Work Burnout Can Extinguish Your Shine, Learn To Relight Your Fire

You've just taken on a new project with a brand new skill that you're still working on developing. You really want to prove yourself and challenge yourself, but your manager's expectations are extremely unclear and you're having trouble balancing your tasks, pleasing your supervisors, and still learning new skills.

You go on like this for a couple of weeks and you start to realize that you don't know how much longer you can keep going on like this. You're starting to really feel the stress of your work, and you might not know it, but burnout is happening.

In 2019, the World Health Organization classified workplace burnout as an occupational phenomenon. Unlike fatigue, burnout affects your emotional health and reduces your self-efficacy. Since then, the emphasis on work burnout and spreading awareness of the issue has skyrocketed and for good reason.

It's important to realize that before you get to the point of being burnt out at work, that there are stages to get you there so you can hopefully not get to the point of being completely burnt out. How do you recognize burnout? The first step in combating work burnout is to understand the physical and mental symptoms. Burnout is often a very gradual process that increases over time.

Common signs of burnout

There are three common signs of burnout: physical, emotional, and behavioral.

The physical signs of burnout may include:

• frequent tiredness
• headaches
• body aches

The emotional effects of burnout may affect your emotions by:

• severely reducing feelings of accomplishment, fulfillment, and self-approval
• decrease in motivation, optimism, and positivity

The behavioral changes may include a lack of desire to socialize at work or increased procrastination. It might also include a decrease in punctuality and responsibility.

The 5 stages of work burnout

These stages include the initial excitement also known as the honeymoon phase, the onset of stress, chronic stress, and burnout. And finally, we have the complete feeling of burnout or known as habitual burnout.

The honeymoon phase

While it may seem contradictory, burnout often begins with feeling a lot of excitement and energy while taking on a new job or a new role at work. Although work might be stressful, many people don't experience this stress as a negative during this stage. The excitement that is often felt during this stage overshadows the excess demands of a stressful workload or work environment and makes it easier to perform tasks that would otherwise be taxing or challenging.

Common symptoms experienced during this phase of burnout include:

• job commitment
• creativity
• high levels of productivity
• optimism for the job
• job satisfaction
• high energy

You're told to build a complex new website, but you're just happy to be in the role. You're excited and pumped. Energy and motivation are at an all-time high and you're ready to start working in this stage. You're creative, productive, highly motivated, and all-in-all, you're ready to go.

Onset of stress

Once the initial excitement of your new job wears off, you may be more aware of the stressful nature of your new role. This is especially true in positions that require long hours and heavy workloads. Many people can overlook this for a certain amount of time, but eventually the stress might begin to make itself evident and be a little bit more difficult to ignore.

Common symptoms that are experienced in this stage of burnout are:

• Reduced productivity
• Anxiety
• Dissatisfaction at work
• Irritability
• Trouble focusing
• Poor sleep or trouble sleeping

So you're beginning to build your new website, for example, and you start to encounter some setbacks that you initially were not expecting. Now your project may get delayed and you may have to make some important decisions on how to manage your project, which may cause some stress, anxiety, and reduce productivity.

Chronic stress

In this stage, stress becomes more prominent and is now something that the person experiences on a regular or even daily basis. Symptoms experienced in this stage are often a little bit worse than the second stage, so they can worsen.

Symptoms can include:

• exhaustion
• trouble getting up in the morning
• procrastination
• feelings out of control
• feelings of extreme pressure

So prolonged stress can really come from a variety of different scenarios. If you're working on a project at work for an extended period of time that is stressful, you can experience chronic stress. If you're not seeing eye to eye with a coworker while working on a big project or you're dealing with poor management while still trying to be as productive as possible, it's easy to experience procrastination, not feeling in control or trouble meeting deadlines, and you will probably face chronic stress in this type of environment.

