Enjoy Beating Burnout

Sustained success in business today is about being able to stay on top, keeping one step ahead of the competition, being capable of thinking outside the square, making the unthinkable profitable. Every person in the organisation needs constantly to be on the cutting edge of change. The pressure is unrelenting. The downside is that long-term, sustained stress is beginning to hurt. The signs of burnout are growing.

Burnout has been described as “a reaction to longer-term energy-depleting difficulties with three broad interrelated processes. The person:

* feels emotionally exhausted,
* feels a lack of concern for customers and client groups, and
* is beset by a sense of reduced personal accomplishment.”

Sound familiar?

The 2005 Hudson Report on Burnout in Australia gave the findings from a survey of 7 800 employers across Australia. More than one in three employers are seeing signs of increased levels of burnout… as high as 43% in the ACT public sector. Indicators included a rise in the number of sick days taken, declining levels of productivity, and the number of employees leaving an organisation specifically for a career change.

Bryan Gurry, in his report of March 2005 on psychological health aspects of Victoria’s new Occupation Health and Safety Act, states that stress related claims have increased in Australia over the past five years. In Victoria, stress claims represented approximately 8% of total claims for the period July 2000 to June 2003. This is a dramatic increase from 1997-98 stress claims, which represented 1.5% of total claims lodged.

Burnout need not be an issue however. The great business people maintain a positive state of mind, predominantly feeling good about themselves, enjoying high self-esteem, self-confidence and a strong sense of self worth. This feeling is sourced from a sense of being “energised” (invigorated, revitalised). The feeling doesn’t happen by chance but by identifying and nurturing energy sources that can be tapped at will.
Energy Demand

Many business people say they are energised by their job. To depend solely on job satisfaction as an energising source, however, suggests a highly unbalanced lifestyle. Like the prudent financial investor who diversifies investments, the wise person develops alternative sources of energising for reasons of life balance and to provide meaningful breaks from the constant stresses of business and personal life. What if the ability to work is lost for any reason? Alternative interests are needed that give regular, stress-free, life-enriching experiences.
Energy Supply

The work ethic has a lot to answer for – not because it dignified work but because it devalued leisure. For too long leisure has been regarded as idle time, consigned to the weekend, to be pursued only if and when work and all the other so-called “more important things of life” are completed. The artificially dividing phrase “work life balance “ implies that we “work” for five days (or more) and “live” for two days (or less). Paradoxically though, work life balance would have us put leisure into that part of the week referred to as life! In fact, we of course live for seven days wearing different hats all the time – and leisure interests form an integral part of the total week.

Let’s probe a little further this concept of leisure or recreation (the words are interchangeable here). For each of us the best leisure interest is:

* Freely chosen by the individual
* fulfilling unique personal mind, body and spirit needs, and
* able to be built into a busy 24/7 week lifestyle

Pursuing a personal recreational interest for no other reason than the intrinsic pleasure/ fun / enjoyment it generates is the most natural, sustainable and freely-accessible personal energy source available.

A friend of mine, when asked “what do you do for energy? ” replied “I go to the gym three times a week”. When asked, “what do you do to energise yourself?” she immediately responded “I belong to a tap dancing group”. The subconscious criteria were quite different in assessing the two questions. What is the difference?

The tap dancing group was undertaken for enjoyment, socialising with people of a similar interest, developing a new skill, being creative in learning dance steps. These fostered my friend’s self esteem, self-confidence and self worth. The gym activity was primarily aimed more specifically at her (highly important!) physical health.

“Lose yourself in something you love doing and you find yourself” . A recreational interest that is so engrossing that you forget all else while you do so calls on – consciously or subconsciously – everything in your being…skills, abilities, talents, loves, joys, experiences, emotions and principles. The right interest for you can be physical, intellectual, social, environmental, or even spiritual. Suddenly we realise the incredible range of benefits these experiences offer – not just during the experience itself but carrying on into the rest of the week.

An immediate benefit is stress relief. The ‘ flight’ part of the “fight and flight” syndrome. Life’s problems are put on hold for the time being, often to re-surface with less intensity (sometimes even resolved!) as a result of the recreational experience giving a new perspective on life. In the bigger picture the freedom of self, expressed through the recreational interests, touches our realms of self-esteem, self-confidence, self worth, positive outlook, creativity, imagination, and all the other qualities that go to make the good things in life better. Aren’t these the qualities that every manager wants to see in their staff?
Energy Management

Time managers talk about working smarter not harder as we try to pack everything into a 24/7 existence. In fact we now have to live smarter, not harder. Time management needs to be replaced with a program of energy management, in which we determine priorities for allocating our energies and creating a sustained supply of new energy.

Consider again the afore-mentioned great business people who are always energised in their work. So often they will tell you of their joys of losing themselves in a non-work interest. One prominent person identified listening to opera (live or recorded) as his energising interest. The interest goes beyond passive watching (eg television) to an engrossed involvement of mind, body and spirit – often referred to as a state of flow. Clearly it does not necessarily require joining a club or even allocating a set time every week. It is up to the individual to prioritise their energy allocation during the 24/7 week – the yin and yang of a constant energy flow - in and out.
Work Leisure International

The ‘energising power of personal interests away from work’ approach forms the basis of Peter Nicholls’ work in helping companies to better manage the risk of workcover claims through stress, burnout and other psychological illnesses. The beauty of his approach is that it goes much further, pro-actively embracing personal growth and skill development, enhancing the capacity of staff to maintain their position at the cutting edge of change.

Enjoy Beating Burnout - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Nicholls's Website.

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