One in five UK workers are off sick because of burnout, and the early signs often go unnoticed.
Stress isn’t just caused by global headlines; it shows up in our everyday lives too. From queuing on the bypass to juggling work and family commitments, money worries, or simply feeling isolated, it’s easy to slip into a cycle of stress that builds into burnout.
Whilst many of us are busy and feeling stressed and overwhelmed on a weekly basis, we need to notice the persistent behaviours related to long-term stress in order to prevent burnout.
Using the 3 R’s of ‘recognise, reverse and resilience’, here are my top 10 tips for noticing and dealing with burnout.
- Stop, look, and listen – Your body usually knows before your head does as to how you are feeling, so pause for 30 seconds, notice where the stress is showing up. Ask yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 ‘how satisfied / happy / in control / busy you feel?’. Pick your word to measure and then ask, ‘what score you would like it to be?’. You’ve taken a quick body check that you can now decide to work on.
- Accept or convert –Whilst at times we have no control in what is happening in our lives, we can choose how we deal with the situation. We can choose accept it with grace, or convert the situation into an opportunity to learn or grow from the situation.
- Be goodish not good – We all have an impossible image of ourselves as being super helpful, smart, funny, loving etc. In other words, being super-human. So rather than jumping to a long list of behavioural changes needed for you to suddenly become incredibly amazing, instead, look at ways that you can be goodish.
- Do one small thing – We are typically are awake for 1000 minutes a day. So, what if the first 2 minutes were a happy one, where we could set the day up as positively as possible. What can you say to yourself to start the day feeling good?
- Find those mindful moments – If you had a choice of having a hot bubble bath or a cold acid bath, which would you choose? Just taking 2 minutes to look at something we love, listen to something that we can get absorbed in, or feel something – even if it’s just washing our hands; will lead us to mindful moments that release those natural bubbly highs.
- Invest in you – We can feel stretched between work, home, family, or friend commitments that we can forget about us in the chaos of the day. Instead of rushing your morning or afternoon cuppa by multitasking, instead take your cuppa and sit back, move to a different space, or even go outside and take that time just for you.
- Make someone else feel good – We know that by doing something kind for someone else not only makes them feel good, but ourselves too. We know that when someone else smiles, it is infectious, so take a moment to send a text, call someone, or do an act of kindness for someone in your family.
- Create tiny habits – We often think that change has to be big, something really significant and life changing. According to BJ Fogg, to create lasting habits we need to first find something really small to do differently, like 2 push-ups or one less cup of coffee, and then tag the desired new habit onto something you are already doing.
- Begin with the end in mind – For many of us, working from home has left us feeling as if we never escape from work. What we are in control of is how we start and end our working day. Some people walk around the block, get into ‘work clothes’, turn on their phone or PC when it’s work time, and equally switch them off when it’s home time. Create a routine that helps you both start and end your day.
- Positive fuel and forgiveness – We all know we should drink more water and less caffeine, eat more fruit and veg than carbs and chocolate, cut back on alcohol and cigarettes etc. Instead of trying to stop doing the things that are felt as ‘treats’, why not take them along with the ‘good stuff’ – like a coffee and a glass of water or a chocolate bar and a banana. Treat yourself with healthy options and forgive yourself for wanting the treats.
Burnout doesn’t arrive overnight, it builds quietly. Small daily choices, from taking mindful moments to building tiny habits, can make a big difference.
If you’d like to explore this further – whether through one-to-one coaching or a Resilience workshop, I’d be delighted to chat.