Burnout Causes to Avoid

A lot of people deal with burnout at some point of their career. A job may be physically tiring (like teaching and sales), and it can also be emotionally draining (like finance jobs and banking jobs). And as human beings, we can only take so much.

What happens when you burn out? Your body and mind will give up on all the stress. You will feel too exhausted to work, yet you will feel guilty about not working. And when you do try to work, you aren’t able to achieve anything. You go through each day forcibly and with bitterness.

Although there are certain jobs that are simply burnout-inducing, any position or career path can take a toll on you. You might be highly motivated today and you might think that burning out is a far impossibility, yet tomorrow you might be showing all the symptoms of burnout.

Avoid it at all costs. If you can identify with the following situations, then you are at risk of feeling burnt out sooner or later.

• No clear goals. The hardworking professional will get burned out if he exerts maximum efforts on tasks that are not definitive of a direction his career can take. You need to have a clear set of goals. Create your personal goals list, and adhere to the team’s or company’s.
• Too much work. If you cannot say “no” to each and every task assigned and passed to you, you will soon be burdened with deadlines to beat and tasks to finish. Another cause of a huge workload is poor time management. If you are unable to submit your deliverables on time, your work will pile up and you will feel unnecessary stress.
• Impossible goals. This is perhaps the opposite of not setting goals for yourself. There may be a fine line between an ambitious goal and an impossible goal. If you force yourself to create a solution to a problem without enough resources to use, you will end up tired and frustrated at yourself.
• Hopelessness. You might be so passionate about something beyond your control. Too much attachment to your job, projects and tasks can cause you to be emotionally challenged when things go wrong.
• Lack of recognition. Sometimes even the simplest thank you email can boost your energy to work. However, if in your office there is a shortage of appreciation, and promotions seem to far away, you will soon feel all the weight of working for nothing. Once you have mastered the skills required in your current position, you will start to feel the need for recognition. And when it is not given, that’s when burnout will sink in.

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