Are You Burned-Out?

As much as we all aspire to create some level of work-life balance; there will be times when trying to keep professional and personal project requirements airborne will totally overwhelm you.   It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been in the workforce one year, five years, or twenty-five years. You can become so exhausted that you cannot even consider how to prioritize the never-ending crisis moments.

When you find that you barely have time to breathe or eat regular meals, your first action should be to make your mental and physical health a priority. What can you do when you get to a point that sleep seems overrated? You are your own best advocate. Blaming your boss or the situation will not turn things around. If you don’t make yourself a priority – no one else will. This is not the time to make a major life change – aka don’t quit your job!! At least, don’t initiate any rash actions while your brain is working in a non-coherent mode.

When you find yourself in a situation where your brain is not thinking as quickly or as clearly as you want, there are some very simple techniques you can deploy to push much needed oxygen to your brain: stretch, move, and eat high protein snacks.

Simple stretching that you can perform at your desk (or a conference table)

• Sit up straight, lean your head to your left shoulder, back to center, lean your head to your right shoulder, and back to center.
• Sit up straight, roll your head in a circle 2-4 times. Hold your head straight for a brief count and reverse the circle direction 2-4 times.
• Sit up straight, interlace your fingers in front of your chest with elbows pointing out to the side, flip your hands so palms face out and stretch your palms out in front of you. Hold for 2-3 breaths. Raise laced fingers over your head, bend right arm (elbow will encircle your head) and your left elbow will point downward. Stretch. Bring arms back over your head and repeat bending your left elbow.

Moving helps oxygen to circulate. Long work days and even longer commutes don’t always allow for daily workouts. You can make the time to:

• Walk around the office area. Use this break to fill a large glass of water.
• Get outside the office environment to clear your head. Walk around the block or the perimeter of the parking lot.
• Find a private space (cubicle, conference room) and create a mini 3-5 minute workout – shake your arms, jog in place, shadow box –any movement that helps you release excess energy.

High protein snacks really will make a difference. When stress hits, salty chips or chocolate may seem like wonderful comfort food; , but if you need to get your brain focused keep a stash of nuts and protein bars in your desk. If you have access to a refrigerator, keep yogurt, cheese sticks, cottage cheese, peanut butter, or fruit handy for a quick pick me up. And for every cup of coffee you drink, make sure you chase it with at least eight ounces of water. The oxygen in the water will help your brain think more clearly.

Michio Kaku in his book, The Future Of The Mind, identifies a scientific basis explaining why sedentary thinking work can exhaust you both mentally and physically. He explains the human brain consumes over 20% of our total body energy even though it physically weighs 2% of a human’s body weight. Our brains work hard. Thinking requires a great deal of energy. Taking a few moments to boost oxygen to your brain may really help you begin to work more effectively – even during incredibly overwhelming situations.

Circling back to your exasperated thoughts that might have had you thinking about quitting your job –once the current crisis is over and there is a modicum of calm in your life, this is the time to work through a self-evaluation. Do you feel confident about how you and your colleagues soldiered through the recent challenge? Did your organization work group discuss lessons learned from the situation and put corrective procedures into place? If yes, hurray – job well done. If on the other hand, you found yourself in another crisis before you could clear your desk from the previous crisis debris, then watch for a blog in the very near future that will offer suggestions for career-focused self-evaluation to help you determine your next steps toward your vision for career success.

Creating Bridges Over Hateful Waters

The lyrics from Simon and Garfunkel’s song “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” promises, “I will ease your mind.”  Many of us have discovered colleagues who work in parallel with our thoughts and rhythms.  You look forward to your work day and may even extend your professional relationships into your social arena.  When crisis happens, you all pitch in to smooth out the troubled waters.

All is good and suddenly without warning, you discover you need to work with the one person who grates on your last nerve.  You could behave like Lizzie in the Reply All comic strip excerpt below by Donna Lewis and whine to anyone who will listen.  Chances are those “other” people are whining to someone else about you and your annoying habit.  Or, you can get out your grown-up tool box and try to build a bridge that will span across your differences.

