Tag: personal development

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Avoid Burnout: Burnout Signs to Know and Watch For

While forgetfulness, brain fog, and trouble thinking straight can also be signs of serious illness like Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue syndrome, and dementia, it can also be a major sign of burnout.

 

If you are experiencing issues with remembering things, can’t keep your thoughts straight, and have a hard time thinking in general or have ruminating thoughts, it’s important to seek professional help even if you think it’s burnout.

 

Go to your primary care provider for a complete physical and work up to be sure that it’s not chemical or physical. But understand that even if it is depression or burnout that you’re experiencing, your doctor may be able to advise you on treatment.

 

Mental issues are still treatable by healthcare professionals and are real illnesses. In the meantime, you can watch out for these signs and seek help to keep it from getting worse.

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  • Fatigue or Exhaustion – If you feel so tired you can’t function even if you’re sleeping or you’re also not sleeping due to experiencing insomnia it’s important to note that it can be due to burnout. However, the way you feel may also be due to another illness.

 

  • No Motivation – When you have a lot to do, but you really just can’t be bothered with doing any of it, you’re missing deadlines, you’re not performing up to your skill level, and others are noticing it, you may be burned-out.

 

  • Can’t Focus – Another sign of burnout is the inability to concentrate, focus, or remember things. This is a sign that is also associated with depression, and frequently situational depression can coincide with burnout.

 

  • Feel Dread – If you feel dread every time you think of work, go to work, or get home from work, you may be burned out. If you are always fantasizing about getting out of your job or your business, you may be burned out, and that is why this is happening.

 

  • Ruminating Thoughts – When an issue comes up with your business, work, or relationship (whatever it is that is contributing to your feelings), if you end up having circular thoughts to the point of distraction, you may be burned out.

 

  • Don’t Care That You Don’t Care – This is a big sign of burnout. If you can barely be bothered to read this blog post about burnout because you feel numb to everything, it’s likely you either are burned out, or you have major depression.

 

It’s imperative to remember that being burned out doesn’t mean you don’t want to keep your business, or your job, or even your marriage—if that’s what is causing you the dread, lack of motivation, and exhaustion—it might be the way you’re doing it that is causing your burnout. Therefore, it will help to identify the reasons you’re experiencing these problems so that you can fix it and avoid it in the future.

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Avoid Burnout: Reassess Your Goals

The only way you can be sure that anything you do works is to test it and look at the data. Once you do that, you may discover that a goal you made was the wrong goal for you to be shooting for in the first place. After all, as you learn, grow, and change throughout your life, it’s normal for your priorities also to change.

Passion post

When you were in your teenage years, you probably underestimated how challenging and all-encompassing parenthood would be. Even if you don’t yet have your own children as you experience your peers going through parenthood, you learn by watching them, and that will also change your perspective in ways that can be life-changing, causing you to reevaluate your priorities.

 

This is okay. It doesn’t mean you’re indecisive or that you are a hypocrite. You simply just don’t know what you don’t know until you know it. That’s a mouth full, I know, but it’s the truth. Because of this fact, it’s imperative that you periodically reassess your goals to avoid burnout.

 

Evaluate Your Original Goals

 

Ask yourself whether the goal is something you even care about at all at this point in your life. It might be easy to determine to stop pursuing it right off the bat. You may have to dig deeper to discover the answers, but you can ask yourself a few questions to help.

 

  • Is this goal still attainable?
  • Do I need to adjust the timeline?
  • Is the goal even important to me?
  • Do I have the tactics and techniques right for achieving the goal?

 

Examine Your Process for Reaching Each Goal

 

When you set goals the SMART way, you’ll end up with several smaller goals with smaller daily steps that help you reach the goal. Did you set up the initial process in a way that really will ensure you are successful? You may need to adjust the process for reaching the goal to make it desirable or possible for you to keep pursuing it.

Go back through the process of setting SMART GOALS.

Click here SMART Goal blog post for each of the goals you’re examining to help you ensure that you’ve done all you can to facilitate success.

