Preventing Burnout Quotes

Think about every good thing in your life right now. Free yourself of worrying. Let go of the anxiety, breathe. Stay positive, all is well.

The desire for the cool job that you’re passionate about is a particularly modern and bourgeois phenomenon—and, as we’ll see, a means of elevating a certain type of labor to the point of desirability that workers will tolerate all forms of exploitation for the “honor” of performing it. The rhetoric of “Do you what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life” is a burnout trap. By cloaking the labor in the language of “passion,” we’re prevented from thinking of what we do as what it is: a job, not the entirety of our lives.

Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.

First and foremost, if we maintain healthy emotional boundaries and direct love and kindness inwards, we are taking care of ourselves and secondly we are giving a subliminal message to others about how we wish to be treated. People tend to subconsciously treat us how we treat ourselves.

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.

To be self-compassionate is not to be self-indulgent or self-centred. A major component of self-compassion is to be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with love, care, dignity and make your wellbeing a priority. With self-compassion, we still hold ourselves accountable professionally and personally, but there are no toxic emotions inflicted upon and towards ourselves.

Leaning on others is a beautiful act of self-compassion.

Take regular breaks. Regular breaks are crucial for maintaining productivity and preventing burnout. Short breaks help refresh your mind, restore energy and improve overall focus and creativity.

The human brain is incredible in its capacity to heal and rewire itself. The human brain can be shaped and trained to be more resilient, calm, compassionate and alert—we can condition ourselves to be successful. Through mindfulness meditation, we can literally re-wire our brains through new experiences, which modify our neural network and our neural chemistry. Mindfulness also enhances gamma synchrony and improves the function of the human brain.

Perhaps the best antidote and preventive for burnout is the feeling of solid connection with the people in our lives. When we can share our frustrations with family and friends, our burden is eased and we can get new perspectives.

highly motivated and mission-driven professionals are working in toxic work environments in which they are unable to succeed.

Burnout is a war that must be won on two fronts.

It is not the career we need to conquer but our own reasons for living into it.

Self-awareness is an essential ingredient in preventing or combating "burnout.

Burnout can be prevented with proper self-care and a supportive environment.

When the weeks have built up with frustration and immense stress and one of your co-workers, a manager or an employee triggers irritation or angers you, knowing how to respond in a mindful way can pay huge dividends. Knowing how to not take other people’s emotional baggage personally and intuitively sensing when to bring up concerns and when not to is an expression of emotional intelligence. This is all possible if we are being truly mindful.

Choosing to spend energy on your relationships will be much more fulfilling than wasting it on unnecessary clutter and accumulating "things" that in the long run don't really matter anyway. Most of us will not be canonized in history books nor have monuments built in our honor because of what we owned or the things we accomplished at work. Our legacy will be found in the lives and endeavors that were enriched while we were passing through this life.

Maybe (Taoist story) A classic ancient story illustrates the importance of equanimity and emotional resilience beautifully. Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”. “Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war. The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”.

That means that somewhere inside them, they believe that if they’re isolated, that’s good; isolation protects others from their real, core badness. And if they’re suffering, that’s good; it prevents them from growing mighty, which might lead to them having power that they would inevitably fail to use effectively, or might even abuse.

Stress, burnout and strain on the human heart are all increasingly taking their toll for millions of hardworking people. However, even someone who is working in a job that simply ‘pays the bills’ can turn mundane and stressful tasks into pleasant activities with a slight adjustment in attitude and by adopting a daily mindful practice.

Mindfulness (present-moment awareness) is deliberately focusing our attention on our thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and mental activity without losing awareness of what is happening in the present moment. It is essentially being in a state of present-moment awareness and maintaining clarity without being swayed or distracted by mental commentary.

Boundaries help you perform your best when you’re on the clock, and they help you recharge effectively when you’re not. They improve your mental and physical health; create a culture of respect and trust; keep morale, motivation, and loyalty high; and prevent good employees (like you) from burning out—because burnout is very, very real even if you’re doing a job you love. When employees are feeling energized, respected, and valued, it has a positive impact on their productivity, creativity, and the results they achieve for the business. Remember that the next time you’re tempted to feel guilty for setting a boundary at work—you’re a true team player because you’re helping to create a workplace culture in which everyone thrives.

