Feeling Unmotivated? Is Burnout Close?
Tips to gain perspective, clarity, and your bearings at this point in pandemic life.
Our bodies have felt the big rough year we’ve all had collectively and individually. There’s been a lot of trauma to process for each and every body. Many of our clients are feeling the drain of the last year and are wondering how to move ahead. We thought we’d share some of the insights from these conversations in case you find yourself at a similar spot.
If you find yourself at a place of weariness and overwhelm, we have some tips on how to navigate this space, find your bearings, and move forward with a sense of clarity.
- Make the feelings of overwhelm and burnout a discussable topic. Talk about this with coworkers and friends to make this accessible and create moments of connection. What has the past year been like for folks? Where are they now? What’s very present and alive for them now? How are they relating to work differently than before? What have they learned in this past year? What is clear/not clear to them about the future?
- Honor what you all have been through together. What can we do from this place of shared experience?
- Make shorter-term and attainable goals. Long-term planning can be more challenging when you’re taxed energetically and emotionally. Making shorter-term goals can feel more doable and just as proactive. Attaining those goals will help get the flywheel spinning.
- Reconnect to what brought you into this work: connect to what matters. What brought you to this work, to this team? Sometimes when we’re exhausted we may be out of alignment with something that matters and is important to us.
- Beware of the ‘shoulds.’ Where might you be trying to live up to an expectation, often an old one, that may not be as relevant now? Suspend the ‘should’ and turn toward what matters to you now. What would it look like to live by what matters? How is this importantly different from the ‘should’?
- Know that there’s a reorientation taking place. We are all in transition now. Anxiety, excitement, and grief will be common responses to the moments ahead. Knowing this, how can we set aside time and cycles to be alone, and to stay in touch with our real wants and priorities?
Journal: Grab a pen, paper, and 20 minutes of free-flow writing time. Here are some reflection questions to sit with for this moment: How do you want to re-engage with work right now?
- What’s different now? What’s here for us now at this time? What’s compelling about the future that’s enabled now?
- How do you want to show up now? What were you holding up in the past (i.e. a false persona, inauthenticity, etc.) that doesn’t fit now and moving forward?
- What have you learned about your needs? What do you need socially? How do you want to relate and work with your organization?
- What is your relationship with rest? What do you know about how much rest you need? What can you ask for or put in place to support you getting the rest you need?
- What boundaries (short-term or long-term) could be set to help you focus on your priorities?
- What policies (short-term or long-term) could be set to help your team focus on the new priorities?
- What support could you ask for from yourself, your family, your friends, your team?
More Resources
Over the years, we’ve created together resources to help in times like these. We’ve compiled a few below.
Three Tools for Resilience: Slow Down, Take Stock & Connect: In this Medium post, Andy Crissinger, Reboot’s Director of Coaching, shares three deceptively simple tools to help you find your ground and stay with yourself and your own experience when stress starts to ramp up from a turbulent world.
Reboot Your Year: We created our Reboot Your Year course as an invitation for you to pause and honor the transition into this new year (it’s also a good thing to do any time of year when you need a new perspective). This simple, yet powerful, five-day email course guides you through the New Year’s transition to open you to the promise and hope of the year ahead. Each day’s practice takes less than 20 minutes to complete.
28 Days of Journaling Prompts: Journaling is a powerful tool for self-inquiry. To support you, we created this compilation of 28 journaling prompts which are designed to support your ongoing growth and development as a leader.
Reboot Your Anxiety: Anxiety is something that many of our clients — and many of us here at Reboot — have struggled with. In this course, you’ll look at the difference between stress and anxiety, how anxiety works in our brains, how it shows up for you, what makes us anxious, and finally — how to step out of the anxiety cycle.
What’s Your Practice?: How do you support your growth, development, and release your inner artistry? What does it mean to have a regular practice?
Reboot Your Work: We teamed up with Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, to create this ten-day course of insights and guided meditation to help you find space for mindfulness and compassion in your daily practice at work. This is a great course to do over 2 work weeks with your entire team for a company-wide course in mindfulness from one of the world’s leading instructors.
