and leisure time. The sooner you learn to balance the two, the happier you will be.

Copyright 2006 Stephen Knight