What is professional burnout? Let me simplify it for you. Every profession has some expectations to be met. When you cannot come up to the expected level, you end up with either walking away or quitting your job. This is caused by work-related stress.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a disease caused by the work-related stress. Due to this stress, you normally get exhausted that leads you to poor performance. It may even cause you mental distancing from the work place. Many external factors at the workplace can stimulate this kind of stress in you. A number of times you come across with opposing circumstances at your workplace when you get inundated with the negative thoughts. You simply cannot cope with that situation. For instance at your workplace, there are times when your working philosophy does not match up with the working principles, sometimes your hard work or efforts are not acknowledged or sometimes you have to bottle up your intense emotions related to your work.
It has been suggested to adopt 5 ways i.e. sleep, exercise, laugh, socialize and start saying ‘no’ to avoid work burnout. In another article, it is suggested to recognize the symptoms… seek guidance…redefine the personal objective to avoid work-related stress. More or less, there are similar suggestions given by different authors from time to time. Therefore, I would like to contribute a little with some interpretation of mine.
Let me give you a magic formula to handle this kind of stress at your workplace. Escaping a situation or quitting your job may not give favorable outcome to every individual. If you want your working philosophy guide you, if you want your efforts to be acknowledged and if you want to give words to your thoughts.., there is only one formula for that. You need to be more mindful and less distracted. Being mindful means to be aware of what is happening to you without getting judgmental so you could respond accordingly.
I believe every disease pops up with a healthy cure or every problem comes with a right solution. You just need to be a little creative and focused for an answer to the puzzle that is handed over to you at your workplace. Therefore, you need to adopt self-care strategies to exhibit the positive mental health to the outside world. If you learn this art, you can easily overcome any kind of stress that is built up at the workplace due to any reason.
How to stay more mindful and less distracted at workplace?
Staying mindful demands such profession to be chosen that you enjoy having
Enjoying your work and thinking outside the box are so dovetailed that you cannot even imagine to separate them. If you enjoy your work, you naturally start thinking out of the box. Moreover, ease comes your way when you want to bring your work to the next level. The deeper you go into your profession for learning, the more competent you are in your profession. Whereas staying inside the box can never let you see what is exactly outside the box. Moreover, it cannot give you pleasure. Instead, it builds up fears and insecurities in you. That is why you feel at ease when you are not challenging yourself. This is the point when you are actually making yourself vulnerable to people’s objection.
Here I present my anecdote for better understanding. ‘Out of the box’ thinking forced me as a teacher to call my students out in the school’s backyard for doing a writing activity related to science subject in an English class. However, it was not an easy task when working outside the classroom has never been a norm there. Even then I experimented. Some observations were gathered by my students and that data was sent in the form of a blog post to the Global Biodiversity Blog. Don’t think that no one is observing you or your efforts go waste. The only thing is to find a better platform and audience to showcase your efforts when you start enjoying your work.
You will be less distracted if you know your working philosophy
If your objective is only to say ‘yes’ to everything, then you don’t need much effort except nodding your head at every order that you have to carry out. But if your objective is not only improving yourself but empowering others too, you need a proper planning. Because ‘out of the box’ thinking is no tea party. It gives the co-workers insecurities; they have a fear that the same will be imposed on them by the administration if your ‘out of the box’ thinking works. And if it fails, they get a chance to have a good laugh. Both ways you are troubled so you have to get ready for such heavy repercussions.
Charity begins from home so does the improvement. After being aware of your working philosophy, start working on that by bringing improvement to your working strategies. Generally speaking, we stop doing effort when we are not being praised at our work place which is absolutely a wrong approach. Our objective must be bigger than only being praised or noticed by our co-workers or the administration. While you are thinking out of the box, your co-workers may laugh at you. But don’t waste time giving ears to their laughter. Keep working hard to make a real space for yourself. By the end of the journey, no organization needs only the gossipers for sustaining its status. That is the point when your hard work and loyalty to the organization pay off.
You will stay mindful if you are connected to a bigger audience
Bigger audience either encourages you or informs you about your shortcomings with a constructive criticism. The co-workers that you work with, may not provide you with the right support at the right time that you are looking for. Because you are in process of becoming….sometimes you gain or sometimes you lose. So the people you are working with may not show that much patience towards you.
When you are in the process of becoming, you need to showcase your work so you can use platforms like face book page, instagram, whatsapp or pinterest etc. to get engaged with like-minded people. Publishing a new post of your work on daily/weekly/monthly basis is similar to the way you are journaling your work or writing your diary entry. That is the first step that you must take after figuring out your objective as well as working philosophy.
You will be less distracted if you start journaling your achievements or failures
You have occupational burnout when you bottle up your intense feelings related to work. You can release the pressure that is built up in your brain through journaling. Make a record of your achievements or failures for reflection. No one is perfect so you must manage time to reflect on your work experience and find ways to improve some of the practices. Sometimes the truth at your workplace is so harsh that you cannot quote it directly. In that case you can express your point of view through poetry. The only thing is to release stress related to work, no matter what medium you choose to relax yourself.
Whatever new you try at your workplace, make an account of that with a suggestive tone for the newbies, explaining its pros and cons to them. Start writing articles for any magazine to make your voice heard and counted. This writing practice will make you realize that you have a worthwhile contribution to your work. Such behavior is developed in you due to intrinsic motivation. When you reach that level, you do not need any external reward for completing any task at your workplace. Working on this magic formula, you can easily maintain positive mental health.
