Extreme burnout from work and life is a horrible experience to endure and the aftermath and healing can take years to recover. Other times burnout can be a short lived season that with just a career change or rearranged priorities the energy level and mood returns to normal.
I would hope that most of us only experience the latter type of burnout, however, I am finding that undergoing extreme burnout is becoming more prevalent in certain careers because we do not protect ourselves.
I focus on time management a great deal in my life, because I have a strong motivation to protect myself from extreme burnout again. I have experienced it and am still to this day in recovery. My brain will not allow me to push myself with work as hard as I used to. However, this compels me to have to live a more balanced and healthy lifestyle and I am thankful for that.
I have to make sure that I plan out days for rest and fun and vacation. My love for what I do, for work and getting things accomplished can easily push out the times I need for rest and play. I now have to schedule these into my life to protect myself from burnout.
I have to re-evaluate my heart consistently with why I do what I do. This keeps me in check with not having a misplaced motive, or a wrong priority that compels me to be a workaholic. Am I valuing my to-do list over building on relationships? Am I working long hours to avoid pain in my heart I need to deal with? Am I becoming a workaholic again?
I also evaluate my work and life goals. Are they still consistent with what I value in my life? Do they bring me joy and move me towards a life that I want to pursue? Do I need to re-write or eliminate any goal that is putting way too much stress on me or is now irrelevant?
I encourage you to explore why you have possibly burned out in the past. Understanding why will help us learn what not to do in the present to keep us from burning out again. This is a simple “learning from our mistakes”.
I now know why I fell into extreme burnout. It has taken me a good length of time spent exploring what happened and what mindsets I had in that season that needed to change. For example, I was placing my identity in what I did and in my title, rather than in who I really am. The end result was, after losing my career in that season, I fell a part and had to reform my foundation again and my identity without my career.
Above all remember to take time to care for yourself. Work will always be there, the to-do list will never end, and the house can be cleaned tomorrow. We put too much pressure on ourselves to do more and more. We need to be kinder to ourselves and recognize that we are just a human and humans have limits and needs. Let us choose to live healthily within those boundary lines instead of testing them so often.