Like gratitude, authentic appreciation in the workplace is a realisation that can be nurtured and accessed with daily mindful practice. By and large, people who are grateful, happy and enthusiastic are going to demonstrate better performance than those who are unhappy and unappreciative. There is increasing evidence that a grateful mindset amplifies happiness and mental and emotional wellbeing.

Exposure to nature not only helps with creativity, but it may also lower levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a molecule associated with inflammation in the body. Lower levels of IL-6 can prevent the harmful, chronic type of inflammation that often sidelines serious athletes. According to a study published in the journal Emotion, more than any other positive feeling, awe, an emotion commonly brought about by nature, is linked to lower levels of IL-6.

Conscious breathing anchors us into the nowness of life and gives us a fresh outlook, no different from how a baby observes reality without mental commentary. The baby enjoys watching the world and human activity without any limiting mental concepts spoiling his or her perception. Naturally, we all have to evolve from the helpless state of babyhood, but to be able to tap into that wonderful ability and truly BE in the moment is immensely liberating.

But for some of us, a harsh, toxic madwoman is telling us we don’t deserve lower stress or improved mood. She says it’s right that we should suffer; we don’t deserve kindness or compassion or to grow mighty. And so she will punish us forever, no matter what we achieve. This dynamic is not just self-criticism, it’s self-persecution.10 Folks with more history of abuse and neglect, parental rejection and humiliation are more likely to experience harsh self-criticism and react to it with a sense of helplessness and isolation.11 When people with depression try to be self-reassuring, their brains respond with threat activation.12 In fact, fear of compassion for self is linked to fear of compassion from others. That means that somewhere inside them, they believe that if they’re isolated, that’s good; isolation protects others from their real, core badness. And if they’re suffering, that’s good; it prevents them from growing mighty, which might lead to them having power that they would inevitably fail to use effectively, or might even abuse. If that’s you, don’t start with self-compassion; start with lovingkindness toward others. Metta meditations, as they’re known in Buddhism, involve wishing love, compassion, peace, and ease on everyone from the people we care about most to people we hardly know to total strangers to our worst enemies—and even on ourselves. When self-compassion feels out of reach, try lovingkindness for others.

Technology managers, like so many other well-meaning managers, often try to fix the person while ignoring the work environment, even though changing the environment is far more vital for long-term success. Managers who want to avert employee burnout should concentrate their attention and efforts on: Fostering a respectful, supportive work environment that emphasizes learning from failures rather than blaming Communicating a strong sense of purpose Investing in employee development Asking employees what is preventing them from achieving their objectives and then fixing those things Giving employees time, space, and resources to experiment and learn Last but not least, employees must be given the authority to make decisions that affect their work and their jobs, particularly in areas where they are responsible for the outcomes.

When you can begin to see the similarities between you and your work colleagues in respect of ‘being human’ and the collective challenges we all face, it makes life much easier to deal with, especially when met with overbearing behaviour.

The word ‘pranayama’, often referred to as alternate breathing, comes from the Sanskrit meaning ‘extension of life force’ or ‘extension of breath’. At times, we are going to have days where we are bombarded with one task after another. This simple yet effective meditation only takes a couple of minutes and its calming qualities can be felt almost immediately. It is one of the easiest meditation techniques to apply. This practice is well worth applying at least three or four times a day (somewhere private) to develop emotional balance and evenness of mind, especially in the working environment.

However, there are major problems with constantly trying to get things done and focusing on the next thing: doing so ironically prevents you from being as successful as you want to be and wreaks havoc on body and mind. Many studies13 show that the workaholic or successaholic chase can be detrimental on a number of levels:         •  Health. It is linked to lower levels of physical and psychological health. In particular, it is associated with burnout, emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and depersonalization (a disturbing sense of dissociation from yourself that accompanies prolonged stress or trauma). It is also linked to lower overall life satisfaction.14         •  Work. It can—counterintuitively perhaps—damage productivity and performance. It has been linked to lower job satisfaction and increased job stress, which reduce productivity15 by, for example, reducing attention span.16 This should come as no surprise. If you are continuously focused on the next thing you need to accomplish, only part of your attention is directed toward your present activity.

When life throws difficulties at us and the mind is restless, emotional resilience will see us through challenging times. We can work through tempestuous emotions and self-doubt and come through them unharmed and avoid self-sabotage and self-harm.

strong desire to continue being caregivers and their simultaneous desperation to leave.

