Believe it or not, we all face burnouts more than once in our lives.
In simple terms, burnout is a constant state of emotional, mental, and physical weariness caused when the body is under chronic stress. It is kind of a warning sign that you must stop taking too much pressure or handling too much work before things get out of hand.
However, burnouts do not happen instantaneously. There are 3 more stages that lead up to a burnout if you ignore the signs your body is putting out. The first stage is the Honeymoon stage, where you are all jazzed up for the new role, project, work, or anything. You will feel zealous to give it your all, inspire others, motivate yourself, and get desirable results. However, when the work starts to pile up, it starts to go downhill into stage 2. The Onset of Stress is the stage where your work starts taking most of your time, making you stressed. It leaves less time and energy to do other things, like attend a family dinner, which causes even more stress. Eventually, it leads up to Chronic Stress where your frustration is at an all time high, making you overly stressed and causing a decline in your performance.
If you ignore all the signs, you reach the Burnout stage. Here are the signs to keep track of to let you know you have reached this stage.
● Feeling Exhausted
Feeling tired, fatigued, and emotionally and physically drained is the first sign of a burnout. You will not only get exhausted by the very sight of work but also by old or new expectations. Most likely, you will not feel any energy to fulfill your responsibilities.
● Doubting Yourself
Once the burnout hits, the self doubt starts settling in. It is pretty common and you will start doubting your ability to handle responsibilities or even perform regular work. Ultimately, your performance will start to decline, causing more stress and reducing morale.
● Procrastinating Often
In order to deal with the ongoing burnout symptoms, most people often start procrastinating. These may include scrolling through social media on the phone, watching YouTube videos for hours, or browsing endlessly to no avail, etc.
● Getting Sick
Constant burnout can also cause physical stress and pain, leading to illness or sickness. You might start to feel muscle fatigue, pains, or nausea. Most of the time, these will be unexplained and often come and go.
● Performing Poorly
The most transparent sign of a burnout is the decrease in performance and reduced work impact. You will most likely wake up feeling fatigued, go to work feeling exhausted, and give out poor performance, even when the work includes your routine responsibilities.
How To Regain Balance?
Giving in to your burnout feelings and ignoring the signs can lead to the fifth stage called Habitual Burnout. During this, you may feel constantly overwhelmed, experiencing different kinds of mental and physical fatigue.
At this point, you may think you will have to deal with this forever, but that is not the case. burnout often starts with minor stress, and if you deal with it at that stage, it will be the end of the story right there and then.
Still, no matter the stage of burnout you are feeling, here are some tried and tested coping mechanisms that will pull you out of this quicksand.
● Taking A Break
When things are starting to feel hectic or too stressful, try detaching yourself from work or technology for a while. This could be to have lunch, coffee, just sitting in an open location, or a simple walk. During this time, avoid anything that even remotely resembles your work and just try to refresh your mind.
● Connecting With People
Ok hear us out. We know that we told you to avoid any work-related things in the previous point, but chatting with an office buddy or calling home doesn’t need to involve work talks. You can talk about your life goals, random life things, latest news, what you had for dinner or lunch, or anything that is not stressful or related to work.
● Accepting Things Not In Your Control
Got a tight deadline from a client? Not getting enough engagement? Revenue growth is not up to the mark? There are the kinds of things you cannot control, so why stress over them? However, you can work harder and smarter to turn the results in your favor. Once you start looking at the bright side of things, you will start to perform better and be more in control.
● Focusing On Tasks At Hand
Oftentimes when people get a project or work, they start thinking about the deadlines or results. This can lead to stress and may even cause you to perform poorly. So, instead of thinking about the end goal or distant situations, focus on the task at hand. It means starting work without thinking about anything else and putting your best efforts into generating viable results.
● Using Work-Life Balance Apps
Work-life balance apps help organize life, manage priorities, socialize with friends, find fun activities, and allow you to take out time for family and yourself. Moreover, you will be able to sleep at a reasonable hour, wake up early, include exercise in your routine, and adopt healthy habits to achieve the most craved work-life balance.
Final Takeaway
Burnout often occurs due to constant stress and its ignorance. Eventually, this stress turns into chronic stress, which leads to fatigue, cynicism, poor performance, and unacceptable results.
Thankfully, there are five stages of burnout, which means you can catch it even before it becomes a problem. We have discussed both things in detail in this blog, that is the signs of burnout and methods to recover. The best way is to use a work-life balance app, like BalanceMe. It will help you keep your life in order.
Finally, if stress starts building up, take a step back and relax, before jumping into action once again. Be wary, be cautious, and you will be just fine.
