How to Defeat Burnout and Stay Motivated

[Daniel E.]

How to Defeat Burnout and Stay Motivated
by Jeffrey Tang
ZenHabits.net

“Do what you love.”

We’ve all heard this advice before. It’s great advice, though not many people truly take it to heart.

But sometimes doing what you love isn’t enough to keep you going. Inspiration, passion, and motivation are difficult things to hold on to. They always seem to slip away right when you need them most.

You know that feeling. Where you’re that close to finishing a project, or achieving a goal, or crossing a task off your to-do list … but you just can’t muster the energy. You’ve lost interest. You’re exhausted. Drained. And you don’t know why.

That’s burnout. It’s something many of us are all too familiar with. I’d like to share with you a few ways that I fight burnout – or prevent it from catching me in the first place.

1. Achieve in increments. When you only focus on a big goal someday, it’s easy to get burned out by the daily grind. It’s like driving toward a mountain in the distance. You can drive for hours, but the mountain doesn’t seem to get any closer. And spinning your wheels gets real tiring real fast.

The solution is to give yourself a way to measure and record every little step forward you take. Here’s how:

• Get a journal, notebook, or calendar. Writing things down is important.
• Identify milestones on the road towards your goal. If you’re writing a book, you could treat each chapter as one milestone. Or, even better, treat each 500 words or 1000 words as a milestone.
• If milestones aren’t obvious, create them. For example, if you’re training for a marathon, hold yourself to a progression of distance. If you start out running at your maximum distance, you’ll plateau very quickly. Instead, start at a shorter distance – even if it’s very easy for you – then work your way up slowly.
• Track milestones in a simple, visual format. Think of the progress bar on a download. One glance tells you exactly how much progress has been made. The format you choose doesn’t need to be detailed or comprehensive. It just needs to show that you’re moving forward day by day.

Learn to appreciate the little accomplishments. Let yourself enjoy the feeling of getting things done.

2. Train your muse. One of the biggest myths about inspiration that it’s random. One day you’re inspired and motivated, the next day you’re burned out – and there’s no way around it. Or so they say.

In fact, inspiration is just like any other skill. It may start out as unreliable, but it can be trained and developed into something you can rely on.

So how do you train your muse? The best way I’ve found is immersion. Surround yourself with things that inspire you and reflect your goals.

Great composers listen to music. Great authors read voraciously. Great marketers attend seminars. Great productivity-ists subscribe to Zen Habits. And so on. Immersion trains your mind to work efficiently in the ways you need it to.

The more that your inspiration becomes a part of your life, the less likely it is to run out when you need it most. With that in mind, be creative. What ways can you connect with your inspiration on a daily basis?

3. Work less. Cut down on the amount of energy and time you spend working. If you have sick days or vacation days left, take advantage of them. Or, if you’re self-employed, force yourself to work fewer hours each day – even if that means turning down new projects.

Working less doesn’t mean you have to slack off or get less done. It does mean that you:

• Eliminate unnecessary tasks.
• Take strategic breaks.
• Stop multi-tasking.
• Seek help from other people.

4. Define success realistically. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having big dreams and big ambitions. But if you’re constantly frustrated by a lack of progress, it might be time to take a step back and examine your goals. Are they achievable? Are you holding yourself to a reasonable timeline?

Here’s a good way to do this. Get a piece of paper and write down your big, ambitious goal. Then write down at least 10 specific, concrete steps that will allow you to achieve that goal. Be as detailed as possible. If you can’t come up with a series of down-to-earth steps to get you from here to your dream, that’s a sign that you need to either redefine your goals or rethink the way you’re pursuing those goals.

5. Get more sleep. You’ve heard this before, I know. So have I. But that didn’t stop me from going against my better judgment and tiring myself out by staying up late to work. Getting enough sleep takes a conscious decision – and, just like any good habit, takes time to develop.

One of the biggest barriers for me in this area is procrastination. I have a tendency to put things off throughout the day, then stay up later as a result. What’s keeping you from getting the rest you need?

6. Take it slow(er). The world tells us to rush things: “Get there faster. Make money quicker. Retire sooner.” And while these things aren’t necessarily bad, they can easily get us in over our heads. If you’re feeling burned out and overwhelmed, it’s time to slow down.

A few ways to take yourself out of 24/7 high gear:

• Spend at least 10 minutes a day in a quiet place, away from distractions. Breathe.
• Put together a playlist of slow, relaxing music. Listen to it whenever you start feeling frazzled.
• Take a butcher knife to your to-do list. Set a limit to the number of tasks you take on each day and stick to it.
• Extend your deadlines. Do you absolutely, positively have to get this done now? Just remember – this isn’t an excuse to procrastinate.

7. Get a second opinion. It’s hard to spot burnout from the inside. Your close friends and family are likely to identify the signs of burnout long before you do. So listen to what they’re saying. The next time your spouse, parent, or best friend tells you you’re working too hard, take it seriously.

