Blow Away Burnout - 4 Arenas Of Attack

Our "Job Burnout: The Plague of the New Millennium" article describes the nature, causes, symptoms and consequences of burnout ... and stresses the importance of acknowledging burnout.

Once you have acknowledged Stamp Collecting Albums you are burned out (to whatever extent) ... what can you do about it?

There are four arenas of attack: Physical, Mental, Interpersonal, and Spiritual.

The Physical Arena

This one is pretty straightforward:

1. Get a physical exam: how is burnout impacting your health?
2. Eat healthy: all 4 food groups, in moderation ... no fad diets or binging
3. Exercise: regularly, moderately, appropriate to your age and condition
4. Practice relaxation...

In our workshops, we teach four different relaxation techniques. Here's one of them:

The Purifying Breath

1. Begin by closing your eyes and just becoming aware of our breathing -- without any attempt to modify it. Focus only on your breathing. Tune out any distractions or concerns. Notice your how your belly rises as you breath in ... and subsides as you breath out. Just relax and be with your breathing.
2. When you're ready, take a deep breath -- inhaling slowly through your nose deeply into your abdomen -- completely filling your lungs.
3. Hold this breath for as long as you comfortably can.
4. When you're ready, exhale even more slowly through your mouth -- pushing all the air out.
5. Repeat steps #2-4 several times.
6. Open your eyes.

How do you feel?

The Mental Arena

Ultimately, stress is internally generated -- how you process external triggers of burnout.

1. Develop or improve coping skills.

   These coping skills are perhaps best summarized by the Serenity Prayer, which can be viewed as a religious prayer or a secular self-dedication:

   ...grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change
   Courage to change the things I can
   and the Wisdom to know the difference.

2. Understand your strengths and weaknesses:
   • Capitalize on your strengths
   • Find ways to shore up your weaknesses, e.g., through others and/or self-improvement
3. Learn effective (not so much time management, but) inner resource management:
   • Take breaks
   • Relax during your time off (and work breaks)
   • Delegate and/or swap tasks with others
   • Ask for time off and use all allotted vacation time
4. Set realistic goals -- goals that are important to you, not to please others, and which are challenging, but attainable.
5. Learn to schedule me time -- not for work, family or friends, but for you.
6. Consult your EAP (Employee Assistance Program), a life skills coach or mental health counselor. You'll consult professionals for your financial or legal affairs. Why not for your mental well-being?

The Interpersonal Arena

Are your relationships with others enhancing the quality of your life or diminishing it?

1. Nurture close relationships -- spend quality time with your loved ones.
2. Participate in clubs, associations, group activities -- that relax and enrich you ... eliminate the ones that don't.
3. Address ongoing issues with supervisor, coworkers, family and friends.
   • Assert yourself
   • Listen to their needs

4. Consider a job/career/life change. However...
   • Avoid making changes out of anger, desperation or panic
   • Instead, Free Stamp Collecting Software other options ... and
   • Wait until you can make a logical, rational decision.

The Spiritual Arena

By spiritual, we don't mean anything weird or mystical. Rather a cleansing of the soul or nurturing your inner self. It includes:

1. Religion: whatever that may be for you, especially prayer and confession ... or their secular counterparts:
   • Meditation: a very deep and focused form of relaxation
   • Self-help groups: where you share your deepest secrets
2. The Arts: performing or experiencing music, dance, theatre, graphic arts, etc.
3. Hobbies: that engage your attention and leave you feeling relaxed and fulfilled
4. Volunteer work: contributing your time to a cause you find meaningful

Activity

1. Think about your lifestyle in light of each arena and the specific suggestions included in it.
2. Are there arenas of your life that you've been shortchanging? For example:
   • Are you a couch potato? Focus especially on the physical arena.

   • Are you a very other-focused person? Concentrate on mental and spiritual arenas.
   • Do you keep pretty much to yourself? Focus especially on the interpersonal arena.
3. Are there specific aspects of any arena that ring true for you? For example:
   • Are you a very social person? Maybe you need to nurture close relationships more.
   • Are you a workaholic? Maybe you need to manage your inner resources more.
   • Do you work hard and play hard? Maybe you need to slow down a bit and relax.
4. Start making changes in your life -- gradually, one step at a time. Move especially toward those activities that appeal to you, even if you have to get past some initial resistance. For example:
   • If you used to play in a band, don't force yourself to take up stamp collecting. Instead, get back into music.

   • If, as a child, you loved swimming, get back in the water.
   • If you have a solid relationship with your spouse, but no longer feel in love, take a romantic second honeymoon.
   • If you used to love reading adventure novels, budget time to do so again.

The Grimmes conduct customized onsite training workshops and large group presentations for organizations in every sector of the economy. Their groundbreaking book on managing people in today's workplace will be published by AMACOM in the second half of 2008. Visit their main website at GHR-Training GHR-Training and topic-specific Employee-Retention-HQ Employee-Retention-HQ and read issues of their own e-newsletter at WorkplacePeopleSolutions WorkplacePeopleSolutions