Track Your Progress

If you have not been tracking your progress until now, it’s essential that you set up some form of goal tracking.

Some people like using project management systems like Trello.com, Basecamp.org, and others to set milestones and track progress even if they’re doing all the work alone. This is highly recommended to help you stay on track with your goals.

 

Finally, ensure that any goal you set advances your path toward your overall life mission. You don’t want to do things that set you back from reaching your ultimate mission in life.

When you know what that path is, you’ll have a much easier time saying yes or no to any additions on your plate. This will be one of the main ways you can avoid experiencing burnout throughout your life.

 

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How to Accept Failure and Mistakes

No matter how well you plan or implement, sometimes things aren’t going to work out as you expected. Sometimes you’re going to make mistakes, but sometimes you’re going to experience failure due to nothing you have done. However, it happens, and due to that, it’s essential to learn how to accept failure and mistakes as part of life and not the end of the world.

 

Feel Your Feelings

 

One thing to realize upfront is that your feelings are perfect and are ‘allowed’ no matter what. No one has a right to tell you not to feel a certain way. However, understand that your own thoughts are what make you feel something. If you can change the way you think of something, you may be able to affect how you feel about it too.

 

Be Kind to Yourself

 

There is a vast difference between the notion of being nice and that of being kind. When you are kind, you are mindful of the impact your thoughts and actions have on yourself and others. Think and do kind things, and you’ll end up a happier, healthier person who is not at risk for burnout.

 

Acknowledge Your Own Mistakes

 

When you do make a mistake, it’s imperative that you accept responsibility for your actions that lead to the failure but not the things you cannot control. For example, if you missed a deadline because you binge-watched a new TV show, that’s on you. But, if you missed a deadline because you were sick, that’s not on you.

 

Prepare Yourself Mentally for Failure

 

Everyone makes mistakes no matter what, and everyone falls short of their goals. This is normal life. If you don’t fail sometimes, it’s likely you’re not even pushing yourself hard enough. Everyone cannot be number one every time, and that includes you. Instead, focus on your effort in proper goal setting to help you avoid failing for that reason.

 

Learn from The Failure or Mistake

 

When you do make a mistake or a project or idea fails instead of beating yourself up, figure out what you can learn from the situation. For example, most failures start from day one with goal setting. How could you do this over again differently and get a better outcome? Even if you can’t actually get a do-over, it’s good to explore the reasons.

 

Develop a Plan for Moving Forward

3 step plan

Once you’ve examined the mistakes you made and figured out why you failed, it’s time to create a plan to move forward. If you can do everything over again, that’s great, but if you can’t, learn from it and move on.

 

When you take the time to learn from your failure and mistakes, you can actually avoid making the same one twice. When you avoid making the same mistakes again, you will improve your life exponentially as you grow and improve over time. When you keep an open mind about failure and errors, you’ll find that you start being more realistic about the goals you set, the actions you take, and the way you view failure and success.

 

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Develop Your Personal Mission Statement

A personal mission statement can help make decision making a lot simpler. When you can make choices with a guide, you can avoid making mistakes of morals, values, and principles. In fact, this is the one thing that can make it easier for you to keep on the right path to success in your life without experiencing burnout.

A personal mission statement is a paragraph or two that defines your personal values, morals, and principles upon which your decisions will be guided. You’ll be able to stay focused to meet short term and long-term goals. More importantly, you’ll be able to avoid shiny objects and other distractions that can separate you from your goals in life and cause burnout.

 

To write your personal mission statement answer the following questions:

 

  • What is most important to you? – You may have two or three different goals in mind that are of utmost importance.
  • What are your three biggest goals? – Likewise, list your three biggest life goals. It can help to pretend you have died, and you’re writing your eulogy.
  • What are your greatest strengths? – What are you good at, and why?
  • What are your core values? – What really makes you tick in terms of your core values. For example, achievement, adventure, friendship, and health are all core values.
  • What skills and talents do you have that help you? – What are you good at doing, and how does it impact your mission?
  • What roles are in your life? – Are you a mom, sister, friend, etc…
  • How do you want others to describe you? – Ask some people who are important to you to describe you in one sentence.
  • What mark do you want to leave on the world? – When you die, what do you want your family, friends, or even strangers to say about you?
  • Who do you hope to become? – If you could become anyone else in the world, who would it be and why?

