Do you suffer from burnout in the workplace?

One of the most common topics of conversation with clients and coaching colleagues these days centers on burnout. Interestingly, burnout affects organizations and businesses just as it does individuals.

Burnout is a state or condition in which one experiences fatigue, burnout, or frustration as a result of intense focus or attention to a goal, cause, lifestyle, or relationship that does not produce the expected reward. In other words, there is a burnout formula: expectations divided by a reality that does not meet your expectations, regardless of the effort you put in, equals burnout. There is no direct correlation or relationship between hard work and burnout. However, there is a direct correlation or relationship between hard work that produces little or no reward and burnout. In fact, many people work themselves to exhaustion and achieve recognition, recognition and reward. For these people, burnout is not part of the equation.

Am I running low?

Exhaustion is slow. Burnout is not an event; it is a process. Depletion is similar to erosion. One day you see a huge rock under the waterfall. One day it comes back and is half its original size. Then one day it turns into a little stone; then a pebble. Depletion is insidious and pernicious internal erosion.

The first symptoms of exhaustion include a deep sense of fatigue, tiredness or exhaustion that seems to spread from the surface of the skin, through the tissues, ligaments, muscles and deep into the bones and the very cells of your body. Emotionally, you feel like you are at or near the end of your emotional chord. Psychically, you live in a realm of negativity, experiencing a sense of dread, helplessness, hopelessness, negativity, cynicism, or frustration. Relationships inside and outside of work suffer, become exhausting; they are no longer fun and enjoyable. The work itself becomes an effort. Concentration is a challenge. Staying focused is a formidable challenge. You feel and become detached, perhaps even detached from work and the people in your life.

In the extreme, Burnout manifests itself as a "contempt" for life in general, for work life, family life ... life. In the extreme, one cannot even muster the energy of anger, resentment, or frustration; no power, period. No feeling on any level (mental, emotional, physical, psychological or spiritual). Just a numbness. Exhaustion. Life itself. it becomes a great effort.

Interestingly, burnout affects people who once felt alive, enthusiastic, excited, energetic, juicy, passionate, and wonderfully curious about life and life. The result is that their intention, passion and effort to achieve unattainable goals destroyed them in the process.

Organizations as a cause of burnout

Too often, people believe that they are the sole cause of their burnout. They feel they are somehow to blame for not being able to achieve work-life balance, or harmony in the way they live, or their inability to plan, organize, prioritize, schedule and execute, or their effort to be a 10 on a scale of 1-10, in everything they do, or because they are working for a manager whose expectations are excessively high and demanding. Sometimes people can be your own worst enemy and the cause of your own exhaustion. But not always.

In fact, recent research indicates that companies and businesses are often one of the worst causes of burnout. Current burnout is often built into the organizational structure. How is that? Some of the organizational characteristics that lead to burnout are: impossible goals, countless layers of bureaucracy and simply stupid policies and procedures, lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities, confusing and confusing goals, endless and meaningless meetings, and a "this is a entrepreneurial mindset that focuses on people as roles, leaving the "human element" out of the equation.