Every relationship experiences ups and downs. The one you have with your job is no different. Whenever your job takes a toll on you, you are faced with two options i.e. find a new job or make a few changes to how you work to rekindle your passion. You may not even know it but here are signs that you are experiencing job burnout:
- It’s Monday morning and you can’t wait for Friday.
- Your meeting status: unprepared and uninterested.
- You’re more inspired to make an excuse than make a deadline.
- You daydream about getting sick so you have an excuse to stay home.
- You avoid people because you’re afraid of getting more work.
- People avoid you because they don’t want to hear about your workload.
- You use the 50/50 rule: you spend 50% of your time trying to figure out how to get out of 50% of your work
The following would help you fix the job burnout:
1. Be realistic
Acknowledge how you are feeling about your work life. Journal it, talk about it with someone you don’t have to censor yourself with but stop holding it in. The more you try to ignore how you really feel, the more anxiety and frustration you will feel about your situation. The sooner you identify how you feel, the sooner you can address it.
2. Be inspired
Find a book, audiobook, or podcast—something that tells someone else’s success story and read it or listen to it. The focus here is to connect with similar career professionals’ ups and downs on their journey, their challenges and how what they had to overcome to reach their goals. Let their success motivate you to press towards your vision despite how you feel right now.
3. Be in control
Are there too many meetings and tasks on your to-do list? Become a guardian of your time and energy by mastering your schedule. Limit the number of meetings you have a day: if your limit is four meetings, then meeting number five that comes to your inbox gets declined or proposed for another day and time. Set up a system for managing emails and prioritizing requests. Ensure you get outside or get to connect with other people so you are not functioning in isolation every day.
4. Take on a different role
Are you the team member who organizes everything? Or are you the ad hoc tech support person for your team? Maybe you’re the one everyone goes to when there’s a last-minute crisis. Taking on a specific role within your team may have boxed you in and now you can’t get out. Whatever hat you normally wear—take it off. Changing how you engage can change how you feel about your work and your colleagues.
5. Have a plan
It can be really hard to stay motivated if you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. Most people stay on the road to nowhere because they haven’t made a map to go anywhere else. Start putting together a plan for how you are going to escape or move into another role or change careers. It could mean going back to school, updating your resume for a lateral move within your company, expanding your professional network.