 

As you answer these questions, you’ll be developing ideas that will be used in your final mission statement, which is going to be short. However, for now, just answer the questions completely. Be true to who you are, and make sure you seek feedback from others by asking them how they view you and what they see as your greatest strengths. Those answers will assist you with insight that will help you with your mission statement.

 

After you’ve drilled down into who you are and what you want out of your life, you can use this template to fill in the blanks for your mission statement.

 

My mission in life is to _(Goal)__________, by _(Action)________ in order to __(Impact)______.

 

For example:

 

My mission in life is to help others overcome burnout through effective planning in order to stay healthy, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

 

As you see, the final results of all your work exploring yourself and what you really want out of life can be boiled down into a single sentence. Some mission statements are longer, and some people like to make them for each area of their life. It’s up to you how you create and use your personal mission statement, but once you create it, you can use it as your guide to help make decision making easier for you.

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How to Let Yourself Take a Vacation

One key to avoiding burnout is to take a lot of breaks both during your day and during your year. It depends on the rest of your life, but most people will benefit from taking regular short vacations as well as a long one every year if they plan for it and set themselves up for a real break and real vacation.

 

Accept That You Deserve a Break

 

So many people feel guilty about taking vacations or any type of break. They think they have to be busy all the time. The problem with this idea is that it’s just wrong. You, just like anyone else, not only deserve a break, but you need a break to ensure your mental health stays intact and that you can work to your full potential when you are working.

Focus on Results

Budget for The Vacations You Want to Take

 

Avoid undue stress about money by setting aside a budget for your vacations. One way to look at a budget is called the 50-20-30 plan. This means that 50 percent of your budget goes to needed items, 20 percent for savings and investing. The remaining 30 percent should be spent on something else like vacations, movies, and experiences outside the rest of your budget.

 

Plan and Schedule the Vacations That You Want to Take

 

Once you know your budget, even if it’s small, make plans for your breaks and vacations. Even a staycation can be very beneficial if you plan it right and truly take the time off to refresh from your hard work. Don’t wait for the time to be right. Once you have the funds, go ahead, and make the plans.

 

Set Boundaries for Yourself and Others

 

One problem with vacations for those who work for themselves or for some parents who don’t have the most supportive spouses is that people like to intrude on our time off. Instead of allowing this to happen, set boundaries for yourself and others. For example, if you really do need to check your email for work, just check it once a day. If you really do need to help your spouse with something, plan for it, so you know when you’re doing it.

 

Turn Off as Much as Possible During Your Vacations

 

One problem with truly getting the break you need is that technology has made it possible to take your entire office with you in the form of a laptop or smartphone. Set aside specific times to use this technology but try to keep it off most of the time, especially when you’re doing vacationing things like swimming, hiking, and eating.

 

Be Ready for Interruptions but Focus on Your Break

 

When you work for yourself, the truth is, you may get interrupted during your break. Fires may have to be put out. However, for each time that this happens, try to figure out a solution to avoid it next time. As you perfect your break taking, you’ll find that you really probably can just let most fires go after all and end up in the same place.

 

If you have felt guilty in the past for taking breaks much less a vacation, it’s essential for you to accept that the lies you’ve been telling yourself are wrong. You deserve to take a vacation, and it’s not lazy or self-indulgent. In fact, taking vacations can help you become much more productive and successful because you will avoid problems with burnout, which can set you back a lot more than a few days off to clear your mind and take a break.

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Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

Sleeping enough each night is an essential component of ensuring that you live a life that will help you avoid burnout. If you are well-rested, you are going to perform at a higher level every single day, thus making you more productive. If you are tired due to a lack of sleep, problems will seem more prominent and less surmountable. The thing is, exercising every day is a big key to sleeping better every night.

