One of the more common reasons people reach out to us here at Good Therapy SF is because they’re experiencing burnout.
And often when they’re talking about burnout, they’re referring to lack of motivation, lack of energy, and it’s typically related to the workplace. Although for some people they say it can apply to other parts of their life as well. But usually burnout tends to have a trigger or an initial kind of start point from work. So that’s really where we start with people. We really try to see what is happening in the workplace that could be contributing to these signs of burnout.
And again, the more common symptoms when people talk about burnout, are going to be more emotional exhaustion, reduced performance in the workplace and a sense of detachment from what they do.
So how do we work with clients that are experiencing burnout? Initially, we really want to focus on parts of their life outside of work, such as rest and recovery. We want to make sure they’re taking care of their sleep, making sure they’re having some sort of enjoyable activity outside the workplace.
Hopefully, they are connecting with people in their lives, either family or friends, as well as doing enjoyable activities, and they’re finding some way to relax or not feel as stressed out outside the workplace.
Then within the workplace often, depends on the situation, but sometimes setting boundaries is really helpful. Learning to say no and setting limits around certain activities. And while we know that isn’t certainly possible in all situations, often people with burnout also tend to have a sense of over commitment or feeling as though they are overly responsible for situations. And that often contributes to the symptoms of burnout as well.
Going a little bit deeper at times, we also try to focus on reevaluating priorities. What we mean by that sometimes is focusing on the work itself and often making sure that the tasks you’re doing are more aligned with your value system or things that you care about.
Often with burnout, we feel as though the tasks we are doing either we are detached from and that we don’t really care about them, or we think that they don’t really provide a sense of purpose or meaningful action for our lives in other ways. And by no means, we’re saying that work should be your entire priority. But there often is a way to make sure that you’re not detaching completely from your work and making sure you can find some way to connect meaningfully to what you do. If only so that what you do can help launch you into another career, perhaps another type of role, or another purpose in other parts of your life. So trying to make sure there’s some connection between what you do at work and the values you have for your life that provide more purpose or meaning.
And then also, it’s really important to make sure that, we were saying before, you have a support system, either within the workplace or outside of the workplace. Often feeling isolated or disconnected from others can really contribute to these burnout symptoms as well. So I want to make sure that people have a strong support system additionally to that.
If any of these signs or symptoms you think might be occurring for you, please feel free to reach out to Good Therapy SF for help when it comes to symptoms of burnout.
Take care.
