Personal growth: How to know and address career burnout

Careers are often fulfilling experiences. They help us put food on the table and even find meaning in our lives. But careers are also demanding undertakings, prone to phases of burnout, which unless addressed, can become chronic and rebound to negatively affecting the quality of both professional and personal lives. Burnout often shows in the form of mental and physical exhaustion and lack of excitement about work, and has unfortunately been called the epidemic of the modern workplace. But how can one nip burnout in the bud?

First of all, burnout is normal. It is only natural that one’s energy levels will need to be recharged every once in a while. Research shows that conditions such as excessive workloads, unrealistic time pressures, and a toxic work environment can cause burnout. While organizations have a role to play in making these conditions more favorable, what can the affected individual do on their part?

Workplace community

The nature and content of the day-to-day office interactions matter. One must carefully scrutinize the kind of social networks they form in the office and see: what energy do the networks dissipate? What energy does the individual bring to the network? The goal for a good workplace community is for it to be supportive, inspiring and transparent. One that challenges you to be better, rather than surrounding you with destructive competition and gossip.

Digital fatigue

We currently live in a world which is more digitized than ever before. Digital devices have overloaded us with entertainment and information. Without being intentional in moderating our levels of digital exposure, digital fatigue will exacerbate job burnout. Many people spend their downtime from work on their phones and TV screens, considering that as relaxing. However, in order to overcome burnout, a proper down time requires putting digital devices away for a while and properly winding down. Digital devices are designed to grab our attention and make everything feel urgent. But the sense of satisfaction that can come from engaging offline in a hobby or an interesting activity such as a board game with family or friends, can leave you with more energy than the avalanche of information on digital media.

Do more of what you ‘want’ to do

In many cases, we do our jobs because we have to, even when we don’t want to. And if one does not make a conscious effort to spice things up with some passion activities; burnout is a very real risk. This may mean having some activities outside work which are more aligned with your passions, or finding and focusing more on the aspects of your job that align with your personal values.

Some big companies like Google and Facebook for example, encourage their employees to participate in passion projects and hackathons, as a way to let them work on something that they want to. While these are some things organizational leaders can consider, efforts at the individual level can go a long way. When burnout hits and persists, a good place to start is evaluating the number of tasks one says “yes” to and see which of those could do with a “no”. This is important because excessive workload and hence burnout can be a result of selling yourself short; saying “yes” to too many things.

In summary, sustaining and excelling in a career requires the ability to perform at your best over the long term. As such, the crux of overcoming burnout is finding ways to “put fuel back in your tank” and striking a level of optimal effort that can be sustained over the long term, rather than the proverbial “nguvu ya soda”.

Epiphania Kimaro writes about careers, leadership, and issues affecting youth and women