Have you by any chance had this thought at some point in the last six months at work- ‘I can’t keep going at this pace’?

If you have, do you know what it’s telling you and more importantly, do you know what to do about it?

Most likely it’s telling you that you’re on the slippery slope to burnout.

Like the boiling frog analogy that we all know so well*, burnout rarely arrives suddenly. It builds gradually, bit by bit.

In doing so, the nervous system starts synching to the pace, adapting to the increasing demands so incrementally that the warning signs become the ‘new normal’ leaving us none the wiser.

Indeed, the most dangerous part of burnout is not how bad it feels. It’s how normal it comes to feel.

Put simply, chronic workplace stress will leave you with a real sense of physical and emotional depletion – yep exhaustion; you’ll become cynical and detached, and your sense of competence and accomplishment will take a serious nosedive.

Not a nice place to end up.

Let me stress though that burnout isn’t a sign that you’re weak. It isn’t a sign that you’re not resilient enough. Nor is it a sign that you’ve got some kind of character flaw.

It is however an actual neurological and physiological condition with measurable markers, including inflammatory markers, reduced grey matter, chronic cortisol issues, immune dysregulation and much, much more…the list is long, trust me and it will set you back bigtime.

This matters — because if you think it’s a problem with motivation, you’ll try to solve it with motivational solutions. It isn’t. And you won’t.

How about better time management? Will it fix it? Nope. Time is a fixed resource — we all have 24 hours.

So, what will?

The answer lies in better energy management. Energy is renewable — but only if you manage the renewal deliberately.

So, imagine you have 4 separate energy batteries or domains that are essential for capacity building and maintenance. Let’s briefly look at what they are and how they can become drained:

  • The first is PHYSICAL energy and it’s super important as it’s foundational to the other 3 and can be depleted by poor sleep, poor nutrition, lack of movement and no recovery.
  • Next up is EMOTIONAL energy, easily depleted by conflict, feeling isolated and suppressing your emotions.
  • The third is MENTAL energy, which can be decimated by multitasking, decision fatigue and constant interruption…you get my drift.
  • The final energy domain is PURPOSE. This can be drained if values aren’t in synch with goals, you’re disconnected from the mission and the work you’re doing is meaningless.

So, here’s an idea – take thirty seconds to consider which of the above feels most depleted right now. When did you last deliberately invest in renewing it?

And might I stress that rest or recovery is not laziness. It’s physiology, remember?

It’s about creating 5 sustainable habits on a micro, daily, weekly and periodic basis.

Can I leave you with one to ponder today and play with over the next 2 weeks? It’s a great place to start…

Do an energy audit and note energy-giving vs. draining activities daily. See what patterns emerge over the period. Use a simple traffic light system, if it helps.

Know too that EFT/Tapping is a super tool to employ as it works on neurological and physiological markers, including down regulation of the nervous system.

Clinically proven to lower cortisol, might I mention that a randomized controlled triple blind study by Stapleton (2019) showed that a group doing one hour of tapping on something that was stressing them in their lives reduced their cortisol levels by 43.5% as opposed to a group receiving psycho-education for an hour on the nature of stress (19% reduction) versus a group who sat for an hour reading magazines whose cortisol levels rose by 2%. Go figure!

So, if you’d like to know more about what EFT is and how to get your hands on it, get in touch!

In the meantime, till next time…here’s to plugging in and recharging,

*The frog analogy above describes how a frog placed in cold water that is slowly heated won’t notice the gradual temperature rise and will stay put until it’s boiled alive. Apparently, this is false as real frogs do jump out, but the analogy persists!