What is Burnout and How to Avoid It.

Burnout is one of those things that tends to creep up on you, often without you realizing it.  When it does it can significantly affect your mind and body, causing complete exhaustion, anxiety and often causes depression. If you dont stop burnout before it takes hold, it can lead to more serious issues such as heart attacks or strokes.  As I said, often we do not even see it coming. A few things to be conscious of:

Take a serious look at your Workload. Be realistic about the hours you are putting in at work. Also take into account how many hours you are working without taking a break as this will contribute to burnout.  Remember when it is break time, you must take it, take time away from your job to relax your mind and body, even if it is only a short ten minute break. Breaks are necessary to refresh and rejuvenate your mind. Go for a walk, read a book, or just remove yourself from your source of tension for a few minutes.

Next, be critical of your time management techniques.  I know from my own experience, I would tend to be working on one task and then move to an email when it came in, then back to the task etc. You must learn to work efficiently, complete tasks before moving on, avoid interruption in order to do so and you will find you achive more in less time.

Be in tune with your body and know when you are reaching overload or exhaustion. Look for the warning signs and think through what you can do to avoid things getting worse.  It may be that you need to take a day off, or a weekend away or simply spend time at home relaxing both your mind and body, away from the telephone and the computer.  Work out what it is you need to do in order to take time out to recharge! If you find that you take a short vacation or a day off only to find the old feelings welling up again, then perhaps its time for a re-evaluation of where you are in life, and perhaps a life change is necessary to avoid burnout altogether.

I think the single most important thing you must do if you are to avoid burnout is to learn the art of saying NO. It is great to be accomodating and helpful however not if it is at the expense of your own health.  Quite simply nothing is that important if it comprimises your health to that degree.

For quite sometime I worked overseas with a lot of international travel thrown in. I was expectected to put in the long hours, jump on a plane and head off overseas for a week, then back again and into the 60 hour working week.  Unfortunately I didnt see the warning signs until it was too late.  It took a complete re-evaluation of my life and where I was at and to make some serious life changes before my health suffered more than it already had.  Once you reach burnout believe me, its difficult to work your way back from it.

Michael Licenblat, an Australian who devoted a large part of his life to people as a Shiatsu Massage Therapist with a Bachelor of Science (Psychology), has put together an excellent ebook on recognizing and relieving stresses and pressures whilst increasing your productivity.  Well worth the read and I only wish I had read it sooner!  Get your copy here. Click Here!

By MaryAnn Roche.

Stress Management – Is a Change Really as Good as a Holiday?
Do you think a change is as good as a holiday?
Well, it is and it isn’t – here’s why…………

My Nanna used to say “a change is as good as a holiday”.
I never paid attention as I didn’t really get it!

I remember the first time I heard “A change is as good as a rest.” They weren’t wise words from my Nanna, or part of an expensive motivational seminar – I heard it on a cartoon that my children were watching. It has stayed with me ever since, and I have put it to work in my life when I have felt tired, stressed or just plain bored.

How many times do you hear yourself say “I need a holiday!”? Your life is busy with routines – work, school, laundry, bringing the kids to all of their activities, so it’s no wonder that you feel hassled, stressed or on a running wheel that you can’t seem to get off of.

For some people, just the word “change” can be really stressful. They associate it with major events, like having to get a new job, a household move or an event that requires a major effort on their part.

But there are many changes that we can make that can refresh us on a daily basis, some serious and others fun. Many of the options for change are not things that we even normally consider a “change,” but they are things we can do to refresh our daily lives and maintain the balance we need.

Maybe your job seems boring, or your daily schedule seems endlessly tiring. You tell yourself you need a vacation, or convince yourself that you just need to get away from it all. But guess what? It’s all there when you come back, and all of that blissful feeling of well being ends in the first meeting at work, or even in the first hectic morning back in the routine.

We all need to find the basic qualities that make our lives fulfilling and meaningful. These become the elements of our lives – the fundamental components that make us whole. Recognizing these elements is not enough – the key is to find the balance that reflects the importance and priorities of our lives.

To achieve lasting stress management, we need to change the way we think about things. Once you know what’s important to you and focus on it, you will achieve more and be happier.

Once you are happier, things won’t stress you out like they used too!
Of course a holiday is great! It’s time to get away from the norm and have a bucket load of fun! Let your hair down and relax – now there’s a bit of short term stress management for you!

If you want that stress free feeling to continue when you return home to your life and your job, you need to focus on what’s really important to YOU and You Only!

Here are a few basic ways that you can start to achieve some Life Balance.

This will be the start of the Life Balance topic on this site and I will add to this series in the near future!

Are you stressed, frazzled and just have way too much going on? Well, I think you may be able to use some tips on life balance and how to get it!

Click here to take control of your life and learn ways to thrive, not just survive.

So, what do you do or what can you do to find some life balance? It really doesn’t involve major changes. You don’t have to make any life altering decisions, run away from your family, or quit your job and move to a stranded island. The first step of balancing out your life begins within you, regardless of what is happening on the outside.

These three tips will start you off in the right direction to finding some life balance:

1) Time for yourself- When people are busy with life, they end up sacrificing personal time. Parents are busy taking care of children, people are focused on their careers and job obligations, studies, taking care of others, and taking care of the home and domestic responsibilities. You just cant find any time for yourself when this sort of stuff is happening. Always being busy with demands sucks all of your energy and makes you feel burdened and stressed out.

To get a balanced life, you have to find some time for yourself. For example, being able to go to a quiet room and curl up with a good book will give you some of that quiet time for yourself that you need. If you make time for yourself, you will find yourself having more energy and feeling better. This is also a great stress relief strategy – try it, you’ll like it.

Calming down is easy when you know how – Find out how here!

2) Take care of yourself- Besides making some time just for yourself, you also need to be taking care of yourself. Are you getting a decent sleep every night? I crumble if I dont! Getting enough sleep is very important because not getting enough can have a negative effect on your mood and your health. Also make sure you are eating well, getting exercise, and being kind to yourself.

Its easy for things to fall in a heap when you are tired and stressed, and easy to make mountains out of molehills too. If you are taking good care of yourself and are well rested, then you will be able to handle things much better without having them turn into a crisis. When you take care of yourself, you feel better, have more energy, and restore your spirit.

3) Be flexible- Don’t hold onto rigid expectations because real life rarely turns out the way you had it all planned in your head. Its fine to have expectations, but make sure you are flexible when dealing with the outcomes. If you had a picture of how everything was supposed to be and expect everything to go according to plan, you will get stressed and upset when things go differently.

Having a flexible mind set will really help with stress. Make sure that your flexibility is alive and that you are capable of being happy even if things dont go exactly to plan. Just discard all preconceived notions of how you thought everything was supposed to be.

Stress Less with this self paced program – Easy, Helpful Techniques!
Making these changes within you will help a lot with balancing out your life and feeling better. Of course, you should also examine what’s going on in your outside life too and see what improvements and changes you can make. If someone is putting unrealistic pressures on you, for example a family member is expecting you to do way too much for them, you will also need to deal with that by having a straight forward talk with them and by telling them you are too stressed out with pressure.

Prioritize if you have too much to deal with and your energy is being zapped! There are many things that can wait so just do the things you must. Life Balance is a big topic to cover but I will be touching on several Life Balance topics over the next few weeks.

I think I have a great life balance going on and I would need to – with 7 kids, an offline business, 2 online businesses, university study, a big house and the list goes on!
Come back soon and read more in my series on life balance – have a great day!