Avoid the sunburn and the burnout this Summer

If you’ve read Lee and Rob’s blogs this month, you will know that the gorgeous weather and a few holidays among the team have got us all thinking about holiday season and some of the challenges we all experience through this time. What has it brought to my mind? Burnout! (And of this, I have much experience and much to say 😉).

At Pro-Development, we are super keen to ensure that everyone has a good rest when they are away from work to avoid burnout. It’s important that the team who are running the show in anyone’s absence, are not overloaded and feel supported. You can read about this here in Lee’s blog, where he has shared great ideas to help you ensure that your team stays engaged while everyone others are on holiday.

Over the years, I have experienced burnout in varying degrees and for many of you who are running a business or working in a small or medium sized business, you will know just what I mean. And in 2019, ‘burnout’ was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an ‘occupational phenomenon’. And that was well before Covid and lockdowns!

Burnout is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. It can occur when you experience long-term stress in your job, or when you have worked in a physically, or emotionally draining role for a long time. So, let’s start with the signs to look out for in yourself or others:

• Feeling tired or drained most of the time.
• Feeling helpless, trapped and/or defeated.
• Feeling detached/alone in the world.
• Having a cynical/negative outlook.
• Self-doubt.
• Procrastinating and taking longer to get things done.
• Feeling overwhelmed.

There are times when I have recognised all the above in myself, certainly during lockdown. We were hugely impacted at Pro-Development as we were no longer able to run events (pretty much everything we did!), the team were furloughed and I was then managing the business and running online events for a few months in the main, on my own. It was only really when the team returned a few months later, that I recognised that I had completely burnt out. It was a terrible time for me and not something that I would ever want to experience again, and it was only through a lot of support from the team and some superb coaching from one of the team, that I fully recovered from this.

Since this time, I have been very careful to watch out for burnout in myself, and as a team, we are good at pointing out to each other when we see signs of burnout in each other. The key is to have some great strategies in place to help avoid burnout. If not picked up or supported, burn out can really hit your productivity but when managed, the results are proven.

Here are my personal top 7 tips for reducing the potential for burnout:

Be open, transparent, and honest with each other – create an environment where people feel able to share when they see someone struggling. It is not always easy to approach someone who is suffering from burnout as they can’t always see this themselves. But done carefully and with heart, this can be a huge support for someone. If you struggle with this, we have a brilliant one-day course on honest conversations on 28^th September that can really help.

Watch your hours – it is too easy to creep into working far too many hours than is healthy for ourselves. Again, it helps if the team can be open about this and point out if they see someone working while ‘out of office’.

Focus on the right things – be careful that your attention is not straying away and that you don’t get distracted as you try to cram all the last-minute tasks in before you log off. It happens to all of us. I call it my spaghetti head! When I am under pressure, I find my focus jumps around and I become a bit scatty in my approach. Our Attention Management course has been great at helping people with this. Our next one-day course is on the 13^th July.

Take regular holidays – make sure you fully switch off (read Rob’s blog here for some suggestions).  Having just come back from a week in Italy on a yoga retreat, where I fully switched off, it reminded me just how important it is to do this. It also helped massively that I have the most amazing team in place who I trust completely. Make sure you have the right people around you to help with this.

Delegate well – you don’t have to have a team to be able to delegate. This can be upwards and sideways too. In my last 1:1 (yes, I get one too from the wonderful Tracey Flannery), she pointed out how good I am at delegating and how I seem to know who I can delegate to without overloading people. I realised this has come from a lot of training and coaching over the years. If you’re new to delegation or want to improve your skills so you can gain more time, our ever-popular Art of Delegation course is one for you, running 25^th July.

Be present – when you are not at work, make sure you do simple things like switching off your laptop and phone notifications at night, and not letting work seep into your home life. Make sure you spend your time away from work doing lots of things that bring you joy and happiness. Whether this is spending time (and really being present) with family and friends or making time for a hobby or something that takes you away from your thinking. When I was suffering from burnout, I took some time to reflect on this and realised that singing brings me so much joy. I had some singing lessons and joined a pop choir, and it has been the best medicine for me. All I can think about when I am singing is the words, the music, and pure happiness.

Get support and ask for help – one of the characteristics of great leaders is vulnerability and knowing when to ask for help. It is not a weakness but a sign of real strength when people seek support. During lockdown, I ran an online group for most of 2020 where people could just come on a call to share their challenges and get help and support. We all need help at times. Don’t forget that our coaching packages can really help to give you a safe space to share, reflect, and learn on a 1:1 basis.

I hope that these areas help and if you ever feel overwhelmed or on the edge of burnout, please, please do call me or any of the team. Our door is always open, and the kettle is always on. Sometimes just talking over a cuppa can help to drop the shoulders and allow you to just be.

If you want further help or support, we have a range of training, coaching, and support available. If you are in York, North Yorkshire, or the East Riding, you might also be eligible for 30% funding towards any investment.

And most importantly, if you haven’t already, get that holiday booked!