How To Prevent Burnout!

The Resiliency Guide For Leaders and Professionals!

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” - C.S. Lewis

High-performing professionals burnout. Entrepreneurs, athletes, executives, first responders, medical professionals, teachers, and the list goes on. Burnout happens to leaders from all sectors of society too! No matter how dedicated these professionals are to their profession, there will come a point where they will burnout.

Let’s keep it real—burnout is real.

According to the WebMD website, “Burnout happens when you're overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to keep up with life's incessant demands.”

How do you manage daily deadlines, pressures, and expectations to perform?

How do you lead those who are relying on you to stay on a steady course?

How do you not just survive, but thrive? RESILIENCY.

First, you choose to find a way. That is a step towards reframing your thoughts. More on that in a moment.

Second, you allow yourself to develop a resiliency mindset. A resiliency mindset will allow you to adapt to challenges, navigate the unknown, perform under stress, and bounce back and recover from stressors. Having a resilient mindset will also allow you to have a sense of purpose grounded in your values and strengths, as well as prepared and resourced for the unknown. So how do you exactly do this? These four skills will prepare you to conquer stress and burnout, and lead others and your organization to success.

1) Identify Your Values and Strengths

This is the foundational resiliency skill. Doing this will provide you with a sense of meaning and satisfaction, and provides optimism for the future. Knowing your values and strengths will also help you set values-based goals which will allow you to persevere as you pursue these goals.

2) Reframe Your Thoughts

As I mentioned earlier, reframing is a great way to reset the situation you are facing. It may not make your problems go away (or it might), but it will help you find a solution, or better yet, you realize the problem is not as troublesome as you believed. If it sounds easier than it should be, it really is. Take a deep breath, examine the situation, and control your emotional reaction. This will put you in the best mindset to solve the problem.

3) Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about focus, being present in the moment, and engaged. It is closely related to reframing, as these two skills go hand in hand. Adopting regular breathing exercises, yoga, or a meditation practice will go a long way toward cultivating mindfulness.

4) Gratitude

Yes, simply expressing gratitude will help you develop resiliency and weather burnout or challenges you will encounter. Sharing what is good in your life with others will help you focus on the positive. Celebrating others' good news is just as impactful. As a leader, you will help cultivate a resilient organizational culture by demonstrating this practice around your team.

Becoming more resilient doesn’t mean challenges and problems go away, but…

As leaders, these tools can be used to help you become your best self—the leader your people deserve! These practical tools can also be shared with those you serve.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on resiliency, burnout, stress, and/or leadership below.

Thanks for reading this edition!