Burnout

This stage is chronic and sometimes can be debilitating and affects every area of your life. When a person is in the fourth stage, they often have a challenging time coping with their stress and have a low tolerance for any additional stress that may count. This can cause physical and mental illness and a decline in satisfaction at work and in other areas of your life.

Common symptoms in this stage of burnout include:

• chronic headaches
• stomach aches
• health issues (high blood pressure, anxiety, allergies, indigestion, and depression)
• escapist mentality

Sometimes we all load our work plates a little too much. Remember that project you volunteered for weeks ago? That project and many other deadlines are really starting to pile up, and you may realize that you may have bit off more than you can chew. This is particularly true when it comes to certain parts of the year, such as the end of the year or the end of work quarters.

Sometimes your plate can build up to the point where you're under pressure to meet a large number of deadlines, which can cause you to feel overwhelmed. You mark one thing off of your to-do list only to write three more items. This is when you've realized that you are burnt out.

Habitual burnout

This stage involves feeling burnt out on a regular basis, almost 24/7, and you'll start to experience significant issues associated with the stress that is caused by burnout. Many people in this stage notice chronic emotional, mental, and or physical issues that are displayed in and out of the work environment.

Symptoms associated with this stage include:

• a sustained decrease in work performance
• loss of enthusiasm
• physical and mental discomfort
• complete loss of energy, no interest in work
• depression and burnout syndrome

Burnout is different for everybody and it may take others longer to burnout. During extremely busy times at work, you may be running on empty for an extended period of time, or for example, you may be working very hard and if your work community isn't providing support or recognizing your hard work, it is easy to feel completely burnt out.

Who you work around and who is supporting you are huge factors in a great workplace environment. If you're feeling unappreciated, and unsupported, it's easy to dread working.

How to overcome work burnout before it starts

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work you have, try to lighten your load. Sometimes people may get the wrong idea about delegating. There's a belief that if you cut up some of your tasks or delegate your tasks to someone else, you are lazy or unproductive. However, this couldn't be more wrong, especially as you grow in your career, many tasks that you've completed at some point may no longer serve you as you grow.

Quality over quantity is something that we hear all the time. If we have that same mindset when it comes to working, it would make sense to put all of our time and energy into a smaller amount of tasks rather than running ourselves dry over a large number of different tasks. If we want to have quality work, we need to dedicate ourselves to a smaller set of tasks so we can really nail those tasks.

Take time to recharge

In order to stop work burnout, you need to take a step back at times and recover. The New York Times outlined how important self-care is and took an interesting take on it. One-off self-care may help in the short term, but a more effective strategy for chronic burnout is to incorporate it into a routine a few times a week.

It's easy to shortchange yourself. Pick something you look forward to doing, whether it's a walk or dip in a pool, and set reminders for yourself. In order to create a long-term plan, incorporating these self-care moments, not just once but into your routine, are vital for recharging.

Ask for help

This is where honest and vulnerable conversations come into play. Many workplaces differ, but most workplace cultures have procedures and resources to help when their employees are struggling. Tapping into these resources can do wonders for the way you're feeling. The New York Times outlined how employers are legally bound to offer some sort of protection against work burnout. So if you're burnt out, you shouldn't be afraid to have a chat with one of your supervisors who can most likely offer support. Help from managers and coworkers is one type of help.

But the second type that we aren't at liberty to provide in the workplace is professional or mental health, health services. Burnout is a real and medically recognized condition. We have a habit of downplaying how we really are feeling and making it seem like we are okay when we aren't, in fact. But when you're burnt out, the effects can be severe and a professional is the best to help you with life changes that need to be made to overcome it.

Recognizing the signs that you are burning out early on can be critical in helping you avoid work burnout altogether. The journey toward Career Success is full of ups and downs. Learning to deal with the challenges like stress at work, rejection, and burnout are all important for long-term success.

Download ourCareer Success Catalogtoday and learn more about how we can help you achieve work-life balance. Our 1:1Career Coachinghelps equip you with the tools and strategies you need to gracefully setwork-life boundaries.