If you have, or had, a burn-out experience, congratulations! In order for you to have qualified for the burn-out experience you had to experience at least some of the following things deliberately, determinedly over a fairly long period of time:
- My work day is one stream of mostly bad
- If there is any good in the day it is swamped by bad, and obliterated
- White spaces in my work diary must be filled otherwise it is time wasted
- (Source of imbalance between reserves and required input)
- (Caught in activity trap: mentally and physically)
- Uncertainty about do I have what it takes, and allowing the uncertainty to continue
- Ignore the warning signs of stress and tiredness over a long period of time
- (Do not invest: emotional bank account in serious overdraft)
However, even though you have skillfully orchestrated your burnout through false dedication, ignorance and willful sacrifice, your emotional and physical bank account is about to be closed down. Nothing you say will change the mind of the authority. It is a done deal, because “you should have paid attention.” “You are responsible.”
People do not thrive on bad news: it may act as a prompt to action, to problem solving, but it is a poor source for being charged or pumped for a sustainable period of time. Even firefighters frame their job as rescue, winning a fire-framing an event that lends itself to “winning” language and “celebrating success.”
The bigger picture: burn out reflects a severe imbalance between generosity and courage. Of course there would be compelling reasons for working hard: it is the culture of the company, if you want to get ahead this is what you do, if you want to have a job you better do this, etc. Knowing that one is giving under duress might be justified as “being generous” to maintain membership and claim the benefits. Courage would come in when the question is asked: “how do I do this differently, based on what is under my control?” “Is my current way of working an appropriate way of being generous in the work place?” The master craftsperson of burn outs would, of course, firmly delete any ideas about being generous in an appropriate way, and being courageous about it.
A comparison with people who refuse to do the burn out strategy, shows useful differences. They do at least the following two common things:
- Welcome white
- “Don’t fight white”: the more senior you are in the company the more important it is to use thinking//deliberation time during white spaces in your diary. The smart one’s even instruct their PA’s to make it happen deliberately. Here is a clinical reason that support this practice: frequency compensates for size. It is the regularity or frequency of mental breaks that may do the work instead of one big break once a year. These mental “charges” can happen over anything from 15 to 30 minute breaks. It can even happen walking slowly to your next meeting, a phone call to a friend, preparing your favourite cup of tea, etc.
- Source of balance: fill in your family if you live from your diary. If you do not allocate time to them, they simply fall of the plate to make space for work.
- Create your boxes
- Context determines the boundary. This, very simply, is keeping each incident in its own “mental box”. People who are good at managing stress do not allow contexts, especially bad, to overflow into the next event. They have a range of methods that helps them to switch off the effects of an event before entering the next event: slow walks, interrupt activity, change posture and breathing, take a break and by agreement start x minutes late on next event, deliberately change venue and allocate certain events to certain venues, etc.
- Each in its own box
- Contracting future actions: if an event had to be interrupted or is not complete then the conclusion and closing for the moment is to agree on the future actions both for self and others.
- Close the box! Mentally commit to oneself: this now of my mind till it is time to bring it to the fore.
Burn out is a message that being generous is not balanced with the courage of deciding what is appropriate. Being a master at burn out comes with a costly consequence, but it takes two mental strategies to prevent: welcome white and box it.