Turn Insight Into Action: ProactiveChange.com/stress

Overcoming burnout

Burnout is often accompanied by a sense of shame. You feel that you have failed, and somehow you experience this as being a failure.

Sometimes, this sense of failure is just a subjective feeling that is not warranted by the facts. However, it is sometimes objectively true that the burnout is a failure. For instance, plenty of professions include a grueling stress test as part of their rites of passage (e.g. doctors, lawyers in big firms...); if you burn out, you're out, and you have failed.

What's important to remember is that, even when you fail at something because you're not able to handle the stress, this doesn't make you a failure.

This is a subtle but powerful distinction. You fail at something, there's a loss involved, and it is painful; but there's more to you than that. You can go on to something else, and experience success and fulfillment in this other endeavor.

Another factor is that, all too often, burnout makes you less able to do the very things you'd need to do to overcome burnout.

You feel overworked, and you respond to it by feeling that you need to work more.

You postpone taking care of your needs (or even thinking about them) until after you've dealt with your "obligations". As a result, you get even more depleted, and less able to handle the stress.

This is a time when you need to look at the big picture. You're aware of the pull toward "staying the course" even though it doesn't work, but you also understand that this pull toward "staying the course" is a normal side-effect of burnout. You understand it will feell hard and counter-intuitive to make the changes you need to make. So you make the effort to be proactive, and you focus on what you need to do in order to get where you want to be.

Part of how coaching helps is:
- you have a structure where you get a chance to hear yourself think,
- you come up with realistic strategies to build resources that help you handle stress more effectively.

FAQ: in NYC or by Phone Self Coach Tools Serge Prengel

a proactive approach
to self-discipline

about stress | resilience | burnout

stress managmt | effects & symptoms | anger | insomnia | statistics | health | abuse work questionnaire

career | coach | creative +++ | divorce & | habits | inspiration ++ | life | mind | motivation | therapy | relationships | stress | steps

Manhattan, New York City, NY 10019 10001 10003 10010 10011 10014 10016 10017 10018 10020 10021 10022 10023 10024 10036