When you get to the point where you start having philosophical discussions with yourself about “what does it all mean?”  and “is this really the end all be all to my life?”, it is a sure sign that you are reaching your limit and job burnout is creeping up fast. 

These are definitely questions that we should all be asking ourselves—it is the only way we will really be able to find happiness in our very short lives.  By the time most people start to ask themselves these questions they are past a point of healthy discovery and rolling towards stress, anxiety and depression. 

Some people are better than others when it comes to resolving the rift between real life commitments and personal well-being.  Other people are much more aware of the discrepancies between these two worlds and tend to take longer to overcome job burnout when it raises its nasty head.  There are a few things to keep in mind when you feel you are quickly approaching a flare up.

Create Your Strategy:  Call it a strategy, a plan, a vision, whatever term you want to use.  You should do some real soul searching regarding your life and all of the intricacies in it.  Some of the questions you should ask yourself are “what makes me happy?”, “how does my career fit into my life?”, and even “at the end of my life, what would I regret not doing?”. This should be a continuing work in progress.  Sometimes the answers are not easy to develop or come to terms with, but really are necessary.  When you feel yourself in a job burnout slump you need to pull out your strategy and review.  Remind yourself of your goals.  At times, you may need to revise some of your goals.  Think of your strategy as your anchor; reminding you that you will weather this storm.

Divide and Conquer: During times of job burnout, it is very important that you take measures to ensure you have a definite line between work and personal life.  Today the line between these two worlds is very blurry for many of us.  There is just so much work to do and not enough time.  But if you are reaching a job burnout threshold, you have to cut it back and give yourself some mental clarity time.  Your work production will decrease during times of job burnout anyways, so don’t waste your time trying to trudge through it.

Determine if a Permanent Shift is Necessary: Most job burnout will cease after you give yourself some time to recoup, but if you feel like its persistence is too great then perhaps it is time to re-evaluate things.  Keep referring back to your strategy and figure out what it is that is out of whack.  It may be that a permanent shift in your career path is needed.

Life and especially work is not always roses and sunshine.  We all hit rough spots, but having resilience to bounce back is key.  I say this over and over again…..life is just too short to waste it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Work/Life Balance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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