 

Know Your Body

 

It’s okay to be a night owl going to bed later and sleeping later. This is not really a big problem in terms of causing burn out. The main thing is that you need to sleep when your body wants to sleep and wake when your body wants to wake so you can do various tasks when your body is most efficient.

 

Schedule Your Life Based on Your Priorities

 

When you look at your priorities, there are obviously going to be sometimes that you cannot go by your own internal clock but someone else’s clock. Even when you have to do that, it’s okay to priorities your life based on what you want to accomplish most. If it’s important for you to sleep 9 hours a night to be most productive during the day, then you need to set up your lifestyle to ensure you can do that.

 

Do the Minimum to Maximize Your Life

 

Remember that productivity is about the results and not how hard you worked to get there. When you schedule your day, remember that you should seek to do the minimum workload to achieve the most results. For example, to maintain good health, most doctors say you need to exercise moderately at least 150 minutes a week. That’s not really that much. What would happen if you did that minimum? Do it, record the results, and adjust as needed to reach your goals doing only what is necessary to make the goal.

 

Exercise is One Key to Good Sleep and Health

Balance, exercise, sleep

Remember that if you have problems sleeping at night due to being restless, either mentally or physically, that exercise can help. Try exercising aerobically for 20 to 30 minutes, at least once a day before 6 in the evening. Studies show most people get the most benefit exercising this way within a couple of hours of waking.

 

Set Up Your Space for Success

 

No matter what it is that you want to accomplish where you are doing it is important. If you want to sleep well every night, make sure your bedroom is an oasis made for sleeping. Keep the room temperature cool and make sure you have the best bed you can afford. Keep technology out of your bedroom and create a sleeping haven for yourself. Likewise, if you want to work out every morning, set up your workout schedule to make it easy to get ready and do the exercise you want to do without much thought.

 

While it’s okay to be a night owl, understand that exercising soon after waking is more effective than doing it later in the day when it comes to helping you sleep. However, everyone is different, so feel free to test out the ideas to see what works best for you.

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10 Ways to Avoid Burnout

Avoiding burnout is really a matter of being aware that it can happen so that you take the steps to design your life in a way that keeps you from burning out and ensures that you thrive as you think about ways you can set up your life to avoid burnout figure out what you can implement right now to affect the most change as soon as possible.

 

Automation

 

  1. Be Mindful – Almost every person alive has an internal conversation with themselves, but most are not really that self-aware. You probably have thoughts that you ignore and then wish you didn’t. Try to be more mindful about your brain chatter because sometimes it can be a warning of things to come.

 

  1. Take Lots of Breaks – Work many breaks into your schedule. The idea that you have to be busy all the time to be productive is a lie. You don’t need to work yourself into the ground to be successful. Work breaks into your day and also vacations into your life where you truly take a break and stop doing work or anything stressful in a bad way.

 

  1. Be as Healthy as Possible – How you take care of yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually is vital to being a healthy person that can avoid problems with burnout. Eat right, exercise, see your doctor on schedule. Talk to a mental health professional or your religious leader if you need help dealing with something.

 

  1. Learn to Schedule Properly for You – One of the keys to success in life and avoiding burnout is to learn how to make a reasonable and realistic schedule. Try various methods until something clicks for you. One of the best methods to help you avoid burnout is the block schedule. Another is using the Pomodoro Technique to get your tasks completed.

Check out this post on Goal setting:

 

  1. Harmony is More Realistic Than Balance – Many people, especially mothers, tend to talk in terms of having a balanced life. The problem is this is an unrealistic ideal to shoot for in today’s world. However, you can seek to have harmony, which means if you have to spend a lot of time on one thing, you need to ensure you schedule a lot of time for the other thing, too, but maybe at a later date.

 

  1. Find Joy in Your Day – The best way to avoid burnout is to help yourself feel happier and more satisfied. One way to accomplish that is to keep a gratitude journal so that you can remember that sunrise you saw or your grandchild’s laughter on any given day.

