How to Avoid Burnout

Avoid Burnout: 4 Key Strategies for Leaders and Professionals

In this episode of the Change Agent Leadership Podcast, host Jonathan Hankin dives deep into the pervasive issue of burnout among leaders, managers, and professionals.

He discusses the definition and implications of burnout, sharing his personal experience from 2015. Jonathan offers four practical strategies to prevent burnout, including self-awareness checks, identifying root causes, implementing self-compassion habits, and creating a burnout prevention plan. 

 These actionable steps aim to help listeners protect their energy, improve their mindset, and maintain their impact in both their personal and professional lives.

Watch on YouTube Episode 1 https://youtu.be/LdnxNO9813I

Watch on YouTube Episode 2 https://youtu.be/pA9_JTtZBWU

00:00 Introduction to Burnout

00:19 Understanding Burnout

01:24 Personal Story of Burnout

02:35 Four Strategies to Avoid Burnout

02:53 Strategy 1: Diagnose Early and Often

06:12 Strategy 2: Get Curious About the Root Cause

08:33 Strategy 3: Lead Yourself to Change

11:53 Strategy 4: Create a Burnout Prevention Plan

12:14 Short-Term and Long-Term Actions

14:44 Leadership Insights and Closing Thoughts

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Transcript

 Welcome back to the Change Agent Leadership Podcast.   Today we're talking about a topic that affects so many leaders, managers, and professionals, and that's burnout. But specifically, we're gonna talk about how to avoid burnout before it derails your energy, your mindset, and your impact in your job and in your life.

 So what is burnout and why does it even matter? Well, let's start here.  Burnout is real, and it doesn't just happen to weak or unmotivated people. It happens to high performers, people like you, people like me who care deeply  lead others and show up every day wanting to make a difference. I know people many times throughout the phrase, I'm burning out or I've burned out.

And while that may be true in that moment,   burnout is not a one day or a one week event. It builds up over time, and because of that it can sneak up on us and catch us off guard.  According to the World Health Organization, the definition of burnout for them is  a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and it shows up in three key ways.

One exhaustion, and that can be physical. And emotional depletion to cynicism or detachment, feeling mentally distant from people and from work or ineffectiveness, a  reduction in your sense of accomplishment or productivity.  If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. For me, actually, this is a very personal topic.

I suffered from what I'd call from a major burnout back in 2015. I knew I was stressed. I mean, my work was intense, my living conditions were challenging, and my family was going through significant change. At the time, I was living in the Middle East running a business, and I had just dropped off my oldest daughter back in the United States for college.

I was experiencing all three burnout, markers, exhaustion, detachment, and a deep sense of ineffectiveness. And my body began to shut down, was the major sign that I, I knew I had a problem. I started having unexplained physical issues. Doctors thought it could be cancer, so they began scanning everything and what did they find?

Nothing actually. Uh, it was never cancer. It wasn't any of that.   It was actually stress. I was actually moved beyond burnout. I was in survival mode.  And so as I share this with you today, this is not just a suggestion, it is a personal plea. To you really to pay attention to the signs and take action before burnout sets in.

 Recovery time is so much shorter the earlier you catch it, and so the good news burnout is preventable.  So today we're gonna go over four strategies to avoid burnout. And so let's walk through these four practical strategies that I use with coaching clients and I've used with myself to prevent burnout.

Because if you've been there, you don't want to go back. And so let's talk about how to avoid this and how to build long-term resilience.   And so the first one is diagnose early and often. One of the most powerful tools to avoiding burnout is self-awareness. Use a simple self-check tool like I'm going to give you and do this once a week.

 I know self-awareness is something thrown out, but it is a real thing. And the best thing for self-awareness is to have a tool that you can use to assess where you are. So just take a piece of paper.    Put three columns on it, and the first title, the first column is area. The second one, you're going to rate each area from one to 10.

And then the third, you're gonna put notes in there like, what's working, what's not working? And so the first area is mental energy. You see, want to rate yourself. Where are you right now on your mental energy from a one to 10, 10 being. You're awesome. This is the best alert you've ever been. Your emotional energy is mental energy is awesome.

One, you can't think straight. You don't even know what mental energy means. So put your rating there.  So if you put like a seven, for example, um, then put notes beside that. So as you put that, why did you put a seven? Like what's working? Well, you're not a five or you're not a three. So what's working well?

Like what? Positively? And then what's, maybe not, why are you not a seven, eight, or nine? I'm, uh, eight, nine, or 10. Why are you not up there? Just like what do you think is the cause for not having more mental energy?    And so do that for each of these. The first one is mental energy. The second one is emotional presence.

