Warning Signs You’re About to Burn Out at Work
What is the first thing you do at the start of every workday? Do you grab a cup of coffee? Do you chat with colleagues? Do you check your mailbox? Or do you scroll the Facebook News Feed?
Wait a minute, is it about your work?
The successful workday is not about the total number of hours worked; it’s about the amount of job get done. While many people don’t know how to split their time and energy between work and life, they often fail at keeping a work-life balance, so the number of people who face burnout is growing.
No matter what your profession is, you may have heard about burnout (or even experienced it). However, let’s understand what it means scientifically:
What is burnout?
In 1974, the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger defined burno as “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.”
In plain English, burnout is the emotional and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress at work. Working long hours, dealing with tough deadlines, and toxic work environment are just a few reasons for work stress.
The effects of burnout
Believe it or not, anyone can experience job burnout. According to the book The Happiness Track, around 50% of workers burn out. The mental impact of burnout can be serious as it has long-term consequences.
As specified in Kahill report, burnout often leads to poor physical health, depression, turnover, unproductive work behaviors, and reduced job satisfaction. It means burning out can prevent workers from climbing the career ladder.
Another study by Armita Golkar, Ph.D., at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden states that burnout changes neural circuits in the brain and hurts people’s ability to cope with stressful situations.
The bottom line? Burnout has lasting negative effects on employees’ well-being.
Thus, spotting warning signs about burnout means having a card up your sleeve: you have time to prevent the illness. Here’s the list of signs you’re about to burn out at work:
1. Constant Worrying
No matter what you do, whether you communicate with a client or fulfill a weekly report, you feel stressed. Actually, you don’t know the root of your worrying, but you can’t get rid of this feeling.
The hallmark of burnout is constant worrying about large and small things. When you are burning out, you can’t help worrying. Obviously, it reduces your productivity and affects your job performance which means you can’t work well. As a result, it leads to burnout. And it’s the vicious circles all stressed workers are caught in.
All people know that stop worrying is a must for better productivity, but it’s easier said than done.
While it’s impossible simply tell yourself to stop worrying, you can learn from other people how to spot this sign and start acting against your negative mood.
In 1948, Dale Carnegie published a book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living where he stated: “Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
2. Moodiness
Being confident and satisfied one minute and worrying the next one. Sounds familiar?
Mood swings are in our nature, but having some mental illnesses like burnout can lead to moodiness at work. When you try to deal with stress, erratic moods are normal.
At the same time, your colleagues with mood swings may have an influence on you as well.
Look:
Sigal Barsade, Ph.D., claims moodiness affects not only you but your coworkers as well. She has revealed an effect of emotional contagion, and both positive and negative emotions can be contagious. Working in groups, employees are more likely to mirror the same emotions. If your coworker is moody and depressed at work, you can “catch” that mood fell down yourself.
If you have rapid changes in mood, pay attention to your mental health. As it can be a warning sign that you’re about to burn out.
3. Mental Fatigue
If you’re not satisfied with your work, it may lead to mental tiredness. Mental fatigue is physical and emotional exhaustion that requires concerted effort to do simple things, and it appears when you have a negative attitude toward tasks, colleagues, and events. If you feel tired and lack the energy to accomplish your daily duties, it’s more likely you’re in the early stages of burnout.
Although all people can feel tired at work from time to time, a state of chronic mental exhaustion can be a warning sign of burnout. Once you feel overwhelmed by your normal tasks, it can be a sign of exhaustion.
4. Neglecting Responsibilities
There’s a difference between pushing back extra workload and neglecting your responsibilities. If someone wants to delegate their duties to you and you want to avoid taking an extra load, that’s fine. But if you try to forward your responsibilities to other people, it’s a warning sign that you’re about to burn out.
At the workplace, you have a set of work duties that you need to perform. When you feel mentally exhausted, you start postponing these tasks. That’s how procrastination appears, and it negatively affects your job performance. Once you beat procrastination, you start overcoming burnout.
5. Poor Job Performance
Job performance is your cup of tea. You know your duties, and you know the employer’s requirements, so you can perform on a good level. But, one day you feel that you can’t complete the task on a satisfactory level, and you fail. The next day you fail again, and again, and again.
The number of your tasks is kept on growing, and your job performance is kept on falling. What does it mean? It’s about your poor job performance as you’re not productive enough to complete your duties on time.
If you start realizing your job performance is falling behind your colleagues, it’s high time pay attention to your mental health.
6. Lack of Motivation
It’s another workday and you have many plans to accomplish. However, you can’t keep focused on the job. You feel demotivated to get into it. The good news? You’re not alone. The numbers speak for themselves: only 30% of U.S. employees feel engaged and inspired by their careers.
Although all people have days at the office when we just can’t stay motivated, it’s important to know the root of your demotivation if you feel a lack of inspiration more often than note as it can be a sign of burning out.
So, are you at risk?
Burning out is a gradual process that doesn’t happen overnight. The root of your burnout can be stress, overwork, a toxic workplace environment, or maybe even the fact that you don’t like your job. However, you need to pay attention to the warning signs in order not to let the emotional and physical exhaustion take over your life. The earlier you spot it, the better.
Answer the following questions to see whether you are at risk:
- Do you have a negative and critical attitude at work?
- Do you feel constantly tired?
- Do you think about quitting work (or changing roles)?
If you are nodding right now, chances are that you’re about to burn out. Overwhelming stress can affect your health, so it’s important to avoid burnout.
Learning from other people is an actionable way to draw inspiration.
Tips on overcoming burnout:
- Love your work: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Steve Jobs
- “If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.”
Mark Zuckerberg
- “I know when I’m reaching my tipping point, I take some time off and reimagine myself stepping back into it.”
Michelle Bernard
- “It’s important, even when you’re feeling the beginnings of burnout, to discipline yourself to show up, even when you don’t feel like it.”
Jeff Goins
To Sum Up
For every person working in a competitive environment, sooner or later, most of us experience burnout at work. The earlier you understand you’re about to burn out, the better. Pay attention to signs to avoid sniffing out wasted time.
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