With all the back and forth of expectations and effort the past two years, “burnout” has become a buzzword worthy of its overuse. Those experiencing burnout are also more likely to report anxiety and depression.
In my talk, The Psychology of Returning, I discuss Pandemic Burnout as encompassing more than just chronic work-related stress. Never before have the causes of our emotional exhaustion been shared by so many. And, much as the way we are recovering from the unique ways things have been difficult for each of us, burnout recovery has some key features you’ll want to customize to your situation.
There are two areas from our burnout graphic I’d like to review today: Meaning and Purpose and Work Match to Skill Set.
Identify Areas of Focus
First, you’ll want to scan your life areas (I visualize a pie chart with all the components of my life in it: work, family, health etc) and find the areas that need attention. Are there parts of your life that once were rewarding and have lost that effect? Parenting and other important relationships should be included here.
At Loyal Blue we are a solution-focused practice, so we think it’s less important to seek answers to why these areas became less rewarding and instead pay attention to what matters about them now.
Rediscover Meaning & Purpose With This Clarifying Question
You may feel burned out (“ready to quit”) on certain parenting duties, or with a particular work relationship or task. Ask yourself instead: What matters about this relationship or situation now? Does it just matter that you finish the task using a “good enough” approach? Does your kid just need to get to school on time even if they are in pajamas?
As you will notice from the graphic, the core of recovering from burnout is rediscovering our meaning and purpose in the area that has lost its energy. Asking yourself what matters about the specific area that needs attention is the best tool to be able to clarify its meaning and purpose.
Is it keeping a child safe?
Is it just getting a task completed?
Is it prioritizing rest or nutrition?
Whatever matters now about the area you feel burned out in is its meaning and purpose. This can change when you get more bandwidth (more may matter…but for now you want just just the vital organs taken care of).
What Is Work Match To Skill Set?
This is my favorite and most under-appreciated cause of burnout. Pandemic burnout occurred for so many of us due to the unfamiliar hats we were wearing when tasked with pandemic changes. We became teachers for our zoom-ed out children. We became self-diagnosers for tele-health appointments. We became essential workers when this was not at all what we signed up for in any of these critical duties.
When we are performing tasks that we do not have the skill to perform, we may become burned out.
Have you had to cover some roles or projects at work that aren’t quite suited for you? For example, do your friends vent to you but you don’t have any special therapeutic skills that arm you with resilience? Have you had to cover duties at home or work that feel hard every single time?
A fail in work match to skill set happens in parenting all the time. Did you receive a parenting handbook when leaving the hospital? Me neither. Hate chasing kids to bed? Dread what it takes getting out the door? Melt in the face of geometry and the homework nudge every day?
Do you wish communicating with teenagers came with a manual?
Over and over when we face tasks that we did not receive training in (ever notice how preschool teachers and nannies hardly ever report these problems?!) then we can easily get burned out.
The solutions for burnout due to poor Work Match to Skill Set are:
- Delegate those tasks if you can. Trade with a partner who doesn’t mind as much.
- Get educated. Seek training, crowd-source, experiment, practice.
- Give yourself compassion and grace. You weren’t meant to be a home school teacher. You’re learning Google Slides the hard way. You are doing the best you can.
Cycling into a burnout phase in your life can be rapid or a slow walk. You can learn from this time for the future with hopes that you won’t feel this way next semester, or next tax season, or whatever the moment may be. But you will never go wrong with rediscovering your meaning and purpose, and equipping yourself with skills for the tasks at hand!