 

  1. Pay for More Experiences and Less Stuff – One thing that can cause burnout is the continuous seeking of material possessions. Remember to use your money to experience things too. Experiences are always seen as much more satisfying and happier than things.

 

  1. Let Yourself Get Bored Sometimes – One problem with today’s always-on society besides rampant burnout is that no one is bored. Being bored is a significant catalyst for invention. Spend an hour in a hammock without your phone, go on a walk with your five-year-old. Spend a day fishing. It’s okay to do nothing.

 

  1. Practice Positive Self-Talk – When you’re mindful, you’ll start to notice your internal monologue more often. If it’s negative, it can be a sign of impending burnout. Try to turn those thoughts around to positive thoughts. At the very least, try to make the thoughts more neutral.

 

  1. Unplug Every Day Early – It might get old for night owls to hear this but turning off your technology a few hours before bed is essential for a better night’s sleep. Sleeping well improves your health in every way, especially mentally, giving you the strength to avoid burnout.

 

Avoiding burnout is very much like wearing a seat belt to help reduce damage if you get into a collision. It’s not going to stop everything bad from happening, but it will certainly reduce the damage to your life if you have a plan in place.

 

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How to Identify Over the Top Goals to Make Them Reasonable

Part of learning how to create goals that work is to learn how to make SMART goals. A SMART goal is a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.  If a goal is all of these things, it will be a reasonable goal that is possible to attain. During the goal-setting process, though most people will tell you to dream big. That’s great, do dream big, but don’t dream so big that you fail because what you dreamed was not possible for you right now.

Feeling Exhausted

For example, let’s say you want to go to Law School, but you don’t seem able to get a good enough score on the LSAT to get into the school that you want to go to. At first glance, it may seem as if the goal of going to law school itself is impossible and not reasonable, but that’s not true. Instead, you need to step back and attack this goal from a new angle and now set your goal to get a better score on the LSAT.

 

This may require that you take a year off to take a course and study your heart out, but if you don’t give up, you will eventually pass. It’s not really impossible, just not probable for you to succeed until you’ve spent more time studying.

 

But let’s say you have a goal of being six feet tall, but you’re 35 years old, and you’re only five foot two. Guess what, you can be six feet tall in the right shoes, but you may look ridiculous. The truth is, you’re never really going to be six feet tall. It’s vital to differentiate dreams from possibilities that can become your goals.

 

When you are in the goal-setting process, you’ll want to ensure that your goals are reasonable and not over the top and, therefore, impossible or not probable for you to succeed now.

 

Maybe you don’t have enough capital to invest in the idea right now, so you need to step back and find that money. Perhaps you just don’t have the skillset, so you’ll need to step back and get that skill. Whatever the reason is that you cannot reasonably reach that goal yet step back and set a smaller target at the level previous to the harder, more improbable goal.

 

Write down all the things that have to happen for the goal to happen. Can you do those things? Do you need to go back to an even earlier step and goal before that one? If you cannot see a way to reach the goal realistically and reasonably that meets your personal timeline and life, no matter how much you step back, you’ll need to adjust the goal.

 

The old saying that you cannot swim until you learn to tread water applies here. There is no reason to burn yourself out, trying to reach for something that is never going to happen. At the same time, don’t limit your potential either. Go through the goals you’ve set and create a step-by-step path to achieve them even if you have to step back several paces to make it work.

 

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A Job Done is Worth a Reward

 

When you become a parent, or if you’re already a parent, you know that reward systems really work to help change the behavior of a child. In fact, studies show that rewards win out against punishment for most children in terms of successfully changing a child’s behavior.

work environment

Guess what? The idea of rewards for a job done works for adults too, and what’s more, rewards don’t have to be something someone else sets up. You can set up a reward system for yourself that motivates you and helps you get more done every single day.

 

Not only is a reward system fun, but it really works. To get started, you’ll want to follow these steps.

