Burnout: a creative wake up call
Have you ever been in a situation where it seems you’re doing too much and you can’t wait for the day to end so you can sleep? Oh, what irony. You wake up to repeat the same cycle and that’s if you ever get to sleep. Day in and day out, you repeat these activities.
Unknowingly, you are exposing yourself to burnout. You won’t know until it crawls on you. Burnout is a term coined by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s to describe a high-stress syndrome that causes physical, mental, and emotional tiredness.
The high stress in this case is work.
I know what it’s like. I’ve been tasked with writing articles, creating content, managing social media pages, communicating with clients and planning programs, all of this and I still have to find a “Me” time.
Listing my activities out doesn’t seem like much work but trust me, I’ve got enough tasks to go around.
I kept at it diligently, I was always working, and there was always something that needs to be done or fixed. I invited my friend over to my place but she didn’t enjoy her stay because I was engrossed with work. I barely listened to her when she talks to me and when I do, I respond half-heartedly.
Then it began.
I started losing interest in my work. I couldn’t come up with content. Thinking became an effort, I just want to curl up somewhere and sleep but who will do the tasks I have listed?
I didn’t know what was happening, things I could do so well, I could no longer do them. I was close to having a nervous breakdown. I became lost in myself, I wasn’t talking to anyone, I just want to be left alone. What is going on? I checked Google for answers and search results almost gave me a heart attack.
However, talking to colleagues made me realize I was going through my burnout stage. Knowing there’s a name for it reduced my blood pressure. I was given tips on how to get over it.
- Exercise
- Delegation
- Good sleep
- Balanced diet
Of all the tips I was given, delegating tasks worked well for me. I reached out to my team members and assigned writing tasks and content creation to them. Heavens, it made my life easier. I could now have “Me” time.
Praise the Good Lord. It created time for personal tasks. I could focus on personal development as well. I understood the concept of delegation more when I read the Bible, Exodus 18.
Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, saw how Moses was attending to the Israelites, presiding over their affairs and telling them God’s messages for them, he introduced Moses to delegation.
Moses being the smart man that he was accepted this advice and was able to focus on other things. Imagine attending to hundreds of thousands of people. Moses will probably be exhausted to his teeth. I just can’t imagine the mental and emotional stress.
You should try out these tips to avoid burnout. Foluke, you can delegate tasks, you are just being stubborn. Try it. Start trusting your team to do a good job or even better than you will.