Worker burnout is a recurring issue for employers when retaining top talent. For workers, there isn’t one best answer that will ensure that it won’t ever happen again. Because if you’re one of those who have been burned out from their demanding job before, chances are you’re going to get burned out again in another instance.
Like many workers, I’ve experienced burnout time and again in many of my previous roles. It may not have come in the same way every time, but there were similar symptoms. Straightforward tasks suddenly became so hard to do just because of inertia. The voice in my head kept asking:
Why do I need to do this?
What does this even achieve?
In what way does this advance my career?
When the simplest parts of your daily tasks make you ponder so deeply into your why as a worker, then something’s not right. Other symptoms I had also included a lack of appetite to take on new projects. Unlike when I was fairly new to my role where I was eager to volunteer, I hardly signed up for new, exciting work. I kept to what was written on my job description, and hardly had any interest to go above and beyond.
The latter was one of the best indicators for when I was burned out, because I was the type to always want to learn something new and tackle new problems.
I found, however, that while the indicators of burnout weren’t always the same, the following ways to avoid burnout were usually helpful:
- Letting go of the rope
- Accepting your multiple personas
- Decoupling from the bonds of your full-time job
- Quitting your toxic job and staying away from unhealthy workplaces
- Embracing work-life alignment
5 Ways to Deal with Burnout in Your Job
1. Letting go of the rope
One way to address feeling burned out is to simply ‘let go of the rope’. Work life and home life compete for your time, attention, and energy—thus, there’s a tug of war going on between these two aspects of your existence.
To let go might mean changing your perspective, and instead, allowing work to creep into your home life without feeling much resistance. This doesn’t always mean that you’re through with managing these two priorities. But what it does mean is finding harmony between them.
Finding work-life balance might imply that your personal and professional needs are at a seesaw—each pulling their own weight. In contrast, seeking work-life alignment considers the idea that these two needs not only are able to coexist, but might even further the interest of the other. As a personal example, I found that those high-stake corporate meetings I led were also a way for me to enhance my public speaking skills, which in turn helped me in law school, and also gave me more confidence to speak up in family gatherings.
2. Accepting your multiple personas
Making compartments for the many personas you might have, takes so much effort. Some people make it look easy, but it never is. And one persona can bleed into the wrong part of your life—for example, a department manager in his day job can rule over his household with an iron fist, because that’s his management style.
For those who know that the effort to keep all your different selves in check just isn’t worth it, they try to find a job where they can simply be themselves. Otherwise, if your job demands a drastically different person than who you are at home, you’ll be left asking “Where am I really being my authentic self?”
To not accept your multiple personas is like living a double life. Writing for Shine at Work, Patricia Thompson says that after she got married and had a son, she “was unable to compartmentalize work as [she] had done before.”
“When work was really busy,” she says, “[she] felt overwhelmed, and sometimes even guilty when [she] was working in the evenings. And, at those points, the crappy culture was a lot harder to tolerate—[she] even resented it.”
One of the ways to avoid burnout in your career is by embracing the many versions of you that exist throughout the day.
3. Decoupling from the bonds of your full-time job
Tying your self-worth to your job is not only unhealthy, but also impractical. Especially in big, supposedly ‘stable’ companies, mass layoffs happen all the time. If you were one of those who suddenly found themselves out of a job, you might view yourself as someone who had lost their function in society. What now is your purpose, now that what you’re known for, is gone in an instant?
It doesn’t help that employers tend to encourage workers to ‘own’ their job—that workers should feel a deep sense of responsibility with their role. Obviously, this philosophy serves to increase productivity while also reduce worker turnover. And this is why they might promote the idea of workers becoming ‘passionate team players’ and keep encouraging them to ‘find a job they love’.
This way of thinking, however, is somewhat outdated. Today, there are many ways to generate personal income, such as in online selling and in social media, and people no longer want to be defined by their day job.
By going beyond your day job and refusing to adopt the idea that you should be ‘passionate’ while you work, you can also find it as a helpful way to avoid burning out.
4. Quitting your toxic job and staying away from unhealthy workplaces
It’s not so easy to tell that you’re working a toxic, soul-sucking job. It may not also be obvious that you’re stuck inside an unhealthy work environment. Especially when you’re overloaded with multiple tasks, projects, and responsibilities, you can lose sight of your own situation. So sometimes, the simplest answer is to take a pause, step back, and see for yourself whether quitting your job is the best way forward.
Those seeking for work-life alignment look for a healthy work environment because they want to stay in a place that doesn’t make them feel as if they’re in a mad house, or a sweatshop. Because even if the culture of a workplace tends to make workers too busy, a healthy environment places importance on making sure its workers can also take care of their personal lives.
Are you being penalized for being on the bench for too long? Is your manager growing anxious and sending signals that you should feel guilty while you’re on vacation? Are personal requests too much to ask all the time?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then you might want to assess your situation. If the answer is yes to ALL of these questions—get going.
5. Embracing work-life alignment
If you’ve experienced the burnout cycle two or three times already for your career, then maybe work-life balance just doesn’t work for you. It might be better to instead just aim for work-life alignment. A lot of things become easier when your work lines up with your life.
In my case, when I wanted to pursue further studies, I was able to find a job that stopped at 10 or 11 in the morning, which gave me enough time to prepare for class. Law school is demanding, and any free time you can find is valuable. I established good harmony early on once I took a part-time job while starting law school. My shift was from 5 AM to 11 AM, and school started at five in the afternoon. The six hours in between were a godsend, and I ended up taking a quick nap after lunch, then used the remaining hours to study.
Also, if I performed well in my job, it lessened any post-shift anxieties, and this helped carve out some focus time before, during, and after my classes.
Life doesn’t have to be a juggling act all the time. What helps are the boundaries you set, and these partitions, or self-imposed limitations, can help preserve your sanity.
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