Alex, a high-performance coach, shares four ways to avoid burnout: set clear work-life boundaries, learn to say no without explaining yourself, ask for help when you need it, and take short recharge breaks throughout the day to reset focus and prevent chronic stress.
When I left my corporate role back in January of last year, I was this close to burning out. And after I did some internal soul searching and tried to understand a little bit more about why I had gotten to that point, I found that there are some practices that really could have helped me to keep burnout at bay, and I'm going to share these with you today, so stay tuned. Hi, I'm Alex, your certified high performance coach, and I help women who feel unfulfilled despite their success to really clarify what's important to them so that they can make changes in their lives to have that meaningful and enduring legacy. So today I want to talk about burnout. It is such a prevalent thing in society today. People are stressed out, they don't don't have the energy. The, the demands of the job are getting to be so much that people are really struggling to make it through the day while keeping their health intact and maintaining their relationships. So when we talk about burnout, it's really something that we need to take seriously, and I wanted to share with you some ideas on how to keep burnout at bay so that you don't end up in some kind of a health episode. And the first thing is this: it's important to set boundaries, right?
To set that line in the sand that says, I'm going to work from this time until this time, and then I'm out, right? Because we have a life outside of work. And I know that working from home, even though things are slowly getting back to, let's say, normal, with people going into the office more often, being able to have that delineation of this is my work time and this is my playtime is incredibly important because what we do in our playtime allows us to recharge so that we can sustain the stress and the anxiety and the craziness of being at work much more effectively. So first one is having no boundaries. So make sure you have the right boundaries in place when it comes to your work time and when it comes to your playtime or your home time. The second thing is don't forget to say no, right? I remember when I was working, people would come and ask me for help, and even if I had urgent things that I had to do, I would drop my stuff so that I could help them. And it's okay to say no. We can't be everything for everyone everywhere all the time. We have to do what we need to do for ourselves so that we maintain our sanity. And that does mean that sometimes you have to say no to people. And I know it's not an easy thing to say, especially when you're a full-fledged people pleaser or a recovering people pleaser like me. But being able to have— and it's part of having boundaries, right? Being able to say, "No, I cannot work on this right now because I have XYZ." And you honestly don't even have to give an explanation. It's, "No, I cannot do this for you right now, but maybe somebody else can support you," right? So making sure that you have the— that you love yourself enough that you safeguard your sanity and you safeguard your health by telling people that, you know, unfortunately there are times when you can't support them. Number 3: Ask for help. I remember never asking for help because for some reason in my mind asking for help was admitting defeat or coming across as being weak or, you know, flawed. And it's okay to ask for help because we don't know everything, we can't do everything by ourselves, and when we ask for help, we run the risk of somebody who has boundaries and somebody who is in the habit of saying no, that they'll say no to us. But until we put the ask out there, we're not going to know whether or not people can support us. So don't be afraid to ask for help. And if you ask help to someone and they can't help you, ask somebody else. There are different ways that you can get the support that you need so you don't put your health at risk. And then the last thing is, I would get to the end of the day and I would be completely flat because I didn't take time to recharge at periodic times during during the day. So one of the things I've done now, which is working beautifully, is I've set an alarm on my phone at about 5 to the hour or 10 to the hour, and when that rings, no matter what I'm doing, I will get up and I'll either do some stretching or some squats, or I'll go walk outside if it's nice, because then I get, you know, that I got the sun on my skin, I get the sun on my face, and I have fresh oxygen that I'm breathing out there. I get— sometimes I run into people that I know, sometimes I see animals, sometimes— but it's just a different way of, you know, stepping away from the computer so that you're not constantly focused with that singular focus on what it is you're working on. Because being able to take that break also helps you to kind of digest and think about different things. When we're under pressure all the time, we don't think as clearly, or we think within the box instead of thinking outside the box. So taking time to recharge during the day is really, really important. So that's what I wanted to share with you today. And as you go through your journey and as you make it through your day, let me know how that's working out for you. I'd love to get, you know, your feedback. Let me know, you know, if it's working, and maybe you have some other tips and strategies that you're using, so don't be afraid to share them. I will talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.
