Could you be at risk of burn-out? If your work involves helping people or making change then you’re at a higher risk of burning out. But anyone who has a high intensity, stressful job is at risk. Find out what the signs of burn-out are and how mindfulness can help you bounce back.

Who is at risk of burn-out?

Anyone in a customer-facing role can find the emotions and demands of their customers to be stressful, but the stress multiplies in jobs that continually involve helping people in distress or trauma. If you work or volunteer in a ‘helping’ or service job like health, counselling, carer, vet, emergency response, or social work, you’re at a much higher risk of burnout.

People who work in environmental change or social activism can also have a high risk of burning out. Trying to change the world is a difficult job because most of the time our efforts as an individual will never be enough to fix the huge social or environmental problems our community faces. What’s more, these issues often seem to grow worse over time as we try to respond to them.

This challenge is close to my heart as I have worked in environmental change and volunteer activism for most of my adult life.  In my 20s I worked full time as an environmental educator for an Australian non-profit on a project that aimed to motivate people to live sustainably – ie to use less energy and water and make less waste. In my youthful optimism I thought I could change the behaviours of all Australians single-handedly. Needless to say I got burnt out after 5 or 6 years and had to take a break to recover.  It was at this point I discovered mindfulness meditation as a way to heal my emotional exhaustion.

I was motivated by my values that it was my responsibility to try to fix the problem that we are using too much of the world’s resources and are running out. And a belief that all people and places on the planet should be looked after equally.

Many of us have strong values and beliefs that drive what we do in our jobs and, while this can make our jobs very satisfying, it can also mean we work too hard and so lack work/life balance. We can also have our whole identity tied up in our job so that success or failure determines how we feel about ourselves or our life.

What are the signs that you might be burning out?

Burn-out is more depleting than simple chronic stress. It can leave you feeling like you’ve “had the life sucked out of you”. Here are some signs:

• Feeling exhausted and unable to perform basic tasks
• Losing motivation in many aspects of your life, both work and social
• Feeling unable to focus or concentrate on tasks
• Feeling empty or lacking emotion
• Losing your passion and drive
• Experiencing conflict in your relationships with co-workers, friends and family
• Withdrawing emotionally from friends and family

Source: au.reachout.com/burnout-or-chronic-stress

How Mindfulness Can Help

Mindfulness and meditation can give you the tools to cope with the unique pressures of your job in five key ways:

1. Stress-reduction exercises can help you let go at the end of the day

First up, mindfulness meditation is a fantastic way to wind down and create some space from your job. It’s super important to avoid dwelling on work issues once you’ve left for the day. So sitting down to meditate can be a great time to allow your mind to process the events of the day and let them go so you can get a good night’s sleep.

TRY THIS: Set yourself down to meditate and begin focusing on the feeling of your breath. Once you settle in, just sit and allow the thoughts of the day to bubble up and pass through. Don’t try and block the thoughts – just let whatever comes up be seen and heard, before you let it go and return to your breath. As each issue or event comes up in your mind just label it and let it go. (If you’ve had a particularly full-on day and feel very wound up, doing a lying down body scan meditation or walking meditation can also help you to relax.)

2. Better awareness of your work-life balance needs is crucial to avoid burn-out

Bringing mindfulness to how you spend your time can be really helpful. Many people who are highly committed to their job lose track of how many hours they are spending on work (especially out of hours) and what other parts of their life are missing out as a result. Over-working can push you towards burn-out because you aren’t looking after other important things – like exercise to keep you healthy, your social life, or your relationships with your partner or children.

TRY THIS: For one week keep a log at the end of each day tracking the breakdown of your day in hours you spent doing work, or doing other key aspects of life such as sleep, exercise, relaxation, time with family or friends and so on. After a week add up the hours of work and of the other components. Is there an imbalance? Can you tweak your schedule to cut down on work hours and increase your relaxation, family or health-focused time?

3. Gaining a more sustainable level of responsibility to the job

A major reason for over-work is that people feel a huge responsibility (and passion) to help others and it’s very hard to say no when asked to do more. However, most people can’t keep on giving to others at that level before it takes such a toll that you have to stop. To keep going in your job over the long term it’s important to draw some boundaries or limits to how much you will do – even if you feel like there is no-one else who can do it.

TRY THIS: On a weekend or holiday (ie when you have some space away from work) write a list of all the work activities that you get asked to do (or choose to do) that are really outside your job role, involve too many hours to fit into your job, or are not high-value activities. Put a circle in red around all the ones that you decide you aren’t going to do anymore and will say no to. At home, practice saying “No” when such requests come up.  When you are at work use your mindfulness practice to notice when you feel resistance to a request – eg your body and mind might tense up or you might feel agitated. These feelings are giving you the signal that it’s time to say No (politely but firmly).

4. Not taking on board other people’s pain or problems

This is a big one if you work in a helping-role, but any kind of service job will face difficult customers. There will always be some people who dish out their own pain onto others as a way to try to fix the hurt they feel inside. For example, an osteopath I met talked about a client with chronic pain getting angry about his pain and blaming the osteopath, who then felt upset by the client’s anger and blame.

TRY THIS: If ever a customer or colleague dishes out their anger or frustration on you, try to make your first reaction empathy for them. This is very difficult when our first feeling is most likely to be hurt. But offering empathy is the best way to defuse their pain (which will then lessen the suffering they are dumping on you!). How do you do this?

(i) When you immediately feel the shock of someone’s anger, try to focus on your heart-space. (ii) Then from the heart, say something to empathise with their pain. Empathy means that we see things from their perspective and recognise their suffering. Eg. “It must be so frustrating for you to deal with that injury and feel there’s nothing that can be done to fix it.”

It’s a bit of a skill but, with practice, the feeling of empathy will feel so much nicer than the feeling of hurt, that it will be a more pleasant way for you to respond anyway!

5. Don’t take the whole world’s problems on your shoulders

Each of us is just one person in 7 billion on the planet. To fix the massive social and environmental problems we face we need millions of us to take positive action and this combined effort will solve problems. Alone you can’t solve very much at all. Great leaders have only achieved real change when they have loads of people working with them to a common goal. So try to reduce the expectations you have on yourself to fix the big problems because, if you don’t, your mind will keep telling you (erroneously) that you haven’t done enough or that you have failed. Which will cause you to burn-out.

TRY THIS: Each day and each week write a list of all the small and large things that you have achieved in your job – even really tiny wins. Stick the list up on your wall at home where you can see it everyday to remind yourself of the great work that you do!

I’m passionate about helping people be more resilient at work, especially if your job involves helping people or making positive change for the world. I run Mindfulness courses and workshops at workplaces just like this. If you think your organization could do with some mindfulness assistance to build staff resilience in their jobs, please contact me!