Are you ready to upgrade?
When thinking of stress and what leads to stress and burnout I think there are at least two things that cause stress:
- Physical stress is caused by pushing your body against its limits
- Mental stress is caused by overloading your brain with too many inputs or being in situations you perceive as greater than your current capability.
When you don’t manage this stress and it builds up, burnout happens or is more likely to happen.
To avoid burnout, recovery is important.
Some recovery tips below:
- Schedule breaks between tasks as much as possible
- Finish what you start before moving on to the next task
- Drink water often. If you think you’re drinking enough water you’re probably not!
- Limit your caffeine. We all have different tolerances.
- Get outside and move your body.
- Schedule time between calls, 25 mins instead of 30 mins, 45 mins instead of an hour so you can catch up
- Take breaks, schedule them or they won’t happen
- Open tabs as you need them, then close them or else bookmark them so you can return to them later
- Pay attention to how you feel both emotionally and physically, listen to your body
- Give yourself permission to say no, find a “No, but” opportunity to help, just not yet
- Pushback if you need space, better to fit your oxygen mask than burnout and serve no one
- Move! Don’t sit in one place not moving. Get up and stand, walk, stretch as much as you can
- Eat balanced food throughout the day, sugary foods have a time and place. Using them as your fuel isn’t sustainable.
To upgrade your capacity to handle more stress, there’s some upgrades that you can do:
- Improve your self-awareness of what you’re experiencing so you can respond quicker to stressful situations
- Practice separating yourself from the situations you are in, moving to a more objective perspective
- Find people who can offer you opposite opinions and build comfort with the differences
- Get better at understanding others rather than mind-reading badly
- Lose ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ that we hold through developing better self-awareness.
These are some of the skills you can develop to change your ability to handle stress in situations differently.
Does this resonate with you? Let me know!