MOC - Burnout - Detecting and Mitigating

Last updated Sep 19, 2022 Edit Source

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• Episode 58 Kelly Schroeder Burnout and the Path to Healing

  • Taking responsibilities outside his skillset caused Kelly to burn out (pay raise, security clearance upgrade in exchange for a 2 year grind).
  • Personal issues compounded the situation, and Kelly eventually resigned.
  • Even after Kelly’s boss removed the responsibilities Kelly struggled with, he found he still hated his job and needed a change. This led to 18 months of unemployement with 16 months of no interviews. He focused on what interested him at first and then anything that could pay the bills. The reason for the dry spell was he needed to change the way he wrote his resume.

• Episode 68 Work-Life Balance, Personal Crisis Playbook, Handling Stress Constant low-level stress can be overlooked as a destructive force. It can loom and build to the point where it affects mental state, clouds thinking, and affects emotional and physical health. And watch out for spikes in stress (we will all have them during our career). If a company has a crisis playbook, it makes sense to create one for yourself (who to call for which type of support you need whether work / personal / financial, etc.). And keep it updated. Do we check in with ourselves on wear and tear? Think about how things are affecting you and if you are having a physical reaction or avoiding social interaction. Others may be able to spot this better than us. Are we eating poorly, sleeping little, or dealing with a lack of energy? These are all signs.
  Exercise, nutrition, hydration, and having a good support network can help!

• Episode 70 Handling Fear and Uncertainty Things we cannot control can overwhelm us and keep us from seeing what we can control - doing our jobs well, enhancing our larger organization (our team of peers and beyond), and helping your network (catching up, lifting others up). This has shades of Give and Take by Adam Grant even though we had not read it before this episode.

• Episode 78 Burnout and Recovery with Josh Fidel Loving your job isn’t enough to prevent burnout when other priorities slip. Josh Fidel and his teammates were under immense pressure during long sales cycles and doing activities very visible to leadership. The amount of travel was 5 days per week and affected home life. Josh woke up in a hotel room and couldn’t remember where he was or why he was there and knew he needed to make a change. “I’m building these crystal palaces at the cost of what really matters.” Josh had back surgery and took 3 months off. He did not want to go back and eventually switched jobs into one that allowed more time with family.

• Episode 82 Why Vacation Won’t Cure Burnout Effective Mental Health Days Off We have trouble not thinking about work while on vacation, but total disconnection can allow decompression time. Time away may allow pinpointing the problem but does not allow you to fix it. Josh Fidel took 3 months, but he had to quit his job to fix the problem. While at the office, take breaks to avoid too many consecutive meetings, and defend them when there is a conflict. Evaluate why you are having trouble completing tasks to get to the root causes of unhappiness (allows you to address it at some point). Spend time outside, with loved ones / important people, on hobbies, reading, or learning something instead of numbing your mind with nonsense.

• Episode 85 Episode 86 Cody de Arkland on Imposter Syndrome, Emotional Tech Support, Verbose Logging, and Debugging Give yourself room to build up new confidence when starting a new career path / role, and let it be ok to not be confident for a time. Build on what excites you and the places your confidence comes from. Have a trusted person for support who can identify with you you are and where you are. Make it someone who allows you to be your most vulnerable self. It may be someone different based on whether the issue is work / personal. Remember to debug yourself with emotional issues. Find effective strategies for dealing with these things (like Cody de Arkland has shared online). Don’t ever feel alone.

• Episode 90 The Inner Game of Stress The author was a tennis coach who paired with two medical doctors. Self1 is the critical storyteller (or the stress maker), and Self2 operates in the moment and leverages our natural abilities. Gearing up is when stress piles up long term, and gearing down is using rest, recreation, and reflection to decrease stress. Be the CEO of your life and own the decisions you make (define life mission like a company, add policies, values, etc.). Awareness, choice, and trust are all part of the inner game learning code. Tools to use: STOP - pause, think about the stress, what you want, how to proceed, then do it. Think about what you don’t control, what you don’t control but keep trying to control, and what you control that you are not presently controlling (all about awareness). Try on a new attitude Free writing / the magic pen Transpose yourself into another person’s situation (think, feel, want) Redefine what is happening to help reduce stress Remember PLE (performance, learning, enjoyment) and how much we need all of them Enter the stres on your own terms.

