How to Deal with Burnout — When You’re in it — Michele Renee Digital
To be honest with you, I have been so exhausted this past year. Not the I’ve been running a marathon, or taking care of three kids type of exhausted. But the eye-twitching, bone-shaking type of exhaustion. The type of exhaustion where I’ve landed in a new parallel world where everything seems fake.
A world where I start to question, “Is this really my life?” After doing a deep dive, trying to find the answer as to why everything suddenly seems to be too much — I found out that I’ve been experiencing burnout.
What is burnout?
Burnout can be best described as the feeling of overwhelm with literally everything in your life. You may even experience a negative inner voice telling you that you are a failure.
In your desire to combat that inner voice, you keep trekking along. In reality, you are starting to experience emotional exhaustion or physical exhaustion.
Burnout can occur in so many ways like putting too much pressure on yourself to outperform at work or the overwhelming feeling after you put too many tasks on your plate.
It’s not the easiest to overcome either. I have been dealing with burnout this whole year and I am slowly coming to terms with how to fix it. But, it takes quite a bit of mental practice every day before you can see any results.
Notice Your Symptoms
The first step in figuring out if you are experiencing burnout is to notice the symptoms. We are so often caught up in the everyday hustle and grind that it can be impossible to take time to just check in with ourselves. Sometimes the signs are there but you aren’t looking. Some of the major symptoms that you might be experiencing could be:
- Fatigue
- Loss of creative energy
- Feeling trapped (with work, or your life in general)
- Self-blame for not finishing your tasks on time
- Reactive irritability
- Emotional exhaustion
If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into symptoms Healthline lays out a ton more as well as where those symptoms can affect you. Burnout is such a tricky thing because if we voice that we are feeling exhausted and we take time for ourselves, we are often called “lazy” or worse things by those around us.
But it’s important to remember that you are living your life for yourself and no one else. You are responsible for fixing or mending your strife. Give yourself the chance to make your life what you want.
Take a break
The easiest way to combat burnout is to just do the work. There are numerous ways that you can use to work towards fixing it. The most important aspect is that you make it a routine.
- Try to relax as much as possible
- Cut back on commitments
- Do activities solely for yourself
- Take time to breathe
- Move on from that bad environment
It may not be easy to implement change in your life but it’s necessary. If you find that you are not able to keep up with your life, it’s important to try as many ways as possible to change it up. Even just waking up at a different time, you might find that the days could be a tiny bit easier to handle.
Re-evaluate Your Priorities
You have to ask yourself, “Is this really worth the stress?” If the answer is no, then find ways to work around it. If you asked yourself that question in relation to work. It’s time to move on.
Sometimes it can be hard to move on from your current position, but if you can’t do that just yet, then do the bare minimum at work. Do enough to keep your job.
If you keep going above and beyond at work, then you will find yourself in that overwhelming state again and again. When it comes to emotional triggers, find out what is triggering you and eliminate or minimize contact with that thing or person.
Change up the Pace of your Life
After you’ve gone through this massive evaluation. Set it into action!
Sit down and write out your current commitments, rank them from “most necessary” to “this can wait”. What can you let go of?
There is never going to be the right moment where you’ve reached a pinnacle in which you can slow down after. Life doesn’t work that way. It continually ebbs and flows.
You just have to move along with it at your own pace. You may have a checklist for your life, but is it actually worth it to reach each item while rushing?
Wouldn’t you rather enjoy the journey instead?
Take a chance on trying something new. Anything. It helps get you out of the monotonous routine and into a new headspace. You got this!
I have tried so many of these tips and it actually got me back into writing. Something, I have been struggling to get back into for years. But honestly, what have you got to lose?
Originally published at https://www.michelereneedigital.com on June 18, 2021.
