Avoiding Job Burnout Without Dousing The Flame

Are you a high performer who dedicates yourself to making the most of every hour? If so, you likely hold your feet to the fire, draw on your energy reserves, and push yourself to ever increasing accomplishments.  

What happens if you push too hard, or too long? Can you draw your energy reserves down? And does that place you at risk for burnout – before you even recognize you’re at risk? If you’d like to continue handling high-stress workloads without dousing your flame, observe these three  guidelines.

Recognizing the signs
If you’re curious about whether you’re a candidate for burnout, consider this list of early burnout signs:

Chronic tirednessNo energy left for personal or family time in the eveningTime spent working without productivityIncreased minor mistakes and accidents;Decreased ability to concentrate in the afternoonIncreased susceptibility to coldsA tendency to be irritated out of proportion to normal incidents

Do any of these fit you?

Knowing when to switch from peak to optimum
Unfortunately, many ignore and attempt to override the signals they’re heading for burnout. If you’ve pushed yourself for years and are suffering from diminishing energy, it may be time to make a change from peak to optimum performance. The difference? – Peak means pushing yourself to do all you can manage. Optimum means finding the sweet spot – where you’re achieving great results without deleting your energy reserves.

Making the switch
If you’d like to find your optimum “sweet spot”, ask yourself these questions: 

“Are my expectations of myself realistic?” “When am I at high performance and when do I push myself too hard?” “Am I receiving signals that I’m edging toward burnout?” “How can I restructure my work life to avoid burnout?”

What makes the above questions crucial? They define your “expectation level” stress.  If the high standards you set for yourself call for you to be constantly “on”, with no letup or recharge time, you may head toward to eventual burnout.

Your turn
What do you think? Have you ignored early burnout signals?  Don’t wait until it’s too late. If you consistently feel “brain dead” at 5:30 now, you may find that you’re maxed out by 2:30 p.m. in four months.

If you’re starting to question whether you’re burning out, examine your work priorities and methods -- what changes can you make to keep productivity high without pushing yourself too hard too often? Chances are you’re aware of what you need to do and yet you’ve put it off.  The time is now, find your optimum sweet spot.

 

 

© 2016, Lynne Curry, executive coach and author of Solutions and Beating the Workplace Bully. Follow her @lynnecurry10 or on workplaceocoachblog.com or on bullywhisperer.com™