Top (Madewell) | Jeans (Gap) | Shoes (Chanel)
Sunnies (Foster Grant) | Watch (Michael Kors)
Happy Monday! We made it through a VERY hot weekend here in NYC so I’m actually kind of excited to spend the week in the comfort of highly my air-conditioned office. Is that a sign of my workaholicism? Speaking of being a workaholic, today we’re talking about a very sensitive but relevant topic, burnout.
Before we get into it, I have a few disclaimers: 1) I honestly love working so burnout is sometimes always self-inflicted. 2) I essentially work two jobs– full-time as a social strategist at 360i and my blog/boutique side hustle. I find this context necessary because I think advertising agencies get a bad rap for driving burnout and this isn’t one of those stories.
If you haven’t experienced burnout, let me give you the rundown. Burnout is when you start getting negative about the job that you normally love, making you feel less motivated in not only your job but potentially other parts of your life (working out, your relationships, etc.). Maybe you’ve spent a few more hours at the office than you wanted, maybe you’ve sacrificed too much of your life for the sake of your job, or maybe you just don’t feel like you’ve had a ‘win’ lately. These are usually the reasons that start making me feel a little burnt out.
As I mentioned, I love working and I always have. Throughout my life, this love of work has manifested in various ways. In high school, being a workaholic meant taking as many AP classes that I was qualified for, being the captain of my cheerleading team, the choreographer of the school musical and being on a competitive dance team. In college, I always took at least 20 credits (when the average for a BU student was 16), I was on my sorority’s e-board, and had a PR internship every semester. Now, I throw my entire self into my job and with whatever’s left of me, I work on this little blog of mine (and then there is the boutique during the holidays). Unfortunately, burnout isn’t a new feeling for me. I remember vividly the first time I experienced it. It was during AP testing season, which also overlapped with dance competition season. My daily ritual of studying index cards while stretching in the studio or waiting for ‘Group A’ to finish their pirouette sequence was suddenly extremely overwhelming and for a few days afterwards I had no motivation to study for my tests, show up to my dance classes, eat dinner with my family, I even took my first ‘Mental Health’ day from school (shattering my perfect attendance record).
While I’m definitely not a pro at ‘beating’ burnout and struggle with it on the regular, I have definitely learned a few tricks along the way that I wanted to share with you all.
1| Take A Day. As soon as you start to feel burnout creeping up, take a day off. This is probably one of the BIGGEST mistakes I make time-after-time. I’m always so harsh on myself when it comes to PTO. I plan a certain number of vacations and stick to the plan, but sometimes you need to take a day after trudging through a hard project or maybe just a really hard week.
2| Change Up Your Routine. Sometimes the burn comes from the grind itself. It’s so easy to fall into certain habits and routine when you do the same things day-in and day-out. While I love my morning routine of taking Duncan out in the morning, picking up Starbucks on my way to work, listening to my favorite podcasts on my commute, tracking my goals the moment I get to work, heading to my same 10a meeting, making sure all of my emails are read and answered before I leave the office, calling my mom on my commute home, making dinner, catching up on 1 episode of my favorite TV show, etc., etc., etc. While this is definitely a routine that works for me, when I start to feel burnout a mix-up is 100% necessary. Walk to work instead of taking the train, grab a smoothie instead of Starbucks, catch a Soul Cycle class before work, all of these things will help you feel a little bit more ready to take on the day.
3| Spend Time With Friends & Family. THIS. THIS helps put everything into perspective. In my case, my closest friends and family don’t even live in the city so it is refreshing to talk about things that are completely outside of my world. I love hearing about everyone else’s drama and what they are dealing with, it helps me understand that the amount of work I have and my crazy deadlines really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
4| Say ‘Not Now.’ I’m not going to be the one to be like, ‘just say no to things that are outside your bandwidth’ because you know that’s not realistic. Even if you aren’t 100% interested in the task at hand you can probably learn from it so when you are feeling stretched too thin say ‘Not Now,’ this helps set the expectation that 1) you are capable of managing your own time and 2) that you are interested in learning or helping out in the future.
5| Prioritize What Matters Most. It’s so easy to get caught up in the minutia of things and next thing you know, the day is over and you got nothing done. Every day when I get into work, I set three priorities for the day. Sometimes those priorities are work-related and sometimes they are to make doctor’s appointments or make it to my workout class. Documenting these priorities help you start the day understanding what matters most to you and gets you to gameplan the rest of your day to make sure those things happen (and you feel personally rewarded).
Now, there is no secret formula to beating burnout. This is what has worked for me but everyone and every burnout is different. I’d love to hear how you’ve personally beat burnout, I’m always desperate for a few more tips.