• Episode 91 Healthy Mind Platter We can feel like there is no time to switch off. Does your employer provide for mental health? 7 daily essential mental activities to optimize brain matter and promote wellbeing Focus time (call back to deep work) Play time (creative) Connecting time (people, in person) Physical time (move your body through exercise) Time in (reflection) Down time (non-focused, mind wandering) Sleep time How much time do you spend in each areas? Are you missing one?

• Episode 127 Countdown to Burnout with Tom Hollingsworth Burnout can creep in because of the stuff on your to-do list you can never get to (starts to eat away at you). Quitting and moving to a different job won’t cure burnout. The burnout will follow you. Sometimes we need to say no when we have too much on our plate (hard for people pleasers). If someone tells you something is off, LISTEN to them. Accepting intervention is a gift. Set manageable, reachable goals and be ok with not making everything a stretch. If everything is a stretch goal eventually the rubber band will break. Work on stretch goals often enough that it feels like a special occasion and pushes you past boundaries but not so often that it adds stress.
  Take time for self-care despite the voices in your head telling you should be “doing something.” Taking care of yourself should be like billable hours for you (not your employer). Tom suggests looking at coloring apps, finding a hobby that forces you away from work (for him it is being active in Boy Scouts).

• Episode 132 Riding the Burnout Wave with Jonathan Frappier Jonathan didn’t know why he was burned out but slowly started peeling things back because he was losing his passion for technology (and did so until there were very few extracurriculars) - blogging was fun until it was turned into a business, vBrownBag stuff being similar to work made it feel like work, he didn’t want to go to tech conferences, etc.
  Jonathan’s daughter wanted to learn to snowboard, and she wanted her parents to do it with her. This became the thing outside of work that recharged Jonathan. It’s important now to find something that helps you maintain balance. Adding things back comes in waves. Jonathan is figuring out, like surfing, how to see the wave coming without having it knock him over. Look out for how you are feeling at any given moment. If beaten down, remember to look for the wave that will come to give you energy to do something new or something you once enjoyed. Don’t try to ride every wave. Awareness of going through the waves allows you to pick yourself up and come out of it.

• Episode 166 Andrew Miller on burnout A hypergrowth startup required Andrew to travel from each to west coast US, and the pace of the work was rapid. Despite enjoying and appreciate co-workers, he came close to burnout.
  Am I pushing hard enough, do I care enough, can I outwork the pace, and do I care enough about my team (12 direct reports)? His kids were growing up, realized he had career options, and wanted to slow his work pace a bit. When you push hard enough for so long it is hard to dial it back (i.e. stress build up). Andrew needed to take a pause. When your company is growing that fast, it’s like every quarter it is a new company. You’re essentially needing to be in that high energy burst mode all the time.

• Episode 179 Nick Korte almost burning out Nick didn’t want to quit the tour like John Mellencamp. “That could be me.”
  A disconnected vacation at an inconvenient time (supported by management) allowed a re-read of The Practice. This was a time of change (daughter changing schools, worship service concerns) and a feeling of overwhelm at work (late nights, early mornings).
  The feedback Nick was given was that he did not always need to go straight to the sandpaper on the material (not afraid of the hard work). Nick started doing morning pages for some relief and some distance and was more intentional with sleep - a boundary, more focus time. It creates time for reflection and creativity (rest). Listened back to Jonathan Frappier, Chris Wahl, Tom Hollingsworth

• Episode 181 Episode 182 Bill Kindle on Burnout Bill reached a career crisis and started second guessing IT as a career (lost the love). There was not a way for him to move up in his current company, and he was not given a chance. He was bored. He got depressed and work quality declined. He had stopped writing and other extracurriculars. Attending a VMUG to speak to John and Kat Troyer was therapeutic. “It’s not your fault that they are not utilizing your skills.” Bill needed other outlets like learning and sharing (writing). He found new communities in which to participate, got a degree, and got certifications…all in an effort to eventually make a move elsewhere. Bill helped lead the Fort Wayne VMUG and uses Kanban for work visualization. He had the opportunity to contribute to PowerShell books also.