Again, where are you emotionally in the situation? A lot of people ask me about this. I would say, are you feeling emotionally present? Like you're aware of what's going on, or you just feel numb? You actually don't feel anything, so rate yourself on that. The third one is physical wellbeing. So how's your health?

How are you doing? When's the last time you had a physical? Um, it's important. And then also another way to think about this, how's your intimacy level? So rate that, how's that physical wellbeing from one to 10? And then answer the questions. And then the fourth one, sense of purpose. And this is really what, how do you feel each day when you get out of bed?

Are you excited to start the day? Or honestly, are you sad? You woke up and you just, it's a challenge to just get outta bed and get going. So rate yourself on those, uh, one to 10, and then write your notes in there. And then after you write those, take a moment to reflect on what has been the most emotionally draining part of my week.

Overall, write that down.  So that's, that's your check-in for the week, and that's what we're gonna do every week for a while. And then,  the action step is at the end of the month, you're gonna do this weekly.    At the end of the month, you're gonna review your results for each week, and then ask, based on those results, ask three key questions.

One, what's my energy like right now? Look at the average and then rate yourself. Where are you? Are you all over the scale or has there been a consistency of a Of one area is a three to five, and right now you're feeling like a four. Great. Two, am I emotionally present or just going through the motions?

So where are you as you do this assessment? Where are you at with your self-awareness? And then number three, what is consistently draining me? So you just, you're just doing a self-awareness test here of yourself, a little bit of a check in. What's the consistently draining. Keep in mind, you can't work on what you don't name.

So as you name it, you're able to work on it.  And so that's the first step.  The second step is get curious about the root cause. Burnout is rarely about workload, it's often about misalignment with purpose, values, control, or reward. That's usually what it's about, which means burnout isn't just about productivity.

 It often is a purpose issue.   So often burnout stems from misalignment in one of one or more of these four areas. In your, um, view of things, one, your values. So that is what means the most to you. Two, your sense of control, your autonomy. Three, your sense of reward, which is your recognition or your compensation.

And then four, your purpose, your why, you do your work.  And so what you wanna do is we want to reflect on those. Four areas and do a quick values assessment check. And so I'm gonna read out, uh, 10 values. You can write them down, they'll be on the screen. And then you wanna circle the ones that matter the most to you right now.

And so these will help you assess where you are and get curious about the root cause.   And so, four, the 10 areas are impact. So what are the most values that matter to you? Your value, your impact, connection, growth. Balance, purpose, creativity, autonomy, service, excellence, and stability. Again, I'll have those on the screen, but you wanna have those 10 and then circle the ones that.

 Really value the most to you right now. Like they're, they're really critical. Don't circle 'em all. Rate them. If you feel they're all important, great, but circle the really top two or three that are most important,  and then reflect what's one way I can bring more of this value into my life this next week.

 Okay, so what's one way to bring value into your life this next week in that area?    So an action step is to ask these three questions. One, where do I feel out of alignment? Two, what values of mine are being compromised? Three, where do I feel powerless or underappreciated? Answering those questions are key  because once you name the root, you can begin designing work and life run what truly fuels you, not just what fills your calendar.

So work on that. That's step number two.  And then step number three is lead yourself to change. As leaders, we often show compassion to others, but tend to forget to extend it to ourselves.  So start building a simple self-compassion habit into your daily routine. What does that look like? Well, it's especially, it's based on those four areas that we rated and that we're reviewing weekly.

So those four areas, mental energy, emotional presence, physical wellbeing, and sense of purpose. That's our core for all of this. Those four areas we want to really focus on, and then you're going to create some simple ideas to get you started in growing in those areas. It's not gonna happen by itself. So this is simple intentionality.

So for example, we're gonna list them out to ways to build self-compassion habits into your daily routine.   So mental energy, I'm gonna give you some simple ideas. Once I've done and other people have, you can make your own list. But I wanna give you a start. Otherwise, I don't want you to start from zero mental energy.

I'll give you two. One is schedule a 15 minute quiet break after each day. No screen time, no input, just 15 minutes to yourself. Number two, practice a short mindfulness or breathing exercise throughout the day. Just a way to get mental energy. Do something to give yourself mental energy. You may wanna just research that.

Number two, emotional presence. How can you do that? Well, one way is use a five minute journaling prompt at the end of the day, like, what do I need today? So do it at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day for the next day, and just ask the question, what do I need today? Two reframe mistakes as learning opportunities not as complete failures, and I'd encourage you to speak to yourself with kindness as you would to a friend.

