Understanding how to build resilience is important to prevent burnout from diminishing your excitement and passion for embers. This is especially true at the beginning of your career or during this postcovid time in which we live.
Burnout is one of those words that has become more mainstream in recent years. So much so that the state became part of ICD-11 in 2019. It was a pivotal moment when the burnout of something that was often swept under the rug moved to the forefront of work culture and the critically flexible work environment. An extreme example of this is the gaming industry and the “crunch culture,” although there is an industry other than healthcare. Overtime cancellations, five-day rotas spanning seven days, last-minute shifts, and increasing workloads without increased staffing are common across health care and all contribute to burnout.
What exactly burnout is can be defined as follows:
"… a syndrome that was conceived as a consequence of chronic stress in the workplace and was not successfully treated."
It is characterized by three dimensions:
Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one´s own job or feelings of negativism or cynicism in connection with one´s own job; and
decreased occupational effectiveness.
Burn-out relates specifically to phenomena in the professional context and should not be used to describe experiences in other areas of life.
Emotional intelligence could be the key to recognizing burnout
Reaching for that extra coffee?
Recognizing the symptoms of burnout is the essential first step in preventing the situation from getting out of hand. It can present itself differently from person to person and to varying degrees. For some, they might rush to the pub after work or have a few extra tills during the day to get them through. For others, it might be a career break, but in all cases the trick is to spot the subtle signs early on and prevent the dire consequences from derailing your life.
Earlier, more subtle characters may include
.
Regular dissatisfaction with your job or with colleagues who keep getting stronger.
Exhaustion when you get home after work and never feel like you are in a state of professional flow during the day
Stagnation and not feeling like you're making progress at work
Boredom and distance with work to do
Higher proclamation
Stress that doesn't seem to bother you
Find your mojo again
Sometimes there are no quick or easy solutions. Building resilience is different for everyone and therefore needs to be controlled by you. After all, you are the one who gets along better than anyone! Hopefully with these first steps you will be on the way to resilience and reduce your risk of burnout.
Periodic Breaks (If possible) – This is not a permit to do no work. This is more of a reminder to take the breaks you are allowed in your job or role. It's too tempting to be busy, but not! This is part of the problem and needs to be fixed now. Good real breaks give your brain a chance to process what you've done and then come back into the game. It will make you more productive overall and if you can get some fresh air.
Book this holiday! – It doesn't matter if you haven't booked a vacation to go anywhere. Plan your free time early and look forward to something. Don't let yourself go idle, this is basically free giving away! Now, if you are concerned that the time is not a good time to go on vacation, often there is no good time to go on vacation so just take it. The benefits of the vacation greatly outweigh the negatives as you return stronger. Contrary to popular belief, the service will continue without you! That's what a team is for.
Focus on what you love and what is most important to you – Doing what you love is the ultimate cure for burnout. Few people have the option to choose only what we want to do at work. Each of us have to put up with trash jobs, but if there's someone who prefers or is better suited to this job, why not swap some tasks? If you have everyday tasks that you don't enjoy doing, it is important to speak to your manager about whether you are trying to offload them to someone who is better placed or suitable. If it's the core of your job it wouldn't be possible, but if it isn't, you will do a shitty job much better with a single simple conversation.
Reflections (or a diary) Learn to jump forwards, not backwards. Think about successes regularly, no matter how small they are – a simple strategy might be to write one down at the end of each day. After a week, go back and look at the progress you've made. When you have something to fall back on, it is easy to spot your accomplishments and be inspired by them. Writing reflections can seem a chore when there is evidence that refletive clinicians are most likely to be successful. Why not use templates in physioplus to take away the painful part?
Make reflections quickly and easily with the Physioplus CPD portfolio
Don't let the e-mails get you down – The simple 4 Ds method could help keep this fear of e-mail under control. Set up two folders in your inbox (* them so they appear at the top), one named ACTION and the other named DEFER. Everything that needs immediate attention is shown in the action folder, everything that is to be published later is moved. The other two Ds are DELEGATE and DELETE. If there's nothing to do, delete it and if you are not the right person or someone else can delegate it more effectively. Start working in the Actions folder and come back when you have time. The aim is to reduce the pile of your ongoing work and give you clarity.
Take a step back, what's the bigger picture? It is quite possible that it is not your job or your career that is the trigger for your burnout. It could be something else invading your work. Your personal life is more important than your job, but a job pays the bills. Both of them need to be fixed if there is a problem between them. It might help to take a step back and consider why I am doing this.
Long-term strategies to make you burn-out-resistant
It is just not possible to always be 100% happy with your personal and professional life. That being said, we can all take steps to ensure that we spend more time being happy than unhappy. It's really difficult to do as we near burnout, but the steps above will bring you back from the edge. Once you've taken a step back, it's time to think about further long-term mindset changes to increase your resilience. A long-term strategy is a proven psychological state called flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology and management and an expert in professional processes. Be sure to check out Mihaly's TED talk to understand how you can bring more flow into your life.
