Author: Kristin Croyle, PhD
Here’s a multiple-choice question for you. This one is “mark all that apply:”
Lately I have been feeling:
- Physically and emotionally exhausted by my job
- Like I’m having a hard time caring about my students or my colleagues. So many problems in the world and I can’t listen to any more of them.
- Useless — like I’m not making any progress at work or that I don’t have anything of value to contribute.
Does any of that sound familiar? If so, you can join the burnout club. Many of us have experiences of burnout periodically in our careers both as students and as faculty.
What is burnout?
Much of our understanding of burnout is thanks to the excellent research efforts of Christina Maslach and her colleagues at UC Berkeley. Her long and distinguished career studying burnout helps us to see that it is an occupational phenomenon characterized by a response to chronic stressors on the job (Maslach & Leiter, 1997; Leiter & Maslach, 2005). What does that mean? It means that when there is a mismatch between the demands and expectations of the workplace and the interests and capacities of the individual, burnout can be the result. It also means that even though we each feel burnout internally as our own private experience, it is really us responding to workplace stressors. It’s not a mental illness, it’s not a medical condition, and it’s not an individual weakness. (Though chronic burnout can sometimes contribute to illness in many ways.)
People typically experience burnout along three components, though not everyone experiences it in the same way or identifies with all three. First, burnout may include feelings of mental and/or physical exhaustion. Second, it may include feelings of cynicism or being emotionally disengaged, or negative feelings about the workplace. Third, it may include feelings of being ineffective (a particularly tough one for faculty who have spent so many years working hard to be at the top of their disciplines).
Yes, that’s me. What can I do?
Here’s a big caveat before you keep reading. Remember that burnout is an occupational phenomenon. This means that we all — your university administration, your dean, your department chair, your faculty leadership bodies, your union, your colleagues — have a responsibility to try to figure out what aspects of the workplace are contributing to burnout and to address those with creativity, purpose, and urgency.
But if you are experiencing burnout right now, it’s also important to take control over your own experience. Here are five tips on things you can do right now.
Tip #1: Remember that burnout is not your fault. It’s a response to chronic workplace stress. For some people, this alone can be a relief.
The next recommendations are all based on the pieces that we know are part of burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of ineffectiveness. To combat those, shoot for experiences that give you energy, feelings of connectedness or compassion, and a sense of accomplishment or effectiveness. You may already have some good ideas about what works for you in those areas.
Tip #2: Eat, sleep, and exercise. Experiencing burnout can be exhausting. Setting aside time to eat, sleep, and exercise can make you more physically resilient and reduce your exhaustion. In particular, if you’re not making time to eat during the day, put it in your schedule.
Tip #3: Engage your social support network. Burnout can feel lonely and can make you feel socially disconnected. Schedule time to have lunch with a colleague (then you can do Tip #2 at the same time!). Make time to meet with your writing group. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your feelings of burnout, that’s OK. Just meeting and talking with other people can help.
Tip #4: Focus on small achievable goals and then celebrate them. As faculty, we set lofty goals that sometimes take years to achieve (get a PhD, publish a book, get tenure…). Instead, think about your small goals that are moving you in the right direction. To fight feelings of ineffectiveness, celebrate the small evidences that you are effective, that you have something to offer. Did you write for 30 minutes? Celebrate in a small way (my personal favorite is comics). Did you get to the 50 emails you were avoiding? Celebrate in a small way. Did you help a student graduate? Allow yourself to feel pride and satisfaction. Did you get your Revise and Resubmit in? That deserves a bigger celebration. Pay attention to what you’re doing that is working and allow yourself to feel satisfaction in those things.
Tip #5: Say no. Burnout can feel particularly acute if you simply have too much on your plate to be able to feel effective in your work. NCFDD has shared some great resources on how to say no to additional responsibilities even in difficult circumstances.
You can do this.
You’ve done many hard, challenging, and rewarding things to get to where you are now. Even if you are struggling with burnout, you can take control over aspects of your work that can help you to feel more engaged, more energetic, and more joyful.
If you’d like to talk more, please join me for the Rising Above Burnout webinar that I will be hosting. I look forward to continuing the conversation with you.