Five creative ways to deal with burnout at work

Nick Wignall*

In our October and December issues of At the Bar, we printed part one and two of this three part series on burnout at the bar. This, the final article in this series, has been provided by our member benefit partner MAS.

In this section, I’ll present a handful of approaches and techniques for managing burnout better.

Importantly, these strategies were selected in part because they are all things individuals have a high degree of control over.

But keep in mind that long-term, more structural and organisational factors may need to be addressed as well.

5 creative ways to deal with burnout at work

1. Do a stressor inventory

On a general level, the fundamental cause of burnout is stress. When we’re seriously stressed for long periods of time at work we burn out. This means that if you want to manage your burnout, you need to manage your stress, right?

Not exactly…

The trouble with stress management is that if you’re too focused on treating the symptom you tend to ignore the cause of your stress, the stressor.

Here’s an example:

If your burnout stems from the chronic stress associated with an unreasonable workload, managing your stress is like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound: it may stop the bleeding for a little while, but the root cause is still there and will continue to lead to problems.

In other words, stress isn’t the real problem, it’s your stressors—the things causing your stress, which in turn causes burnout.

Instead of managing your stress, learn to manage your stressors.

And the best way to get a handle on these root causes of stress and burnout is to create what I call a Stressor Inventory.

Let’s start with an analogy:

• If you were struggling with money, one of the first things you would do is to track your expenses, right?

• You’d figure out in painful detail where exactly you were spending your money.

• Because before you can fix the problem you need to be crystal clear on what (and where) the problem really is.

Similarly, if you want to decrease your stress and burnout at work, first you have to get super clear about the real sources of your stress and burnout—you need to know your stressors.

How to do a stressor inventory:

• Grab a sheet of blank paper and align it vertically.

• Draw a line down the middle of it.

• On the right-hand side, list as many common instances of stress at work that you can think of. From the smallest thing like your stapler always jamming to your boss’s passive-aggressive communication style. Spend some real time on this. If possible, spread it out over the course of a few days so your mind has some time to chew on it.

• Once you’ve identified the most common pieces of stress at work, try to identify the corresponding stressor for each. For example, if your stress is having to deal with a jammed stapler twice a day, the stressor is a low-quality stapler. If you feel stressed by always having to take work home on the weekends, the stressor is your manager assigning you work on Friday afternoon and you accepting it.

• If you’re having trouble identifying a specific stressor for a given stress, ask yourself this question: Who or what is the primary source of this stress?

Remember not to get perfectionistic about this… You don’t have to discover every single stressor in your work life all at once.

What’s important is that you make some purposeful time to really consider where the stress in your work life is truly coming from (your stressors).

Once you do, you’ll often find some relief simply from writing it all down and having it in front of you—similar to how making a to-do list helps when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

But most importantly, once you decide you’re ready to make some real changes, your stressor inventory will be a super clear guide to help you decide what to tackle first.

2. Develop an early warning system for burnout at work

Here’s most people’s strategy for avoiding burnout at work:

1. Hope they never get burnt out.

2. Realise they’re burnt out and try to pick up the pieces.

This is non-optimal for obvious reasons, maybe the biggest of which is this: It’s really hard to do anything once you’re burnt out, including dealing with burnout!

Which means…

The time to deal with burnout is before you experience it.

So, why do we have such a hard time preventing burnout in the first place rather than scrambling to pick up the pieces after we’ve already been hit by it?

I think the biggest reason is that it’s hard to use the time when you’re feeling good to prepare for feeling bad.

It’s like when you and your spouse are finally in a really good groove, getting along super well, feeling romantic, and then someone tells you: “You know, now that you guys are both feeling good, this is really the time to deal with some of those bigger relationship issues you keep ignoring.”

Ugh! but still, it’s the truth. Dealing with burnout while you’re burned out is not a winning strategy.

Instead, be like the industrious squirrel collecting acorns during the warm summer days to prepare for winter. You need to suck it up and use the time when you’re feeling good to prepare for the times when you may not be feeling so good.

And the best way I know to prepare for the inevitability of stress at work and prevent it from turning into fullblown burnout is to develop an early warning system for your burnout.

Just like your car has an early warning indicator light to let you know when you’re getting close to running out of fuel, you need to create an early warning indicator that lets you know when you are at risk of hitting burnout but still have time to course-correct.

And the way to do this is to understand the signs of future burnout and acknowledge them as such.

