21. How to actually recognise burnout — 30 Days Of Medium
Welcome back to 30 Days Of Medium.
Thanks to everyone who has been reading, clapping and commenting so far! Today’s topic is — How to actually recognise burnout.
You can catch up on the first 20days of my 30 Days Of Medium challenge below if you missed them:
0. 30 Days Of Medium
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21. How to actually recognise burnout — 30 Days Of Medium
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What is ‘burnout’?
I’ve read a lot of articles on burnout. Some focus on the psychological aspects. Some on the physical.
What I found was that many of them were quite vague in terms of actually describing the symptoms of burnout.
I’ve experienced burnout a few times over the past 6 years, so unfortunately I’m familiar with the symptoms.
I wanted to write an article with a first hand perspective that spoke about how burnout actually feels, rather than listing some generic symptoms, in the hopes that this helps one of you out there.
So here goes.
My pen won’t work
I first realised I was burned out on Friday when my pen wouldn’t work.
It was about 10am and I was at my desk as usual trying to grind out my list of tasks for the day.
10 minutes later it was 11.30am and I hadn’t written a word. I’d been mindlessly flicking through tabs on my computer, pondering my to do list and checking emails.
I decided to take an early lunch break.
After trying again for another 30 minutes and being confused as to why I couldn’t focus I realised I was burned out.
Nothing was working.
Try as I might, I couldn’t focus and couldn’t pull myself out of my slump.
So I stopped what I was doing and decided to take the weekend off.
Recognising burnout
Unfortunately this past week was a ‘burnout week’ for me.
Everything seemed to slow down. Everything irritated me and I couldn’t concentrate on anything.
Most worryingly, I felt hopeless and couldn’t take joy in anything.
You know you truly have burnout, in my experience, when you experience these three symptoms:
- You can’t relax, at all. Constant feelings of stress, anxiety and worry. I found myself pacing my room trying in vein to relax. Nothing worked!
- Everything irritates you. I don’t mean slightly irritated. 5 minutes walking through a city centre is enough to get you hating life. Small inconveniences you may have thought nothing of previously, are now cause for argument and you are leaping at the opportunity to bicker with someone.
- You only see the negative. I’ve written previously about how you look at things matters. I’m a very positive person, so I know I’m truly burnt out when my ability to focus on the positive seems to stop working. All that I’m able to focus on is my problems and stresses.
The lead-up to burnout
There are a lot of secondary symptoms to burnout, and lots of signs you may be heading for a ‘burnout event’.
Here are some other signs of burnout, but careful you don’t confuse them with something else going on in your life or your routine:
- Insomnia (long term, I mean for months)
- Constantly feeling tired
- Finding it difficult to focus on things or be productive
- Small amounts of exercise that should be easy are hard
- Negative thought creep
You need to be careful you correctly diagnose burnout and don’t confuse it with something else. For example, too much caffeine can cause insomnia (even though it’s many high achiever’s best friend).
The symptoms of over-training from exercise are also similar to that of burnout.
Unfortunately, it’s one of those things you have to experience first hand to recognise.
After going through it a few times, it will feel disgustingly familiar when you do get burnt out in the future, and you’ll recognise it instantly, unfortunately usually only after a week.
Dealing with burnout
You absolutely need to deal with burnout as soon as you recognise it.
Throw out the ‘no days off videos’ and burn your ‘do it anyway dvds’.
Fortunately I’ve never had a nervous breakdown or anything like this, but the stories of those who have sound horrible.
Your burnout is your body’s way of telling you to STOP.
Take a weekend off, immediately.
This is what I did this weekend just past.
Close the laptop. Shut off your emails. Rest. Relax. Play your favourite video game. See some friends. Sink some beers. Exercise.
Give yourself 48 hours of me time.
The sooner you do this, the sooner your body can recharge and you can come back to work refreshed and 200% more effective.
If you don’t deal with burnout here’s what you’re doing:
- Working at 10% effectiveness
- Wasting your own time
- Jeopardising your future and your business
- Heading for a nervous breakdown
Unfortunately far too many entrepreneurs (myself included) get suckered in initially by the ‘no days off mentality’ of entrepreneurship.
After a few years you learn that this attitude is bullsh*t that motivational speakers and people trying to build a personal brand peddle to the uninitiated trying to make a quick buck.
Perhaps this is why mental health is such a big issue with high performers and entrepreneurs, because it’s seen as weak or not giving it your all if you dare to take a day off.
This is not healthy and quite honestly a fallacy.
There MIGHT, and I mean might, be a tiny fraction of society who are superhuman and can run on 6 hours of sleep and work 7 days a week for 10 months a year.
If there are, congratulations. You are blessed. And these are likely the billionaires of the world. For the majority of us though, this no days off approach is the quickest way to end up in an insane asylum.
Think about athletes.
They need recovery time, right?
Especially the elite performers, competing at the highest level.
So why would it be any different for an entrepreneur, executive or high performer?
It wouldn’t. And if you think otherwise, you are being taken for a fool.
Don’t live someone else’s life. The whole point of entrepreneurship if you come back to its root, is to do your own thing. Live by your own set of rules.
Run everything through your own common sense filter and find what works for you.
The quickest way to grow your business is to take a weekend off before your burnout stops you dead in the water and requires you to take a year off.
So if you’re feeling hopeless, can’t concentrate and super irritable. Take 2 days off and don’t touch your work.
Don’t kill yourself to live up to the expectations of some BS motivational video.
Thank me later when you come back to work refreshed, motivated and ready to kill it. (for the record, today I am feeling awesome again!)
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