This is where going home comes in. Go home! And stop emailing people at all hours of the night and all hours of the weekend! Forcing yourself to disengage is essential for your mental health, believe me. Burnout is a real problem in the American workforce these days, and almost everyone I know who has worked sustained excess hours has experienced it to some degree. It’s terrible for individuals, terrible for their families, and terrible for teams. But this isn’t just about preventing your own burnout — it’s about preventing your team’s burnout. When you work later than everyone else, when you send those emails at all hours, even if you don’t expect your team to respond to those emails or work those hours, they see you doing it and think it’s important. And that overwork makes them less effective, especially at the detailed knowledge work that engineers need to perform. When

Conscious breathing is being aware of the life breath that flows within and through us without any effort on our behalf.

What followed was a humiliation that Paul never forgot, but it prevented his murder. The Acts tell us that “when it was dark, the disciples took him and let him down from the top of the wall, lowering him in a basket” (Acts 9: 23, 25). This suffering was so deeply imprinted in his memory that when he told the Corinthians of this experience almost twenty years later, one can feel the twinge of pain he felt as he wrote his account. This suffering and many that followed prevented Paul from ever boasting of the gifts, graces, and revelations that God bestowed upon him (2 Cor. 11: 32-33). Paul would say from his heart, “In view of the extraordinary nature of these revelations, to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud” (2 Cor. 12: 7).

Jesus never claims to prevent us from feeling “weary and burdened.” He simply invites the weary and burdened to find rest in Him. Like

Successfully juggling the demands of your personal and professional life may feel like a daunting and unrealistic task. Employers know all too well that if an employee’s personal life is suffering, their work life will too. And visa-versa. Even the most self-aware and diligent person can be challenged. How can you rebalance your life to prevent burnout and promote well-being?

It means that, for starters, we can no longer suggest wellness strategies that place ownership on individuals for preventing and managing their own burnout.

The only way to free ourselves from the grips of compulsive thinking is to completely transcend it. By this, I mean learning to observe our mental activity without being drawn into identifying with each and every thought.

If you find yourself always saying yes to people when they ask for your time, I strongly recommend saying no a few times. Give it a try. See how it feels. You’ll discover that setting boundaries for others will reduce your stress, prevent burnout and ultimately improve your life.

Managers who want to avert employee burnout should concentrate their attention and efforts on: Fostering a respectful, supportive work environment that emphasizes learning from failures rather than blaming Communicating a strong sense of purpose Investing in employee development Asking employees what is preventing them from achieving their objectives and then fixing those things Giving employees time, space, and resources to experiment and learn Last but not least, employees must be given the authority to make decisions that affect their work and their jobs, particularly in areas where they are responsible for the outcomes.

Your spark is the unique essence that burns bright within you. Your spark makes you YOU.

If you think you can outsmart burnout, burnout will prove you wrong.

Burnout is a slow, insidious experience. Burnout is not afraid of playing the long game. To prevent burnout, we need to play a long game, too.

The rest of God is not a rest from work - it is a rest in work

If you’re losing hope because the work stress is too much, then quitting a project is not the solution. As everything in life comes with stress. We can’t eliminate the stress that life brings with it, but we can learn how to handle that stress better.

Burnout is not just about being too busy or feeling overwhelmed…It's feeling like your work has no purpose and you don't have support.

The problem with imposter syndrome is that it can hold you back if you don’t get it in check. Self-doubt keeps you firmly in your comfort zone, stops you taking risks, and prevents you from doing things that are good for your business.

Your worth is not measured by your income level, job status, job title, productivity, popularity, or performance ratings.

Our jobs were never meant to become the center of us. They were never meant to be the source of our worthiness. They were never meant to become the start and end of our identity.

Our jobs are a means to an end. They are a tactic, not an end game. They are a vehicle to move us down the road of life but they were never meant to be the destination. You can love your job and love your employer, but love yourself more. Don't depend on a revenue line and a profit margin for your emotional and mental well-being.

Burnout prevention starts with YOU. Invest in your happiness & well-being for a better tomorrow.

Champions aren’t simply dreamers. Champions are practical. They give their all, but they also listen to their bodies. Listen to what your body needs in order to train efficiently, avoid injuries, and prevent burnout.

It's a bitter irony, since in-home healthcare is enormously cheaper than hospitalization--and good home assistance can prevent the falls, injuries, or infections that could easily land a fragile patient right back in the hospital.