For example:

• Maybe habitually taking work home on the weekends is a sign that burnout is approaching.

• Or maybe it’s that you start sacrificing healthy self-care habits like exercise and preparing healthy meals.

• Or it could be that you find your shoulders and neck getting constantly tight and sore.

Whatever it is for you, it’s essential that you see these for what they are and not sweep them under the rug with silly bits of false positivity like: “Oh I’m sure it’s nothing…” or “Well, it’s just been a tough few weeks… It’ll get better soon.”

No, it won’t! In fact, it’s very likely to get worse and potentially lead you into full-on burnout.

So ask yourself this question very honestly:

What are the early warning signs that my stress levels are getting too high and I’m at risk of burnout?

If you need help, ask a spouse, partner, kids, or friends what they think (they may know better than you do).

No one likes to admit that they’re on the path to burnout. But doing so is your only chance of turning around and going somewhere else before it’s too late.

3. Leave work at work with The 4:55 Drill

Whenever I ask people to describe what burnout at work is like for them, one of the things I hear over and over again is this:

I feel like I’m worrying about work 24/7, even when I’m at home — doing the dishes, playing with the kids, trying to fall asleep. I’m constantly thinking about work and what I need to do the next day.

Having your mind in work mode 24/7 is a very quick route to burnout at work.

And a very simple daily practice to counteract this is something I call The 4:55 Drill.

It’s a small exercise that takes less than 5 minutes per day but can potentially save you hours of stress each day, allow you to relax and enjoy non-work time more— and even prevent burnout in the first place.

How to do The 4:55 Drill:

• Every workday, plan to spend about 5 minutes before you leave sitting at your desk reviewing your tasks for the next day (it’s called The 4:55 Drill because traditionally people leave work at 5:00).

• Importantly, this needs to become a habit, so make sure you set an alarm or calendar appointment to remind yourself to do this each day until it’s second nature.

• Take out a small 3×5 index card, sticky note, or any other little piece of paper you can write on.

• In the top half, write down the three most important things you want/need to get done tomorrow. If you could literally only accomplish three things the next day, what would you choose? Remember to make them as specific as possible.

• Next, below those three things, jot down any other potential to-do items for the next day.

• Leave your little list face-up on your keyboard before you leave the office (or anywhere you do your work usually).

It sounds simple, but this little technique packs a powerful punch.

For one thing, it allows your mind to relax more at home because you’ve already thought about and made a plan for what you need to do the next day. This means your mind won’t feel as strong a need to bombard you with to-do list worries while you’re at home.

It’s also really helpful because it makes it much more clear what you need to do when you first get to work.

You’re much less likely to procrastinate or avoid your most important work when you’re A) Reminded of it in a super obvious way, and B) Have it all spelled out so that you can just follow the recipe to get started.

4. Prepare a Professional Plan B

One of the biggest factors maintaining professional burnout is the stress that comes from not having any other options.

It’s hard enough working a job that’s keeping you chronically stressed and burnt out. But it’s even harder to be in that position knowing that you don’t have any options if things don’t improve.

This leads to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness which only exacerbate your current levels of burnout.

A powerful way to reduce stress and burnout at work, then, is to create what I call a Professional Plan B.

Even if you have no intention right now of leaving your job, having a clearly articulated vision for what you could do if you did need to leave is incredibly anxietyrelieving and calming.

Burnout with no options is terrible. But burnout with an escape hatch is a lot less terrible.

If you’re currently experiencing burnout at work—or if it tends to happen regularly— one of the best things you can do is to spend a few hours creating a clear, realistic Plan B for your career.

Of course, you can approach this concept however you like, but here’s a framework I recommend if you want a little more structure.

How to prepare a Professional Plan B:

• Remind yourself that if you need to take a new job, it doesn’t mean you need to immediately discover your new dream job. It’s perfectly valid for your Professional Plan B to involve taking a new job temporarily while you give yourself time to make a bigger decision about your career long term.

• Make a list of as many potential jobs as you would be qualified for that would meet your basic lifestyle needs (would allow you to pay your rent/mortgage, give you health insurance, pay basic bills, etc.) At this point, don’t rule anything out—you’re just brainstorming.

• Now, review your list and circle any option that is likely to have dramatically lower stress and burnout potential than your current job. Even if it means doing something less enjoyable or that pays less, if you’re burnt out, the most important thing may be to give yourself a real break from burnout so that you can actually think clearly about what you want to do moving forward instead of just rushing into more of the same.

