How to recognise burnout
Burnout.
It’s a bit of a slippery sucker because it often will just creep up on you as if out of nowhere. It doesn’t give you a friendly heads up before it arrives nor does it announce itself once it’s arrived. People aren’t talking about it much but it’s becoming clear that LGBTQ people are more likely to experience burnout than the cis, straight members of society. This is connected to the higher number of stressors that the LGBTQ community encounter regardless of whether they are also mistreated at work¹.
And that’s why I’m writing this article. By putting the typical signs of burnout up here for you, you can easily check for yourself whether you may be burntout. Remember, with things like this you may or may not have all of the signs, that doesn’t mean that your burnout is more or less severe. If you recognise yourself in these signs, that is enough to indicate that you are suffering and could benefit from making some changes, if not also some additional support.
The physical signs of burnout include:
Feeling physically drained and tired all the time
Sleep doesn’t refresh you - you wake up feeling as tired as when you went to bed
Frequent headaches
Muscle aches and pains
Often feeling unwell due to a lowered immune response
Changes in your appetite (overeating or undereating)
Changes in your sleep (sleeping lots or very little sleep)
Emotionally, you may feel:
Unmotivated
Helpless and defeated
Despondent
Like a failure or like you are failing
Detached
Alone in the world
Angry
Hopeless
Unsatisfied
You may also:
Look at things more cynically or negatively
Withdraw and isolate yourself
Procrastinate
Find it difficult to concentrate
Snap at and take your frustrations out on others
Use things like alcohol, food and drugs to cope
Be going into work late, leaving early, or not going in at all
If you have ever been in this position, or you are currently burntout, then you know something needs to be done about it. It won’t just resolve itself. Keep tuned for an article all about how to address your burnout.
Better than cure is prevention, however, so I highly recommend checking out my latest freebie called My Top 3 Ways to Avoid Burnout for the LGBTQ Community. It is a short audio track (under 15 minutes and with a downloadable transcript) that goes into three tried and tested ways to prevent burnout from happening. This is of benefit to anyone - whether you have been burntout before or whether you are looking to make sure you don’t get burnout. You can absolutely get benefit from it if you are currently burntout too.
As always, you can contact me here for a free chat about how I can help you.
