As someone who has had two serious stress illnesses myself; has also seen the aftermath and heard about what occurred to some other people that succumbed to the pressures of stress – it saddens me to learn that many are putting themselves on a path to burnout.
The good news – Burnout is totally avoidable. Do you love yourself? Do you have compassion for yourself? When you can truly answer YES to those two questions, then you won’t be staring down the barrel of creating any preventable illness.
Here’s a hard hitting question – do you know the exact date of your death? Every day people of all ages (young, old & in between) are dying from all sorts of things. Likewise, many people of all ages are admitted to hospital every day and may even have the opportunity to reflect on their life thus far. What would your current life reflection look like?
So now that I may have given you a little reality check, let’s look at what can be done to fix (or prevent) the situation.
For starters – Know thyself. Understand your values. Understand your ‘life area’ priorities. For help with really knowing your values and priorities, get in touch.
Self Care is very important – Ensure you are actively and consistently practicing a variety of healthy self-care activities.
A good idea is to audit your time – Track your time by recording each half hour (or full hour) on what you were doing in that block of time. Write it all down, honestly.
When you’re clear on what is most important to you, and the duration of certain tasks, a ‘time plan’ can then be created. Similar to a financial budget (use similar principles)… Allocate ‘X’ amount of time according to priorities and commitments. Time-wasting items can be reduced or eliminated.