Many business leaders, managers and executives are dealing with stress at work. In fact, around the majority of business professionals are dealing with various degrees of burnout at work. Executives in particular tend to have burnout because they are working very hard all the time, and they are handling adjacent stress from managing their employees. In a study from Galoop that covered over 7500 full-time business professionals, it’s said that around 70% of them are experiencing career burnout while at work. But how can you identify any signs of career burnout? Here are some of the things you need to take into consideration.
1- Personal life unfulfillment
It’s imperative to achieve work-life balance if you want to retain great mental health and eliminate any physical health issues that can arise. Plus, career burnout also leads to a lack of human connection and a bad personal life. You’re dedicating all your time to work, thus ignoring your family, friends and personal life.
2- Exhaustion
When you are experiencing career burnout, you’re constantly dealing with a lack of energy and insomnia. You can’t sleep that well, since you think about the decisions you need to take and all the challenges that appear. The last thing you want is to do that, instead you want to sleep at least 7 hours per night to rejuvenate and energize your body. If you’re dealing with constant exhaustion, then you must find ways to deal with that as fast as possible.
3- Lack of performance
If you’re burnt out and without energy, then your performance suffers as well. You can’t retain the same focus and commitment to every task. You will find yourself dealing with severe work issues, and you can avoid that if you re-structure your time and focus on getting the right work-life balance. Even a short vacation might help you.
4- You don’t feel any passion for your work
You accepted this executive job because you were passionate about it and wanted to make a difference. As soon as the passion leaves you and you feel pressure from all sides, you start experiencing career burnout. This won’t help at all, instead it will damage your life and constantly force you to do things that bring you no joy. The truth is that people deliver their utmost performance when they are happy with their job and have a lot of passion for it. When that disappears, all that remains is forced love for the topic, and that never ends well. This is a sign to start considering looking for a new career that embodies or reflect your new passions.
5- Your Relationships at work are negatively impacted
If you’re burnt out, then you deal with a lot of stress and something like this will have a negative impact on your relationships at work. You will be full of anxiety and stress, which doesn’t bode well with any relationship you have with subordinates, bosses and your team. In fact, burnout leads to a constant sense of stress. That means your work performance will become lower and lower, you will deal with bad temper and potential misunderstandings within the team. That alone can be very difficult in the long term, which is why you need to either take a break or re-organize your life to eliminate burnout.
So what now?
What can you do when such symptoms?
First, you want to acknowledge that you experience career burnout and you need to make some changes. You want to start re-organizing your life and seeing if this job is the right one for you. On top of that, you can take a sabbatical and even consider a career transition if possible. It’s not going to be easy, but once you start making changes and focus on yourself, results will shine more than you imagine!
