How to Prevent Burnout and Exhaustion from Work
What is burnout?
If you want to know how to prevent burnout and exhaustion. First, you have to know how to recognize burnout in your life. Burnout is real and we are all at risk of experiencing burnout, especially if we are ambitious people. We want to meet our goals and have success in our careers or businesses. If we aren’t careful, we will fill our schedules so much that we begin to feel exhausted, even though we might be doing what we love.
I recently saw a post on Instagram from @_melanintalks that said, “Capitalism has us fooled. The ‘hustle 24/7’ culture is toxic and many of us don’t have an identity that isn’t attached to our careers, education, or earnings. You are enough even when you aren’t busy. Normalize resting”.
Tired of being Tired?
If you are tired of being tired, you must take your life back! Do not just sit by idle as you sink more and more into burnout. Do something about it, starting today!
Work-Life Balance Tips from Germany
How Germany is Different than America
During our time living in Germany, I saw a completely different way of life and loved it. I noticed many businesses, including restaurants would close for several hours during the afternoon and reopen later in the day. Germany has at least 15 legal holidays where pretty much everything is closed. And get this, on Sundays most shops are closed to support the idea that Sundays are supposed to be a day to relax. In general, I got the vibe that taking breaks from work is encouraged and supported in Germany.
In the States, the vibe is the complete opposite. You hear people say things like “I’ll sleep when I am dead”. Crazy, right?! Like the quote from @_melanintalks suggests, Americans are taught to work hard, all day, every day. Americans consider you lazy if you aren’t “booked and busy”. We often lead with the question, “what do you do”? Nobody ever asks, “when is the last time you took a break”?
Here’s the great news! You DESERVE to take a break. It is a fact that You also DESERVE to have a so-called “lazy” day. You seriously DESERVE to relax. This is how you prevent burnout fast
How to Beat Exhaustion
Take breaks from work
Literally, in your planner write “take a break” (or similar). Whether you work for yourself or an employer, you can schedule breaks into your life. As an employee, it often means taking the lunch break and short breaks that you are legally allowed to take, rather than skipping them to get more work done. For Entrepreneurs, that often means stepping away from the work or not filling your schedule with meeting all day, every day.
Normalize self care.
Don’t fall for the narrative that you are selfish if you take time for yourself and enjoy a break from the hustle. Incorporating self-care into your life is how you present your best self and contribute to the success of your business/career.
Admit that the work will always be there.
You will never get it all done to the point where you have nothing else to do. Even if you work until 1am every night, you will still wake with a full day of work ahead of you unless you are throwing in the towel. Yes it is important to meet hard deadlines, but after that, you have to learn when to insert the break and start back up at another time.
Prioritize your Responsibilities
You have to know that not everything is important. Some things really can wait. Quiet as it’s kept, many things can wait.
Work Smarter Not harder
This is especially for entrepreneurs. Brainstorm ideas that you can implement that will help you meet your goals without much output from you. This could be in the form of using digital systems, so you are not having to devote ridiculous amounts of time to manually “crunching numbers” or flipping through the paperwork.
This could also be in the form of selling products that generate some form of residual income, such as selling a course within your area of expertise. This is the idea of working once, reaping perpetually. The goal is to find ways to decrease your physical workload. Starting a Shirt Shop is a great idea for residual income.
Outsource tasks when you can.
I have seen many people talking about outsourcing the mundane tasks that consume their time. There are Virtual Assistants and even websites like Fiverr that give you access to people who can complete jobs for you for a fee. If you can afford this, do it!
Get an accountability partner.
You need someone in your life that cares enough about you to check on your well-being. It is great to have people in your life that push you and motivate you to meet your goals. You also need people in your life that encourage you to have a seat sometimes! You especially need people in your life that don’t judge you when they call you at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon and you are at the beach, rather than sitting behind a computer screen.
Start Writing in Your Journal
Sometimes we overwork ourselves trying to reach goals and forget that we have already achieved some other goals. Writing in your journal to record things you are grateful for will help you maintain a positive state of mind and make it easier to reward yourself with a break to celebrate past wins.
Listen to your Body
Oftentimes, your body will let you know when you need a break, by way of physical ailments or just plain stress. Don’t ignore those cues. Our bodies are such intelligent machines. Like brakes that whistle before the brake pads are too low, our bodies are capable of giving us signs that it’s time to take a mental and/or physical break.
Discover Who You Are
Your identity goes beyond your career or business of choice. You are more than an employee or entrepreneur. Consider that if you lost it all tomorrow, God Forbid- who would you be? What else do you love to do? Who else do you like to give your time to? Make an intentional effort to incorporate these things and people into your schedule more.
Final Thoughts
You owe it to yourself to prevent burnout and exhaustion from work. Be proactive about it and don’t let it sneak up on you.
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[…] When you can regularly switch your focus to different things you love, you are stimulated in a different and positive way. This means there are fewer chances of you being burnt out. Alexander Den Heijer said, “You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.” If you have been dealing with burnout you should definitely read this. […]