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Notes from research what to do individual

  • Blue: Truly living in the moment, present, balanced, weightless.
  • Green: Energized, happy, flow state. Helping other people be their best.
  • Yellow: Some stress, but manageable, nothing totally broken, most important things done, didn’t cause anyone serious delay.
  • Orange: Incapable of doing deep work, basic functioning, might be able to get 1 personal thing done. Might be causing someone a delay.
  • Red: Cognitive delays, borderline burnout, definitely not serving the team well.
  • Dark Red: Depressed, need time off.

might wanna mention in the beginning who the audience is

eI think depending on the position, the strategy of dealing with burnout can be quite different. Manager/Developer/Service Worker etc...

"Happiness is reality divided by expectations" Alden Cass.can instead be explained by the

level of “mismatch” between an individual and six strategic areas of the workplace: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values.

Internal causes: Individual

  • Age or experience: the research raises as many questions as it answers and invites more investigation to determine how reliable age and years of experience are as predictors of burnout.
  • Personality: we might conclude that while research of this nature provides us with some insight into the linkage between personality and burnout, it also raises a number of questions as to how universally applicable the findings are.
  • Locus of control: Locus of control has to do with an individual’s beliefs about the future and who or what has the power to control future events. Studies have shown workers are more vulnerable to stress and burnout when their locus of control is external
  • Marital status: On the effects of marriage on burnout, however, research has shown mixed results.these studies often raise as many questions as they answer and call for more investigation.
  • Gender: In other words, men and women have been found to suffer from both mental and physical health problems when forced to endure chronic stress on the job.
  • Work-home interference: “Interference” happens when a work deadline requires an individual to forgo a family gathering (external interference) or when one cannot stop thinking about or being preoccupied by work (internal interference). Individuals with this particular problem cannot participate fully in and enjoy home life, and find recovery from the stresses of the workday much more difficult. In contrast, when matters from one’s home life interfere negatively with one’s work life, researchers refer to this as home–work interference (HWI). HWI affects the ability to think, concentrate and perform tasks in the workplace as required
  • Expectations: the gulf between expectations of what a job will be like and what a job is actually like is generally responsible for the burnout. "Happiness is reality divided by expectations" Alden Cass.
  • “realistic job preview” (RJP) and “expectation lowering procedures” (ELP) in order to “adjust” the expectations of potential and new employees.

Measures that are in our individual control

Yet it is not in our control to address the underlying cause and mitigate the causing problem, it is in our control what boundaries that protect our mental, physical, and emotional health.

These boundaries can be different from person to person, generally speaking I would suggest.

  • Raise the red flag in your organization
  • Set your boundaries, putting a drastic limit on the things that have caused your burnout.

Truth is, if you are facing burnout, stakes are high that you are as well feeling guilty, that you were not good enough to handle the situation. What I can tell you, and what books and research show about this is: you are not alone, it is common that people who face burnout feel this way.

The feeling of guilt could be a mix of two things: the story that you tell to yourself about burnout (ie: "I am not good enough, others could have managed"), and/or how your colleagues and supervisors address the situation (ie: "You are over reacting", "You should have asked for help", "You are not good enough").

In either of both cases: The story you are telling to yourself, and the story that your colleagues, bosses might be telling you, if they go in the direction of: You are responsible and you are not good enough, let me tell you: It is not true.

Yet you might lack of one or other skill, yet could be that another person might be able to handle the workload better than you are, but the fact that an employee is in burnout is an organizational issue. It should have never reached this level, and your organization, and your supervisor are responsible of looking after you, and providing you with a work environment where everyone is productive, whatever that means for each individiual.

Steps to get out

Action tips

Meditation is proven to provide us with enough internal resources to unwind, and respond to life situations in a healthy manner. It is medicine for the mind.

With burnout come negative thoughts about our professionalism, about us not being enough, or just feeling bad. For that, what has worked for me the best is to practice self compassion, here is a set of guided meditations to chose from, that I recommend you.

https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/

Actions for the individual per job domain

https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/managing-burnout-in/9781843347347/xhtml/B9781843347347500086.htm#st0065

  • Workload:
  • self-awareness and self-monitoring are critical in preventing burnout, and when tackling the problem of workload, workers need to know what fires them up about the job and what, on the other hand, drains them of energy. Is it simply a case of too much work? Are deadlines too severe? Is it the type of work?
  • Fix: limit hours
  • Fix: learn to say no (dont take in more work)
    • or say a conditional no,
    • or sleep on it no.
    • alternative solution no
    • secret weapon no (saying no without explaining why)
  • Fix: delegate
  • Fix: manage time wisely
    • prioritize week's work
    • minimize notifications and interruptions
    • schedule down time
    • periodically evaluate commitments
    • take vactions
  • Fix: Break routines
    • for example, incorporating new activities into the work day or carrying out old activities in different ways or at different times is a start. Employees who eat lunch at their desk each day while trying to work not only have no chance to unwind, but they risk the physical problems which result when eating while under stress. As Ashley Koff, RD, a Los Angeles dietitian, notes,
    • do hobby during lunch break
    • work at different times
    • incorporate non brain activities if you are a mind worker

  • Fix: increase resilience

    • eat healthy
    • Get enough sleep
    • Excersice
    • Employ relaxation techniques

  • Control

  • Autonomy:
    • Identifying the type of control which is absent in the environment and then responding accordingly.
    • building a record of exceptional performance on the job and earning the trust of management.
    • Volunteering to take more control is also an option.
    • the way an employee might achieve more autonomy in the workplace is through external validation. Volunteering for professional associations,
  • Supervision
    • Creative control involves keeping the boss up to date on innovation, new ideas or new concepts
    • Critical control involves taking more interest in job performance and working with the supervisor to enhance quality in the workplac
    • supportive control involves paying more attention to the supervisor and communicating more about frustrations and accomplishments in an attempt to model supportive behavior
  • Reward
  • Ask for salary increase or promotion
  • Ask for feedback from supervisor when acknowledgment is the issue
  • Bring accomplishments to the eyes of others
  • Seek validation beyond the workplace
  • Or change jobs
  • Community
  • first step determining who the problems are – co-workers, supervisors and/or clients – and where the solution might lie.
  • building a better community starts with better communication and by reaching out to others in the workplace.
  • build better relationships in the workplace and to create alliances.
  • Fairness and respect
  • first ways to address incidents of disrespect or discrimination is to talk about the incident with the offending party, or when that does not change the behavior, to talk to a supervisor.
  • Values
  • Find a source of meaining inside or outside the job

[b]urning out may literally save our lives by stopping us before we suffer a more serious or fatal illness. It operates like a circuit breaker that keeps the whole system from blowing. On another level, burnout saves our life by showing us how and when our life lost its old meaning and by forcing us to do something about it. We may not save our old life, but we can free ourselves to be more fully alive. (p. 57)