Burnout For Dummies

339 Pages·2022·7.374 MB·English

by  Eva M. Selhub

Burnout

Burnout
by Eva Selhub, MD
Burnout For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022947348
ISBN 978-1-119-89493-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-89494-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-89495-7 (ebk)
Contents at a Glance
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1: Turning the Tide on the Burnout Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER 1: So You Think You’re Burned Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 2: Exploring the Scope and Impact of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
CHAPTER 3: Getting Ready to Tackle Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Part 2: Sorting Out the Sources of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
CHAPTER 4: What Caused Your Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
CHAPTER 5: Examining Your Relationship with Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
CHAPTER 6: Deciding Whether You and Your Job Are a Good Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
CHAPTER 7: When Caring Is Your Job: Dealing with Compassion Fatigue . . . . . . . . 119
Part 3: Building Essential Resources for Navigating
Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
CHAPTER 8: Building a Foundation of Awareness with Mindfulness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
CHAPTER 9: Being Kind . . . to Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
CHAPTER 10: Cultivating a Safe and Brave Inner Space for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
CHAPTER 11: Cultivating the Infrastructure That Supports Your Life Force . . . . . . . . 193
CHAPTER 12: Establishing High-Quality Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Part 4: Beyond Burnout and Toward Resilience:
Flourishing and Thriving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
CHAPTER 13: Charting the Course from Burnout to Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
CHAPTER 14: Creating Conditions for You to Flourish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
CHAPTER 15: Building a Culture of Care and Flourishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Part 5: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
CHAPTER 16: Ten Ways to Use Your Body to Ease Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
CHAPTER 17: Ten Tips to Foster Flourishing at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
PART 1: TURNING THE TIDE ON THE BURNOUT
EPIDEMIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER 1: So You Think You’re Burned Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
What Exactly Is Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
What burnout is not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What makes burnout so complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Looking for the Signs of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Using the Three R approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
No gas in the tank: Emotional exhaustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Not feeling it: Depersonalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Not cutting it: Ineffectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Several “Flavors” of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Overload: Burnout by volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Underload: Burnout by boredom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Undersupported: Burnout by neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Overpleasing: Burnout by socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Checking Your Burnout Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Discovering just how burned out you feel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
What the results mean . . . and what they don’t mean . . . . . . . . . . 22
Taking a moment to simply acknowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 2: Exploring the Scope and Impact of Burnout . . . . . . . .27
Burnout Feels Lonely, But You Are Far from Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
What the statistics say about the prevalence of burnout . . . . . . . . 30
Who gets burned out? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
How Burnout Affects the Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The physiology of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The psychological effects of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The social impact of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Burnout as an obstacle to making meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Impact of Burnout on Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The financial costs of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The insidious effects of a culture of burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Wisdom of Paying Attention to Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Table of Contents vii
CHAPTER 3: Getting Ready to Tackle Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Burnout Is Not the “New Normal” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Recognizing the chronic and insidious nature of burnout . . . . . . . 47
Observing your own pathway to burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Responding to Burnout Rather Than Reacting to Suffering . . . . . . . . . 51
No quick fixes, but relief is possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Cultivating patience, curiosity, and vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
What Taking Action May Look Like at First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Enjoying the lighter side of managing burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Discovering a place for warmth, kindness, and compassion . . . . . 58
Recognizing your power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Keeping your eye on the prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
PART 2: SORTING OUT THE SOURCES OF BURNOUT . . . . . . 63
CHAPTER 4: What Caused Your Burnout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The Multiple Sources of Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Taking responsibility without shame or blame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Your history sets the stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Personality is the spice of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Vision, meaning, and purpose: Is there a mismatch? . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Why the job is pushing you over the edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Context Is King: Systems Can Create Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Keeping a wide view of your situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Exploring and naming systemic assumptions and actions . . . . . . . 77
Connecting the dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Explaining Burnout with the Four Factor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
High workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Lack of recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Lack of support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Personality tendencies and habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Connecting the dots with your life experiences exercise . . . . . . . . 80
Appreciating the complexity and taking your time . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
CHAPTER 5: Examining Your Relationship with Burnout . . . . . . . . 83
Shifting Away from Shame to Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Digging In to How You Got to Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Fear of missing out (FOMO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Passion outweighing all else . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Depending on technology and staying “connected” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Putting off care of your own well-being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Seeking meaning when there seems to be none . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Misappropriating work time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Stepping Back to Self-Assess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Self-assessment questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
viii Burnout For Dummies