So yeah, admit you've made a mistake, but it's not a reason to spiral down. It's a way to admit the mistake and ask, well, what did I learn from this? And how can I grow? That's how you would coach a friend. So approach it from that perspective. When we're approaching burnout, we don't tend to think clearly, so that's why we're doing that.

 Three is physical wellbeing. This is just simple, practical steps. Go for a 10 minute walk in the midday. It really does break up the day and it does help you process better. Two stretch between meetings. Many of us have back to back meetings, literally just one meeting to the other. Don't do that. Give yourself a time.

Either end the meeting early or give a 10 to 15 minute gap between meetings and use some of that to just stretch and walk around. Your body will thank you and your mind will wake up. And another one just to stay hydrated. And seven plus hours of sleep is ideal. I know that may not be realistic, but that is ideal.

And then the last one, sense of purpose, and this is really just celebrate one win from the day. Big or small, it's a mind thing, right? We want to have purpose. If we don't celebrate, then why? How would we know what we're doing is bringing us joy? And then another one is to reflect on how your work has helped someone or how it's made a difference.

 Granted, you may not have a boss that's telling you a good job, but you are making a difference and writing those things down help remember progress over perfection. Self-kindness fuels intentionality and sustainability. So be kind to yourself. Burnout often grows in the absence of compassion for ourselves and for others.

So  hat leads us to number four, create a burnout prevention plan. Hope is not a strategy. You need a proactive plan to grow forward.  And so one key point here is resilience is built through intentional systems. I mean, we know this in leadership systems matter. It actually matters in your life as well and building resilience.

So break your plan down into short term and long-term actions. So I'm gonna give you some short-term things to do, some wins this month. Key here. Don't feel guilty as you're doing it. I know as I'm gonna read these, some of you are think, gonna think, I can never do that. I would feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, you're worth it.

 So I'm gonna give you a couple of one, protect a 30 to 60 minute block per day with no meetings. If it sounds impossible, you can actually do it. Protect a 30 to 60 minute block per day with no meetings. Number two. Set a tech off time each evening. So whatever your bedtime is, your tech downtime should not be a minute before you go to bed.

Have a tech off time, at least an hour before you go to sleep and write it down. What are you going to do? Set an alarm. Number three, take two. Full lunch breaks each week without multitasking. Some of you are thinking, well, I take a lunch break every day. Great. Good for you. A lot of leaders don't. A lot of us work through lunch if we even get a lunch.

Um, and we just keep on going. Take two full lunch breaks each week. It'll make a difference without multitasking is the key here. And then the last one, schedule one White Space day in your month. No big meetings, just face to think. So whatever that is, one white space day in your month. One per month, you can do it.

  Just to think. And if you're pushing back, consider if that actually happened. How would you feel? What would be a difference in your perspective and in your life? I think you would see a change. So you're worth it. Do it. So this is some short term.   Here's a couple long term for three to six months, write down one value that you want to see more clearly lived out in your work.

Just write down one value and then how's that going to happen? What career direction feels energizing or not just realistic. So the first one is to write down a clear value. You want to see what does that look like and what, how's that going to play out? So journal on that a little bit. And then the second one, what career direction feels energizing, not just realistic.

And so what I mean by that is maybe you're a manager and a director position is the next step, or a VP is the next step or whatever. Well that makes sense, but is that energizing? I. Not just realistic. So you want it to be energizing, and so you want to think through that. Well, what does that mean? What would that look like?

 Your plan doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be real and actionable. A quick leadership insight for all of us.   If you lead others, remember this, your team watches how you care for yourself. They notice whether you protect your time, respect your energy, and lead with emotional honesty. Modeling healthy boundaries gives others permissions to do the same. 

We want to give others permission to model good behaviors and habits. Don't underestimate the ripple effect of a leader who leads well from within. Here are some closing thoughts. 

  Burnout doesn't have to be inevitable. With awareness, empathy, and a solid plan, you can protect your energy and lead from a healthier, more sustainable place.

 Remember, burnout doesn't start overnight. Neither does resilience. This isn't about being perfect. It is about being intentional. You are the kind of leader who pours into others. This is the invitation I'm gonna give you to pour back into yourself. Next time we're gonna dig into part two of this series, how to recover from burnout, what to do When you're already deep in burnout and need a way back.

I believe it'll be helpful. I'm excited to share it with you. Until then, keep questioning, keep growing, and keep leading change. I'm Jonathan Hankin, your change agent coach. I'll see you next time.