Blog Archives

Avoiding Burn-out

Posted on December 7, 2011 by sheryl

We’ve all all had those days when there’s a small voice in the back of our heads that says, “Here’s a quarter, please go call someone who cares.” At that moment you get it that unconditional positive regard doesn’t live in your chair anymore. Here’s some tips to help recover your energy, your love of your work, and your own unconditional positive regard – for yourself.

Tip #1: Give your attention to your own physical well-being. Stretch between clients, jog in place. Try the Cat Response. You know, when the cat gets up from her chair where she’s been for a while, the first thing she does is yawn, stretch, not in any particular way, although there is a yoga stretch is called cat stretch and downward dog. You sit still for 6-8 hours a day, discover ways to move that just feels good.

Tip #2: Give your attention to your own emotional well-being. You’ve spent your day listening. A few minutes at the end of your day to practice mindfulness can be very powerful. Breathing to quiet your mind and your internal emotional cocktail. Take the names of each person you saw today, or any other person that comes to mind. In your imagination, see yourself standing near a brook. Write the name of that person on a leaf, if you have a prayer practice, invite the Divine to bless that particular person/problem, and with that blessing, release the leaf onto the water, and watch it float downstream. Continue with each person until all that concerns you has been released, just for now.

Tip #3: Give your attention to your own mental well-being. Many of us have a job that engages our mental acuity constantly. The tip here is to find things that suit you that either quiet that mental chatter, like a mindfullness, or puts it into a hypnotic state, like TV, computer games. Some folks also find release in hobby type experiences that bring them into flow, that state where time stops and the moment consumes your attention. I’ve inserted a 15-20 minutes island in my day when I first get home, before preparing my dinner when I just sit with a glass of  wonderful cup of tea and watch the clouds go by – my own puppy-on-the-couch moment when I intentionally accomplish nothing, think about nothing, solve nothing.

Tip #4: Give your attention to your own spiritual well-being.  If you have a religious or spiritual practice, make sure that daily (2-5 minutes, even as you fall asleep) you turn your attention toward that focus.  If you don’t have any particular practice, use a few minutes at the beginning or end of your day to do something that brings your focus outside of your inner world – enjoy a moment in nature, connect with a pet, close your eyes and list the parts of your day you are particularly grateful for, enjoy music.  Even just focusing on your breath can quiet the monkey mind and give you some peace.

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What is your Intention with your Hard Work?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by sheryl

I’ve learned an important lesson this quarter, and it’s about the action half of the Law of Attraction. I’ve always been a focused, hard worker – you know that “Protestant Work Ethic” idea? And I have a strong confidence in my own ability to do anything I set my mind to, and I pretty much always have done that (except for my forray into raising rabbits – I’ll talk about that next week).

The curse of being able to do a lot of stuff, like computer programming, sew clothing, can beans, grind wheat, make bread from scratch, clean house, create gardens, train dogs…..is that it just isn’t possible to enjoy all those things. I’m not a professional seamstress or a skilled web designer, but I often get myself caught in a “should” of since-I-know-how-to-do-that, I SHOULDN’T pay-someone-else syndrome.  I found an interesting quote this week that really caught my eye:

“Many high performers would rather do the wrong thing well than do the right thing poorly. And when they do find themselves in over their head, they’re often unwilling to admit it, even to themselves, and refuse to ask for the help they need.”

I’ve been stuck for the last several weeks, trying to do some wrong things, and struggling to do the right things poorly – and worse yet, not at all. Last week, I hired a professional to do some things that I don’t know how to do, but was confident that I could figure it out, and it’s an enormous relief to my schedule, to my creativity, and to my day.

What on earth have I been ‘thinking’ all these years? What are those things that you do very well and easily that bring juice to your day, and what are those things that you sort of can do that drain your energy – is it time to ask for help with those tasks?

Posted in Create your Business, Create your Career, Frozen in Fear, Just Stuck | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

FIVE TIPS FOR BURN-OUT THREAT

Posted on April 13, 2011 by sheryl

Last week, we chatted about whether that burn-out feeling is you or the job. What if you determine that the job is still exactly what you had signed up for several years ago, but you have changed. Sometimes it is you that needs to add some de-stressing resources to your bag of tricks. As the economy has gotten leaner and meaner, many people, both employees and business owners are trying to do more with less support. If you’re a counselor in an agency, you may find that your case load has remained the same, but the reporting demands have grown, and the staff meeting requirements have also grown. If you’re a business owner, you may have attempted to manage your own marketing activities, blogging, working with social media, attending networking events on your evenings and on your “day off”.

  1. Set non-negotiable boundaries for yourself. These may sound like “Work a 45 hour week most weeks, keeping those 45 hours in a five day work week.” If you’re employed and your work load has gotten out of hand, determine with your manager exactly which tasks have top priority and which can be let go when those 45 hours are filled. If your are running your own business, decide what tasks are mission critical, and which ones might be done with less than perfection, which ones might be delegated, and which ones really don’t need to be completed this quarter.
  2. Track for yourself when are your most productive hours for which tasks. I have a friend who is an artist. She has discovered that her most creative hours are mornings from 10-1, and late afternoons from 4-6. She organizes her day around those hours. When are you most effective at writing case notes or project reports? When are you most effective as a presenter?
  3.  If you must work during your personal unproductive hours, try one of these two strategies to help you be effective even in your “off” hours:
  • Take a quick, brisk walk around the building, breathing deeply – or do jumping jacks in your office, anything to get your heart working, your lungs working, and getting oxygen up to that tired brain of yours

OR

  • Take a meditation moment, sit quietly, breathing comfortably, progressively relaxing each part of your body, top to bottom with each out breath. Download, if you’d like a simple guided meditation from (OPL free gift) – it’s an MP3 file of only 3 minutes to support your resistance to burning out. The link is just to the right.

If you have any additional tips to help avoid burn-out, please share them here.

Posted in Just Stuck | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment