Symptoms
You can think for yourself that (maybe) you've gotten burnout if you can perceive in your own functioning a.o. the following:
Exceeded self-criticism:
You think about yourself that you can't do no good anymore, everything goes wrong, whatever you do tomorrow will also be doubtful.
Inactivity:
You do far less then before, wherever before you would step forward you now prefer to stay in the background.
Withdrawal:
You always loved to move around the people and you had friends. These days you hardly see any people anymore and you don't look for your friends anymore.
Moodswings:
Everything looks bleak and you have no more fun. Sometimes, all of a sudden you feel sad.
Undecided:
You don't know where to go, in your idea you accomplish nothing anymore.
Not exactly a nice list.
If you overlook this, you would say there is a depression hanging on. And yes, rightly so, because being depressed and being burnout are often confused, just because the symptoms are so similar. There is a major difference though. Depression is an involuntarily condition, something which can just happen to anybody, often having to do with small biochemical flaws. Being burnout though comes direct from the life you led so far, you did it to yourself (not by purpose, of course). Knowing this gives an advantage: you can influence this back, you can arm yourself against it psychologically. The cognitive therapy, mentioned before, offers all the necessary tools.
Resuming:
Getting burnout: okay, this can happen to the best of man.. But: throwing your towel in the ring: no option, don't do it, the problem can surely be solved. Consult your medic, look for a proper therapist and start getting things back on the right track again.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Check if it's true
Everyone is entitled to a favorite mistake.
It just goes to say: everyone has his own special suppositions about the outside world. For many of these thoughts you may safely assume that they are somewhat true. "My mother loves me" for example is a very safe thought, it will always be true in one form or another. But your ideas about your social environment are not necessarily so true. For myself: I am married to a real black african woman. and in Holland I always suppose that nobody is bothered anyway with that. Comes a time, a couple of weeks ago that, after entering a lunchroom, we were very obviously neglected. After some 15 minutes we left the joint, slightly hungry but very indignified. You suppose racial discrimination is no more of your country just to discover that it is still there. The mistake in my thinking so was: with an african woman you can go everywhere in this country. If you find out it is not true, it hits you pretty hard.
Prove for yourself if it is true what you suppose
Now this is one of the major turning keys in the treatment of burnout. Take the liberty to check with your chief and your colleagues if they also find it as important and necessary that you put in two hours overtime every evening. You should realize that the answer might very well be reassuring. But, what you don't ask, will not be answered. If you are a married, working woman, is it still necessary that you serve dinner for your husband at exactly 18:00 or.... Well, I can go on much longer but I think you can see my point. We load our lives up with all kinds of habits that may trouble us sooner or later and which we then forget to check for their real necessity. Leave these patterns to grow and prosper, both at home and at your work and you make your life more difficult then necessasry, possibly funding a serious burnout. However, if you don't take all kinds of things for granted, you will see that inprovement of your life is easily obtainable.
It just goes to say: everyone has his own special suppositions about the outside world. For many of these thoughts you may safely assume that they are somewhat true. "My mother loves me" for example is a very safe thought, it will always be true in one form or another. But your ideas about your social environment are not necessarily so true. For myself: I am married to a real black african woman. and in Holland I always suppose that nobody is bothered anyway with that. Comes a time, a couple of weeks ago that, after entering a lunchroom, we were very obviously neglected. After some 15 minutes we left the joint, slightly hungry but very indignified. You suppose racial discrimination is no more of your country just to discover that it is still there. The mistake in my thinking so was: with an african woman you can go everywhere in this country. If you find out it is not true, it hits you pretty hard.
Prove for yourself if it is true what you suppose
Now this is one of the major turning keys in the treatment of burnout. Take the liberty to check with your chief and your colleagues if they also find it as important and necessary that you put in two hours overtime every evening. You should realize that the answer might very well be reassuring. But, what you don't ask, will not be answered. If you are a married, working woman, is it still necessary that you serve dinner for your husband at exactly 18:00 or.... Well, I can go on much longer but I think you can see my point. We load our lives up with all kinds of habits that may trouble us sooner or later and which we then forget to check for their real necessity. Leave these patterns to grow and prosper, both at home and at your work and you make your life more difficult then necessasry, possibly funding a serious burnout. However, if you don't take all kinds of things for granted, you will see that inprovement of your life is easily obtainable.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
What will people think?
Is somebody else's opinion worth much to you?
Now here is a well-known energy-consumer. You can consider getting burnout as having spent (too) much energy without getting anything back. Having yourself steered in all your actions by whatever you suppose others are thinking about you (don't be surprised, it all happens), now that consumes energy. My wife for example will always give the room a quick vacuum-job when we're expecting visitors, always out on making a good impression, even with the biggest barbarians. Now, this of course doesn't matter much, but when on the job you always act after (unproven) impressions of what you think your chief or colleagues think of your performance, than maybe the danger is there for you doing way too much. So think twice: is your energy then well spent or not?
Stand up for yourself!
It is still amazing to see how often people let themselves be guided by unproven assumptions and, even stranger, how they never ever come down to checking the reality of it. A proper self-investigation can lead to asking the right questions to yourself and your environment. Cognitive therapy is the instrument that can provoke getting these kind of questions on the table and getting them answered as well. No wonder that in almost every suggested treatment of burnout this is the leading technique.
Now here is a well-known energy-consumer. You can consider getting burnout as having spent (too) much energy without getting anything back. Having yourself steered in all your actions by whatever you suppose others are thinking about you (don't be surprised, it all happens), now that consumes energy. My wife for example will always give the room a quick vacuum-job when we're expecting visitors, always out on making a good impression, even with the biggest barbarians. Now, this of course doesn't matter much, but when on the job you always act after (unproven) impressions of what you think your chief or colleagues think of your performance, than maybe the danger is there for you doing way too much. So think twice: is your energy then well spent or not?
Stand up for yourself!
It is still amazing to see how often people let themselves be guided by unproven assumptions and, even stranger, how they never ever come down to checking the reality of it. A proper self-investigation can lead to asking the right questions to yourself and your environment. Cognitive therapy is the instrument that can provoke getting these kind of questions on the table and getting them answered as well. No wonder that in almost every suggested treatment of burnout this is the leading technique.
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