Category: Burnout

Low battery! The alert pops up on your phone after you have been scrolling Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and the many different social media platforms. You may have intended to only spend 5 minutes scrolling which has turned into 15 minutes and then to an hour. You look up at the time and realize how long you have spent scrolling.

You may feel drained from scrolling and seeing all the different things that the people you follow are doing while you watched from a screen. You may feel unplugged from the world you are living in and in the world that social media is sharing with you. You might suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) or get jealous of the things that other people are doing. It is easy to start comparing our lives to others while scrolling. Most of what we see on social media is
created and not the reality of the people on the other side of the phone. We realize that we have been staring at our screens for hours on end. When ...

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Becoming a 'Human Being' vs. a 'Human Doing'

When I was in college, I had a thoughtful professor who hated the 'b' word; as in 'busy.' He would say that too often people use the word 'busy' to describe how they have been and he didn’t understand why people felt the need to let others know that they had a ton going on. He also noted that the phrase 'being busy,' doesn’t actually describe how a person is feeling. I found this profound to think about. Why is it that some people feel the need to always be so busy and to let others know that they’re busy?

The way we choose to live our lives will shape who we become. Often that requires deep reflection of our habits and the kinds of relationships we are choosing to allow in our life. However, one of the greatest barriers to this deeper reflection is 'busyness.'

A lot of people recognized their addiction to busyness d ...

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We go into every day with a set capacity. When we think of that capacity, many of us view it as having 100% to give every day. If we can do that, we are successful. If we do that, we’ve done all we can. If we do that, we can count the day as a win.

Some of us don’t think that’s enough. Some of us think that in order to truly give everything that we have on a given day, we need to give 120%. That would mean that we’ve done enough to view the day as a success. The problem with this mindset is that we have set ourselves up to operate at a daily deficit. Every day we are giving 20% beyond what we have, and inevitably it catches up.

 

Now, here is the kicker. I think the idea that we have 100% to give is a myth. Everyday when we wake up there are things that already take  away from our capacity. Maybe I’m really overwhelmed at work and that takes 20% of my energy. Maybe I got in a fight with my partner ...

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As a society, we are in a strange time of adjusting to the new normal after a long and arduous couple of years. I know that the term burnout has been tossed around a lot and even just reading it can be triggering, but I wanted to take some time to go over what the symptoms are and what the antidote can be. Burnout symptoms can include, an overwhelming feeling of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, detachment from work, and poor performance (InformedHealth.org, 2020). Exhaustion can seep into your bones and permeate all areas of your life. Detachment from work can cause even the simplest of tasks to seem overwhelming and daunting, decision making can be impaired, and you may feel unable to continue to manage your normal workload. The inability to perform at a normal level can affect work, home, and social life. You may become excessively negative, have poor concentration, and feel a sense of brain fog which is pervasive and lingers (InformedHeal ...

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