 

  • Set Your Goals
  • Set Up the Time Period Between Rewards
  • Choose the Rewards in Advance
  • Celebrate Receiving Your Rewards
  • Keep Doing It

 

Set Your Goals

 

The very first thing you have to know is what your goals are and what signifies ‘done’ for the sake of the rewards. State your goals and specifically spell out what constitutes done for the purpose of the prize. Learn about how to set SMART goals to ensure you get this part right.

 

Determine How Often You’ll Reward Yourself

 

You can set up as many rewards as you want to. For example, if you get up in the morning and do your 20-minute fast walk before your coffee as planned, you can choose a reward such as getting to spend a few minutes doing something you genuinely enjoy, like spending some downtime reading a good book.

 

Choose the Rewards in Advance

 

As you set up your reward system, you’ll want to know exactly what the reward will be for each activity you’re going to reward yourself for. There is no right or wrong reward as long as the reward motivates you and does not roadblock you. For example, don’t reward yourself with something dangerous or unhealthy. Set up some small ones for each day and some bigger ones for longer-term goals.

 

Celebrate Receiving Your Reward

 

There is more to the reward than the thing itself. It’s also the idea that you finished, which should also feel significant to you. When you meet a goal, it feels good by itself too, so spend some time being happy and thankful about that without the reward but then go ahead and brag to yourself about the fun or the experience of the reward.

 

Finally, don’t give up. Keep going. Don’t try it for just a month and then give up. Try your system out for at least a year to find out if it really works for you or not.

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Avoiding Burnout by Doing What You Love

Maybe when you started your business, you thought you would love it, but you don’t love it, and that reality is causing you to become burned out. So how do you manage when what you thought was your passion turns into burnout?

 

Keep a Journal

 

The more you know yourself, the more you can figure out the things in life that make you feel satisfaction and joy instead of anxiety and burnout. Try different types of journals to determine the type that will work best for you.

Do what you love

You may prefer a bullet journal, or you may want to use an emotional journal to help you get to the bottom of your feelings. It’s up to you. You may find ways to use different types of journaling to help you resolve issues with or avoid burnout.

 

Take Time to Reflect

 

Every day as you are cleaning up your desk to end your workday, reflect on what you have accomplished as well as what you want to accomplish tomorrow based on your overall business and life plans. It can help to look at metrics that show progress so you can make better decisions every day.

 

Develop a More Realistic Routine

 

As you study your use of time, you may want to develop a more realistic routine that helps you achieve all your goals. For example, instead of working traditional hours, you note that you’re much more energetic after 10 am, so you stop working before 10 am. You can adjust your schedule accordingly to fit your energy levels.

 

Find Your Own Version of “Balance”

 

There is a lot of talk, especially with women, on finding “balance,” but maybe a balance in the way you think of it does not exist. Most people picture a scale that they try to make even. A little work here, a little fun here – but that doesn’t always work because sometimes work will need you more than home. Instead, try to create your own version of balance that feels harmonious to you.

 

Get Support from Others

 

Even as a business owner, and maybe especially as a business owner, you should not do everything yourself. Get support in life from others for business, for family, and friends. You need the comradery to help you cope with life’s ups and downs.

 

Find Ways to Do More with Less

Minimalism isn’t about doing without; it’s about doing more with less. For example, if you have set aside four hours a day to work on your business, you can get a lot more done in that four hours if you automate everything you can and outsource anything that doesn’t require your personal touch. Likewise, if you never use your dining room for dining, is it really a dining room?

 

Put Your Health First

 

Regardless of anything else you want to accomplish in life, whether business or personal, the truth is, without your health, you have nothing. It may seem trite to say it, but it’s very true. Put your body’s need for sleep, hydration, exercise, and nutrition before business.

 

The thing you have to accept is that you’re only human due to the fact human beings need certain things to be healthy. Learn about the areas of life that you need to focus on to live a full and well-rounded life full of joy and accomplishment in business and life. Body, mind, relationships, business, finance, and spirituality are a few of the most essential areas of life in which you need to find your own version of harmony and balance.

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