8. Set clear boundaries. Burnout happens when we allow work to overflow its boundaries and interfere with every other part of our lives. So set strong boundaries. The clearer the better. In writing, if possible.

For example, instead of saying: “I’ll spend at three hours every night with my family,” make it clearer: “I won’t work after 8 o’clock. That’s 100% family time.” Clear boundaries are easier to stick to and harder to rationalize away.

Once you’ve set up your boundaries, make them public. Let your family know that you’ve set aside time just for them. They’ll hold you accountable to your promises. Let your clients know that you’ll be unavailable during certain hours. This will reduce the temptation to fudge on your boundaries.

9. When you’re working, focus. I’ve found that concentrating on work is actually less exhausting than allowing yourself to be wishy-washy about it. When you decide that it’s time to work, buckle down, eliminate distractions, and do it wholeheartedly. There’s something amazingly refreshing about pure, sharp focus.

10. Create outlets. If you’re a person of diverse interests (and really, who isn’t?), it’s likely that you have several very different goals and ideas bouncing around in your head at any given time. These ideas need outlets. If you hold them inside, they’ll eventually start interfering with your focus and creating unnecessary frustration, leading to burnout.

In other words, I think it’s okay – healthy, even – to start a few side projects as outlets for creative energy. Just make sure that you keep your priorities straight and your side projects fun. If these side projects become sources of stress, cut them out immediately.

11. Know when to power through it. This is going to sound out of place given what I’ve said above, but it’s powerful – if applied correctly. Sometimes the solution for burnout is just to power through it. Sometimes burnout can be an illusion. In these cases, the best choice is to refuse to use burnout as an excuse, ignore the fact that you feel burned out, and just work through it. It’s like a runner gaining her second wind and coming out stronger on the other side.

However, just as an experienced athlete knows when to push through the pain and when to pull back, you’ll need to be very careful how you take this particular piece of advice. Until you develop a keen awareness of your own tendencies, it’s usually better to err on the side of caution and pull back when you start feeling burned out.

12. Never accept defeat. Burnout is an obstacle like any other. It can hold you back for a while, but it’s not the end of the world – unless you let it defeat you.

If you have a great goal in mind, don’t give up on it, no matter how apathetic, exhausted, or frustrated you might feel. If everything I’ve said up until this point fails, do this: hold on to your dream – even if it doesn’t feel like much of a dream at the moment. Hold on to it anyway. That way, when the storm clears, your dream will still be intact, ready for another try.

Get more inspiration from Jeffrey at his blog, The Art of Great Things, or subscribe to his feed.

 

[Daniel E.]

Tips To Avoid Burnout
from Psych Central News
by Rick Nauert PhD

March 5, 2010

For many, the recession means we need to do more work. And, in today’s competitive world, not only do we have to work harder, but we also must work smarter. New research offers us tips to help us stay at the top of our game. And the good news is there’s no need to be a “control freak.”

With her co-author Dr. Yael Steinhart, Dr. Danit Ein-Gar is investigating multitasking control freaks. Contrary to the notion that they get the job done well, people with high levels of self-control tend to burn out the fastest.

High self-control people tend to use all of their resources at once — concentrating intently on the task immediately at hand — but are stymied when unexpected challenges are thrown their way. Dr. Ein-Gar quantified this surprising finding in a new series of studies presented last year at the Society for Consumer Psychology in San Diego.

“The general notion is that we all have a pool of resources available for different tasks,” says Dr. Ein-Gar.

“Stamina is like a muscle, but it’s not an endless resource. Our new research shows how our personal, work-related resources can be measured and our on-the-job performance improved.”

In new experiments and surveys, Dr. Ein-Gar found that people who define themselves as high in self-control are in fact the least able to manage their own internal resources in situations which are very important to them. They burn out quickly when flooded with unexpected challenges.

“They tend to invest all their energy at once and are then left with insufficient resources for additional tasks,” says Dr. Ein-Gar, who used shopping as a way to measure the effect.

Analyzing results from hundreds of volunteers, she found that when high self-control people went shopping at a grocery store they were far more impulsive than those who defined themselves as low in self-control. Most surprisingly, high self-control people made more spontaneous purchases at the checkout counter without regard to price.

According to surveys Dr. Ein-Gar conducted afterwards, such people “didn’t foresee certain events like having to wait in line. It’s the same in the workplace when the boss hands out a major assignment moments just before quitting time.”

But maintaining energy and avoiding burnout can be done with a little altering of one’s mindset, Dr. Ein-Gar counsels. Those who think like marathon runners — who start slow but pace themselves — are better able to keep their energy tanks full, unlike a sprinter who gives all his effort at once.

Tips for a marathon mindset
In a second study, “participants were told they were about to perform two tasks. Those with forewarning did better than a second group who thought they had only one task but then were given a ’surprise’ second task. This warning put the first group in the marathon mindset,” Dr. Ein-Gar says.