• Once you’ve identified a shortlist of these low-stress but financially viable options, spend 10-15 minutes researching each one, paying particular attention to what the process is for applying. In other words, if you were out of a job today, and needed to take one of those jobs, what would you start doing immediately?

• In addition to the job-specific research above, take some time to update, revise, or spruce up things like your resume, LinkedIn profile, or personal blog/ portfolio that might help in a job hunt.

• Finally, consider your personal network and relationships… In a pinch, who could you go to to ask about a potential referral or introduction for a job? Pay attention to people who are in your industry if possible. But don’t ignore people in

totally different industries or lines of work if they are reasonably well-connected. If your brother-in-law is good friends with a hiring manager at his company, for example, that’s a good resource to be aware of.

Most people shouldn’t need to use the emergency brake in their car very often. But it’s nice to know it’s there just in case.

Similarly, the point of a professional Plan B is not to actually leave your job. It’s the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have concrete options for doing so if you needed to.

5. Practice setting boundaries assertively

Remember that from a high level, chronic stress causes burnout. And stressors cause stress. So if you want to reduce burnout, you really need to address the stressors and sources of stress at work.

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t in a position to eliminate the stressors in our work lives…

• You can’t just snap your fingers and make your pushy, oblivious manager disappear.

• You can’t just change the hustle culture in your organisation because you know it’s unhealthy.

• You can’t just wish away your CEO who sets way too unrealistic performance goals.

So if we can’t eliminate our stressors at work, what can we do?

Well, one way to think about it is this…

Even if I can’t eliminate my work stressors, how can I set better boundaries on my stressors to limit their impact?

For example, you may not be able to fire your manager and replace him with a better, more supportive one. But you could set firmer boundaries on their stressproducing behaviour…

If your manager is in the habit of assigning you “urgent” work every Friday afternoon, leading to you having to work on the weekends, you could practice saying no to the extra work assertively.

Of course, sometimes we literally can’t say no to some requests. But more often than we think, the real obstacle to saying no and setting boundaries is our own discomfort communicating assertively.

Assertive communication means asking for what you want—or saying no to what you don’t want— in a way that’s honest to your own wants and needs and respectful of others at the same time.

Unfortunately, most people equate assertive communication with aggression, and as a result, get into the habit of avoiding standing up for themselves and constantly deferring to others.

If you want to limit your exposure to stress and burnout, you need to set healthier boundaries on your stressors. And more often than not, that means learning to be more assertive.

More ideas for dealing with professional burnout

A few more suggestions and resources for strategies and approaches to help you deal with burnout at work:

• Commit to self-care. (/media/view/13258) Healthy self-care routines like exercise and eating well are often the first casualties of burnout at work. But instead of seeing self-care as optional, we need to see it as one of our most important lines of defence.

• Lean into vulnerability instead of isolation. It’s natural for many people to isolate and avoid positive relationships and people in their life when they are burning out. But maintaining close social ties and being willing to be vulnerable about your struggles with burnout is actually one of the best ways to recover.

• Clarify your personal values. (/goal/registration/ start-with-values) When you’re experiencing burnout at work, it’s easy to get stuck in problem-solving mode—only noticing fires to be put out and bad things to be corrected. But orienting yourself toward your personal values—the things that inspire you and matter most in your life—can be an essential ingredient in escaping (and staying free from) burnout.

• Practice self-compassion. (/media/view/12729) Ironically, the more we struggle the more we tend to beat ourselves up with self-criticism and negative selftalk. The antidote is to practice self-compassion.

• Establish a mindfulness practice. (/media/ view/11412) The last thing we need when we’re in the middle of burnout is a storm of self-doubt and overthinking in our own heads. Establishing a consistent mindfulness practice is one of the most effective ways to cultivate true calm and peace of mind.

• Get professional help. If you’ve been experiencing chronic burnout at work, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to figure it out on your own. Finding a good counsellor, theorist, or coach can be incredibly helpful in dealing with burnout.

*Nick Wignall, Clinical Psychologist. For more information on how to deal with burnout at work, visit his website (http://nickwignall.com).

Source: Nick Wignall, Clinical Psychologist

This article has been provided for At the Bar by MAS. It can be found on Aki, the MAS Wellbeing Portal. All Bar Association members have free access to Aki. For more information on how to access Aki, visit our website at www. nzbar.org.nz/resources/mas-wellbeing-portal.