3 Steps To Combat Your Burnout, From an Expert
As most of you know, Her Bags Were Packed is a site dedicated to helping women unpack their emotional baggage. We focus on solo travel, but we also devote space to learning about our mental well-being. Last year we did a series on burnout. We shared several resources for burnout, including yoga and meditation sessions, intended to help you overcome your own burn events and cycles of burnout.
We also did a group coaching session with Dr. Kate Steiner and today I'm excited to share my takeaways with you.
You may recognize Dr. Kate from her guest post, her Unpacking Solo Travel interview, or her Unpacking Burnout interview. She is a burnout specialist with a doctorate in counselor education and supervision who helps individuals find wellness and career longevity by addressing and working through burnout events.
With these takeaways, I hope you can learn some ways to identify, prepare, and recover from burnout. And I also encourage you to check out the resources and events Dr. Kate Steiner is currently offering.
"All humans experience burnout! Our misstep has been trying to avoid it instead of embracing it as a normal experience. While we cannot avoid it, we can identify, prepare, and recover from it."
3 Steps To Combat Burnout
Identification - Spend some time in observation and self-reflection, and make a note of the things that cause you exhaustion and overwhelm.
Preparation - Plan for burn events, and create a daily wellness practice.
Recovery - Establish rituals and practices to help you recover from burn events.
Identifying BURN EVENTS AND BURNOUT
It’s important to be proactive and have a plan to maintain your mental wellness during burn events but that starts with understanding what they are.
Expected burn events are known activities or situations that lead you to feel emotionally drained, exhausted, or overwhelmed. An example might be meetings with certain coworkers or going home for the holidays.
Unexpected burn events are activities or situations that cause emotional exhaustion, feel unmanageable, and occur without warning. An example might be your car breaking down or a fight with a loved one.
Burnout is the result of several burn events from which you have not recovered.
If you are experiencing burnout, you may notice:
· Frequently feeling emotionally drained or exhausted
· Feeling defeated or overwhelmed
· No longer caring about or feeling present at work or certain activities
· Not being able to find joy in activities that generally bring you joy
· Feeling that your work or activities are unmanageable or a burden
PREPARING FOR BURN EVENTS
Here are some ways to be proactive and plan ahead for burn events:
Maintain a healthy and balanced level of investment into the six essential areas of wellness: physical wellness, social wellness, financial wellness, emotional wellness, intellectual wellness, and spiritual wellness.
Take time to identify your feelings. Joy, sadness, overwhelm, confusion, anger, frustration, and delight are feelings. "Fine" and "okay" are not. Take a minute to really explore what you are feeling, and then identify and reflect on what that feeling may be.
Create what Dr. Kate calls a "comfort list"-- things that you know will bring you comfort when you need it most. These can be certain carby and delicious foods, a cozy atmosphere, a favorite blanket, time with a pet, movies you know make you feel good, etc.
RECOVERING FROM BURN EVENTS
It's important to discover and identify what you need to help yourself feel calm and grounded after a burn event occurs. A popular tool is the "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" method. Usinf your senses: in the space that you are in, identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Then end with a couple of deep breaths. This helps bring you back into the present moment and ground you.
You can also do a body scan, checking the areas of your body where you can relieve tension and physically relax. Check if your shoulders are raised or tense, lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth and unclench your jaw. Other examples of body scans can be found on the Calm and Headspace apps and online.
Incorporate play into your life! Whether that's having a dance party, playing a game, playing with a pet, or just being silly with a loved one. This can help relax us.
And finally, establish rituals and practices to help you recover from burn events. What do you need when you experience these events? For some, it's getting into nature or just being in the sun. For others, it may be time alone. Listen to music, take a break from social media or your phone. Exercise may help you as well. Consider keeping a gratitude journal by putting to paper your gratitude for the people around you, your daily wins (be they big or small), and your future. Know what you need, and make it a habit to implement those things when you experience burn events.
I hope you can implement some of these practices to help identify, prepare for, and recover from burn events. If you are interested in working with Dr. Kate, you can schedule a complimentary burn out assessment session or sign up for one-on-one or group coaching on her website, LIFT Wellness Consulting, LLC. You can also follow her on Instagram at @drkatesteiner and on Facebook for super helpful tips and reminders.
Was this helpful? Which of these strategies can you implement in your life?
Let us know in the comments below!