Decades of research into burnout have identified three fundamental components, exhaustion, detachment/cynicism and a sense of lack of effectiveness/efficacy. Its more than just feeling tired, it’s a loss of meaning, agency and identity.

Exhaustion, that erosion of vital energy, includes components of not just physical exhaustion (nothing left in the tank), but also emotional, cognitive and spiritual exhaustion, being required to continually show up when there is nothing left in the tank. When a car battery runs out of charge, the car stops. But we are required to keep going, running on empty.

Depersonalisation/detachment/cynicism. A form of emotional coping mechanism and self-protection. We become emotionally detached from our work and our patients. We lose our empathy, become cynical, more irritable and risk becoming angry towards our patients and colleagues. “I just don’t care anymore”

Reduced sense of personal efficacy/effectiveness. We lose a sense of accomplishment in our work, often working harder but seemingly achieving less. We begin to question our purpose, our achievements, our value, seeing our work as futile and unrewarding. “Why even try? I’m not making a difference anyway”

How to recognise and recover from burnout

There no quick fix, no magic bullet to managing burnout. It’s not a simple problem requiring a solution, but the result of a complex interaction between ourselves and our working environment. It’s often entangled with other emotional health problems including anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. And so the right approach will involve developing a strategy that is tailored to your own unique situation.

The first step is to recognise your own symptoms of early burnout, those subtle physical, emotional and cognitive clues that we moving under the dark shadow of burnout.

Often, relatively small changes can be all that is required. These changes are fully within your control, the key is having the space to spend time considering options and implementing a recovery plan.

When we are in the whirlwind of overwhelm, just stepping away and allowing time for our soul to catch up can make all the difference.

For those with higher levels of burnout, time away from the workplace may be needed. This allows for recovery, but more importantly, gives time to consider what has caused burnout and make the necessary sustainable changes to break the cycle of recovery followed by relapse.

Coaching is the most powerful of all tools for managing burnout because it offers what burnout takes away; space, clarity, self awareness, self compassion and autonomy.

It allows a space to slow down, explore, unpack without pressure, pause and bring awareness to our situation

Coaching allows us to ask deep questions about our internal drivers that can lead us towards burnout (people pleasing, perfectionism, never show weakness). It also allows us to understand the impact of our working environment (mismatch between demands and resources, toxic culture) as a burnout factory.

And finally, it gives us the capacity to explore our limiting assumptions, negative beliefs and black and white thinking, to stop blaming and shaming ourselves for our burnout, to develop self compassion, self efficacy and self care. It allows us to challenge our inner critic, restore our sense of worth, deploy our strengths and live working lives in resonance with our values, where we can truly thrive.

For more information on how coaching can help you, please get in touch.