Lucy loves growing flowers and putting together arrangements. But, Lucy dislikes the management, spreadsheets, and difficult conversations necessary to run her flower shop. Responsibilities have overwhelmed Lacy, and much of her work is no longer fun. Yet, Lucy feels an obsessive need to keep doing it. She comes in on her days off, micromanages talented employees, and endlessly thinks about the shop. Lucy’s relationship with work impacts her sleep, friendships, love life, and anxiety level. Lucy has job burnout.
Job burnout is when a person has a high level of stress linked to work that leads to physical or emotional exhaustion. Red flags for job burnout include feeling consistently dissatisfied with work, losing patience with others (colleagues/customers), struggling to focus on work-related tasks, doubting your abilities, feeling consumed by work, and intrusive thoughts about work.
Job burnout can be caused by a lack of clarity about responsibilities, inadequate work support, too much work to accomplish reasonably, difficulties setting boundaries around work-life balance, and conflict with others at work.
People with job burnout are more likely to be depressed, feel unable to cope, have headaches and problems sleeping, and struggle in their personal lives. Here are some tips for managing job burnout:
Assess Your Options: Can you shift hours or responsibilities? Is looking for a new job advisable? Are you micromanaging things others can handle?
Ask For Help: Ask your supervisor or HR for help navigating the parts of your job that are particularly draining. Tell your loved ones about the work stress and ask for emotional support.
Mindfully Transition: Create rituals for the workday’s beginning and end. Try setting goals in the morning, listing accomplishments at night, or including walking or music into your commute.
Put the Phone Down: Avoid unnecessarily checking work communication (emails, calls, etc) outside of work hours.
Set Boundaries: Many people experience burnout because they habitually say yes to work-related tasks outside their job. Mindfully select your elective responsibilities.
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