Burnout and stress. It's impacting so many of us. It really made a dramatic impact on my life a few years ago and starting tomorrow, I'll start to fill you in on my back story as to why I do what I do and the reasons that caused 369 days of worst case scenarios.
But today I want to talk about burnout and stress. Specifically the warning signs so you can recognize that you are approaching burnout or, worst case scenario, you are burned out.
The first warning sign of burnout, you are in a work environment and you are burning the candle at three ends, you are going all out. You are giving your all, you're spending nights and weekends on work, you're constantly thinking about your work. You're accomplishing a little bit and you're getting some success. But you are so driven to be successful in what you're doing that you are ignoring everything else around you.
Now, this is noble, especially if you're in a startup and it's almost, I don't want to say a necessary evil, but it's definitely something you have to focus on when you're in a startup. But over time it's going to catch up and it's really going to create some huge problems for you both physically and mentally.
The second warning sign of burnout, is a lack of wanting to do anything. If you're in a situation where you're working really hard and you're doing a lot of things and there's a lot of things going on at work or at home and it's keeping you occupied, that's one thing.
Sometimes though, when you're in this mode for too long, when you actually do have time to be able to do some other things like, go to sporting event, or a concert or out to dinner with friends and you don't feel up to it. That is definitely a warning sign if it's happening more than once.
If you're feeling a little under the weather, you're tired, that's one thing. But if it's time after time after time, then you're going to have some issues and it's definitely a warning sign that you are definitely under a lot of stress, or burning out.
The third warning sign is similar to the second one, but it's worse. You have given up on life. You are going to work, you're doing things, but you are irritable, angry, bitter, frustrated with everything and you are not a nice person to be around. All three of those things happened to me. I was not a nice person to be around or to be dealing with even to the point where the organization that I was working with gave me a week off to rest.
I'll talk about that in a few days on what that was like and how it didn't really help me, because, quite frankly, when you are in a burnout or high stress situation, you forget how to relax.
I'm going to share about 369 days in tomorrow's blog. I'm going to give you the introduction and over the next few days, I'm going to paint the story of what transpired in my life and how, quite frankly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Have a great day, be well.