Burnout

The experience of living with burnout and exhaustion for professional, creative and highly sensitive women

Does your job give you blisters?

One of the things that leads to burnout faster than anything is being in a lousy fit job!  We’ve probably all been there at one time or another in our working careers (I know I sure have).

So, how do you know if you are in a lousy fit job?  Well…

  • You feel exhausted before you even start your day
  • You wake up with Monday Blues and knots in your stomach  (but funny how Friday you feel quite good???)
  • Your gut tells you that work shouldn’t feel this way
  • You feel trapped and stuck in your job
  • You find yourself ready to burst into tears at some point in your day
  • You fantasize about strangling your boss
  • You are seriously giving up on your dream of finding ‘work’ that makes your heart and soul sing

Oh if I put myself back in that place in my life (horrors!) I could quadruple that list in a blink of an eye.

So, what happens when we keep on finding jobs that cause blisters like a bad pair of sandals?

We feel miserable, like we are failing, even embarrassed when we try to explain to someone how bad work feels.  I remember that as soon as I would try to explain I would hear some variation of, “…but it’s a good job”.  Yeah, for someone other than me!

We take on lousy fit jobs for lots of reasons, legitimate reasons: paying the bills is a big one, not knowing what else to do, not having the support or encouragement to chase your true dreams, or sometimes simply ending up there because you were young and hadn’t figured it out and then not feeling able to get out.

Some of you will have a track record of changing jobs every 2-3 years (my hand is raised), and we congratulate you on your optimism, no sarcasm intended.  You seriously believe that if you just find the ‘right’ job all of your dissatisfaction will fade and you will find the happiness that intuitively you know should go with work.

It is so discouraging to start a new job with all the best intentions, sure that this one will be better than the last, they will ‘get’ you, you won’t be bored, only to find in 3 months the lustre is wearing off.  With each new job that doesn’t work out your sense of disappointment deepens and you are left exhausted, depressed, disillusioned, perhaps even physically sick.

I was stuck in lousy fit jobs for so many years of my life that it resulted in migraines, depression, even ulcers.  Finally I got savvy, gained in courage, and changed directions.  But that was only after I had figured out that it wasn’t me that was ‘the misfit’, the work environment I was attempting to be successful in was a bad fit.  It took some hours ‘on the couch’ to figure this out, but I have never, ever looked back.

It’s not you that’s the misfit, it’s all about good-fit.   Any job, regardless of title or salary, can be ‘just a job’ if it’s a bad fit for you.  It’s time for you to get bold and brave.

We could share with you case study after case study of highly sensitive, intelligent and creative clients who went from lousy fit jobs or even careers to pursuing work that felt meaningful, purposeful, engaging, challenging, and creative.  What I like to call work that has ‘the sparkles’.  (You know, maybe we will do just that, share case studies on our blog and facebook page.)

Look, we’ve been there and done that (I admit, over and over again) but you don’t have to!  So stop listening to your inner critic that is telling you all number of things from “it’s too late to change”  to “it’s work, it’s not supposed to be fun” and start listening to the voices (you can count on us!) that say…

Here’s one great tip!

  • Make a list of all the reasons (yes, even the embarrassing ones) why you do not deserve a ‘good-fit’ job.  Now’s not the time to hold back.

Done that?  Now the fun begins!

  • Blow those excuses up one at a time!  Destroy the ‘reasons’ you tell yourself that you are not worthy of a job that makes you fulfilled.  (A little daydreaming or fantasizing will work wonders here!)

The time is now!  Time for you to clear that hurdle.

Until next time…Grab Life by the Crown!
The Burnout Queens

The Bad Mood Syndrome

peace signLately we’re noticing how peoples’ bad moods are spilling over onto other peoples’ living. So more of us are at risk of being on the receiving end of negativity, aggression and ill will.  We’ve all experienced the blast of a car horn, the shout of an irrate motorist, or worse, the gesture (you know the one I mean)!

Just the other day we were told to ‘go back to where you came from’ (Canadian accent didn’t sit well with this young english girl), a dogwalking friend was told she was a liar by a complete stranger, and a colleague was accused of starting a fight she wasn’t even present for.  These things just leave you scratching your head and wondering “What the h…!”

To us it is just gratuitous aggression and it’s really on the rise!  Oh, sooner or later the media will call it something like The Bad Mood Syndrome, and have experts on the couch telling us why it happens.  Really, who cares!  In short it is rude, obnoxious and highly unintelligent behaviour.

However, if you are the recipient of someone’s bad mood or tantrum it hurts, it throws you off your game and generally sends a bright and calm day into a total spin.

When you are highly sensitive it takes time and energy to shake-off the nastiness.  We questions ourselves whether we brought it on (“did I say something, do something, look funny at them”) and never come up with a definitive answer because there is none.  We become cautious of who we speak to and how we speak to them.  It’s always a massive shock to be mistreated by strangers while minding your own business.  We even refrain from sharing our experience with friends in case they think ill of us too!

These attacks are particularly hard on highly sensitive people.  HSPs (and that certainly includes us) don’t expect to be treated in this way.  We never ‘ask for it’, and would never dream of treating other people in such a manner!  Which is why we are always so taken aback!

In short, we can’t control the surprise attack, but what we can control is the amount of time and energy spent trying to understand what we did or didn’t do.

All you need to do is remember one thing and one thing only…It’s not about you, it’s all about them!

PS:  One more thing to do, don’t lose your gentleness, your sensitivity, and your caring way of treating others.  It takes faith I know, but we don’t need more of ‘them’ in the world.  We need more of ‘us’

In peace…The Burnout Queens xx

 

Easy tip to stop worrying and get doing

vintage writing deskI have a new writing project on my to-do list this week.  Instantly my anxiety, self-doubt and worry rear their ugly heads; will I say it right, will it make sense, does it need to be said… and on and on I go erecting hurdles to make the task difficult.  Unfortunately I haven’t even started!

This is such a typical hurdle for HSP’s gripped with mind chatter and performance anxiety (guilty as charged)

Here’s a tip I used that helped me get over myself.

I sent an email to my blackberry with a confidence boosting message + the 3 steps needed to get the project done: ‘we can do this:  1 topic–3 talking points–2 exercises’.    While working, I glanced at it periodically just to stay on point.

Simple and it actually worked.  Hope it helps you as well.   Dr Bev xx

 

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