We need a revolution in mental health awareness to help us grasp the wonder and complexity of human behavior, health and functioning, and the nuances and intersections of brilliance and madness. This starts with dismantling myopic myths that prevent us from seeing the simultaneous wonder and complexity of our fullest selves. It involves providing access to the tools that mitigate being overtaken by the ravages of burnout and mental decompensation: the very risks of living in the modern world. Our sense-making approaches need to be comprehensive- grounded both scientifically and medically, steeped in love, and in ways that account for the multidimensionality of emotional and spiritual essence. Those that go beyond what the mind can first conceive of. This new mental health imperative relies upon universal precautions and a vehement resistance to linear checklists and binary labels that frame our gorgeous spirits solely as either complex and fraught or indomitable and wondrous. It also relies not on good will and best practices but the moral courage of policy makers to treat human beings like human beings. Dogs are often treated better than people. This is our new imperative: to radically change the way we care for ourselves and one another. We cannot extricate ourselves from the fact that the lines we walk are incredibly thin and blurry, and our only hope is to rewrite and navigate them together in solidarity, with every measure of creative reason and conscious community that can be mustered...

Whether someone is a CEO of a major corporation or is serving meals in a diner, failure to adopt a mindful approach will mean that mental and emotional exhaustion could become a habitual condition. Whether someone is stressed about their stocks losing value or being able to pay their bills, the internal underlying conditions of stress and pressure are essentially the same.

The incredible benefits of practising and applying mindfulness and self-compassion in the workplace are being increasingly recognised by human resource professionals as well as the medical profession, as the stresses of competing in today’s global economy take their toll on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of many otherwise talented and enthusiastic individuals in the workplace.

Learning to practise mindfulness greatly enhances our ability to manifest emotional intelligence and equanimity under pressure and to display calmness, empathy and adaptability when communicating with others, whether it be with co-workers, clients or the board of directors. Learning to apply mindfulness on a daily basis will significantly encourage a positive, creative and enthusiastic attitude at all levels in companies large and small.

The process of applying Mindfulness Burnout Prevention (MBP) in the workplace or any environment has a much more far-reaching effect than simply accessing equanimity throughout the vicissitudes of life. Continuous learning helps us to stay youthful, sharpen our mental faculties and wire new neural connections in our brain (making us better equipped to accomplish); it is also a sign of humility.

We cannot control the mind by trying to force it to be peaceful or positive. Many have attempted this using a plethora of methods throughout the ages, but it simply does not work. Trying to fight the human mind is like walking into a lion’s den empty-handed and believing that you have a realistic chance of defending yourself.

Many of us have been unconsciously programmed to treat walking as a means to an end, especially while in the workplace. Naturally, a lack of mindfulness while walking leaves one hostage to self-perpetuating stress and anxiety. We rush (often while shouting into a mobile phone), completely missing the enjoyment of walking. Walking and breathing, if practised harmoniously, can be peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable. Even walking down a corridor or into an office or wherever we are working or being of service can be a harmonious action.

Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.

The Happiest Man in The World The French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, former academic and dedicated meditator Matthieu Ricard, came into the spotlight in the field of neural science after being named “the happiest man in the world”. Naturally, there are many other men and women who demonstrate such equanimity, but the studies on his brain uncovered truly astonishing results. MRI scans showed that Matthieu Ricard and other serious long-term meditators (with more than 10,000 hours of practice each) were mentally, emotionally and spiritually fulfilled and displayed an abundance of positive emotions and equanimity in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain. When talking about his mindfulness training, Matthieu Ricard said with humility that: “Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time”.

Take a moment and read that again…do you believe it? If work is a team sport, then you are dependent upon others for your success. You cannot perform at a high level alone. However, in many organizations a “hero mentality” abounds in which individuals wait to step in and save the day. In those organizations, I tend to see a short-term focus in which firefighting becomes the norm and long-range fire prevention is overlooked. In extreme situations, it's not just firefighting that occurs, but arson, where individuals actually create a crisis in order to be the hero. Those who save the day are then rewarded with other “problem areas to fix” or other recognition that serves to perpetuate the individual mindset. A culture of silos and barriers to collective success abounds! …short-term focus where firefighting becomes the norm and fire prevention tactics are overlooked. In extreme situations it's not just firefighting…it's arson. While this solo mindset may deliver results in the short term, burnout occurs when the self-imposed demands become too great. Team members may become complacent, sitting back and saying to themselves, “Why bother? She will just do it herself anyway.