“Our results can be applied across the board from managing a business to making sure we run our personal lives more smoothly.”

She suggests that managers prepare employees for a particularly difficult workload by alluding to upcoming challenges in advance — not on the day of the conference or big meeting.

“The world may be multitasking at a frenetic pace,” Dr. Ein-Gar concludes, “but in thinking like a marathon runner, people with high self-control won’t mind other people passing them.

“Marathon runners know that the race is long, but the winner is the one who can finish the race at the end with power left over to keep running.”

Source: American Friends Tel Aviv University

 

[Daniel E.]

From an article by Nathaniel Branden:

If we feel unhappy or unfulfilled, the most urgent question is, “What needs to be done?” Or one might say, “What’s missing in my life—and what can I do about it?” The sin is to suffer passively. We must never forget that we have the capacity to act. So we must always be concerned to know “What avenues of action are possible to me? What can I do to make my life better?”...

I believe that earning your living doing something you enjoy is one of the very best ways to nourish yourself. But even if you are employed at something that is not your ideal work, it is important to find ways to take as much pleasure in it as possible. Living in the present moment can make ordinary activities more interesting and joyful, you may be surprised, if you only look, at what you will find. If you try to stay connected with why you are doing what you are doing, for example, then even the parts of your life that aren’t especially exciting can become more meaningful. Sometimes I have to go to an event that doesn’t especially interest me. I’ve learned to tell myself, Make this experience as happy for yourself as you possibly can. Once that becomes a conscious purpose, it’s amazing how imaginative one can become. Life becomes infinitely more interesting.

Passion & Soulfulness

 

[Daniel E.]

The secret to great work is great play

Silence the Voice That Wants to Shut You Down

 

[Daniel E.]

How to Keep Working When You’re Just Not Feeling It

Goals should also, whenever possible, trigger intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. An activity is intrinsically motivated when it’s seen as its own end; it’s extrinsically motivated when it’s seen as serving a separate, ulterior purpose—earning you a reward or allowing you to avoid punishment. My research shows that intrinsic motives predict achievement and success better than extrinsic ones do.

 

[Daniel E.]

Why People Get the 'Sunday Scaries' -- The Atlantic

..."I don’t think there's anything that's timeless about [the Sunday scaries],” Petersen told me. “Burnout and the anxiety that accompanies it are so much about living under our current iteration of capitalism and about class insecurity.” From roughly the end of World War II to 1970—a period that’s often called the Golden Age of American capitalism—Petersen says, “there were a ton of jobs that weren't great, but the difference was that people were more secure in their class position … [Now] it's this huge combination of not only ‘How am I going to do in my job?,’ but all these other things that I'm anxious about—‘If I lose my job, then I’m not going to have medical insurance.’” This goes some way toward explaining the need to make weekends both productive and relaxing—workers need to both get stuff done and also make sure that they’ve sufficiently recharged to get more stuff done during the week.

Work has changed, and so have Sundays themselves. One analysis of Canadian time-use data from 1981 to 2005 that tracked paid work, chores, shopping, and child care found that “Sundays became busier and behaviorally closer to weekdays than they were at the beginning of the 1980s.” “This change would probably become even more obvious,” the study’s author speculated, “if one were to go back to the older data sets, such as [one 1968 data set] from Washington, D.C., where Sunday meals at home occupied more than 90 minutes and shopping only 8 minutes.”

Given how work (side gigs included) has, for many people, bled into nights and weekends, Petersen says, “Two days is not enough—it’s just not … For people I know, myself included, Saturday is a catch-up day, and then Sunday is the only real day of leisure. So people, as soon as they start, they're like, ‘It’s about to end!’ You're so conscious of the fact that it’s so short.”

...When I asked Anne Helen Petersen what would cure the Sunday scaries, she laughed and gave a two-word answer: “Fix capitalism.” “You have to get rid of the conditions that are creating precarity,” she says. “People wouldn't think that universal health care has anything to do with the Sunday scaries, but it absolutely does … Creating a slightly different Sunday routine isn't going to change the massive structural problems.”

One potential system-wide change she has researched—smaller than implementing universal health care, but still big—is a switch to a four-day workweek. “When people had that one more day of leisure, it opened up so many different possibilities to do the things you actually want to do and to actually feel restored,” she says.

As a haver of the Sunday scaries myself, I would like to live in a world where there’s less to fear about Monday. At the same time, I suspect that there is an element of tragedy inextricable from the basic nature of weekends, which (not to get too glum about it) are like lives in miniature: That approaching expanse of leisure that one can survey on Friday evenings, no matter how well used, is followed within 48 hours by the distressing realization that the end of it is inevitable, and that what once seemed like so much time has been used up. On Sundays, we each reckon with the passing of time and die a small death. And that’s scary.