Full disclosure, this technique is not fool-proof.  There are some relationships that are not salvageable. However, I have several valuable friends for whom our initial meeting(s) seemed to take place over a reservoir of troubled    waters.Initially, we all held strong separate opinions, as well as several misconceptions about each other.  Once we began to work together and learned how our different strengths could meld together to create something stronger than we originally thought, we developed mutual respect and collegial friendship. The following steps should help you begin to build bridges over hate-filled waters.

Step #1 – Take a very deep breath.  Get as much oxygen as possible into your brain.

Step #2  –  Remind yourself that you don’t have to become best friends, but you do need to work together to achieve a goal.

Step #3 – Ask your “nemesis” to take a few minutes to discuss the best means to work together.  If the two of you find yourselves in leadership roles on a project, it can be very valuable to begin building your mutual bridge in a private meeting before the project launch.  During this pre-session cover procedural and operational topics:

• Clarify the project goal and desire to work together toward the project success
• Discuss your roles and responsibilities,
• Identify tasks or procedures where there might be confusion or overlap of authority
• Sketch out how you both are most comfortable handling possible disagreement – do you prefer phone calls, emails, or text messages?

Step #4 – As the project progresses, try to initiate several neutral phone calls or coffee breaks when the project is going well to touch base and establish a constructive relationship.  Hopefully, this will set a more collaborative tone when the project hits a few bumps.

Step #5 – If no matter what you do to build your side of the bridge, your “nemesis” refuses to work to construct their half of the collaborative bridge, make sure to document conversations, save all emails, and have a frank discussion with your manager.  Deep breaths, a calming mantra, and a squeeze ball may help you relieve some of the stress.

Remember you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  Keep yourself open to positive outcomes.  Your “nemesis” most likely has a different work style than you do.  Try to use your initial meeting and coffee conversations to learn how s/he prefers to communicate information and negotiate conflict.  S/He may have been told an untruth about you from someone else, they may be jealous regarding a recent recognition or promotion you’ve received,  or they might be feeling angry at the world because they feel they should be in a more senior position.  Once you both take the time to focus your energies toward the project success, personal grudges may become incidental annoyances. The two of you may never become best friends outside of the office, but you may find a strong professional partnership can develop with some deep breaths and an open mind.

Helping the Mime Trapped in the Box

One of the comments I received from the blog, “Lessons I Learned from The Lego Movie” asked if I had any hints to help people be the voice of reason.  It can be hard to maintain a flexible, can-do attitude when tempers start to rise and reasonable discourse is far from hand. Besides ducking for cover, what can you do?

One thought is to find humor in the situation.  The following cartoon takes an existential viewpoint to traditional thinking.  The punch line, “man thinking outside box, but still trapped in box,” reflects situations where people get locked into the same discussions and problem solving conversations.  Recognizing the futility of the situation may help your group begin to look for exit strategies or alternative approaches. And sometimes it is futile to try to continue.  There will be times when you will need to adjourn and come back together when tempers have cooled.

 

Depending on the situation, it might be more constructive to break up into smaller groups to discuss different aspects of the solution before coming back together. Every situation will be different. Have confidence you will use your best judgment given the conditions. There may be a circumstance when you do not have the luxury of an extended cooling down period and may only get a 10-15 minute break.   When you and your team(s) are ready to begin discussions again, the following techniques may prove helpful in redirecting contrary conversations toward reasonable discourse.

#1 – BREATHE DEEPLY

#2 – Silence can be golden.  Use these first few moments to focus your thoughts.

What do you want from the outcome of this dialog?

• What do you want for yourself?
• What do you want for others?
• What do you want for the longer term relationship?

 #3 – Maintain a calm, thoughtful demeanor and initiate an Advocacy/Inquiry conversation to encourage people to explore boundaries and stretch paradigms.

• Explain the context of your thought process and invite feedback
• Encourage others to explain their thoughts
• Expand your perspective by asking questions
  • What if the problem or resolution is viewed differently?
  • What can be used differently?
  • What can be used instead?
• Summarize considered alternatives and reason for discard

Although it sometimes seems that the loudest voice in a room wins because it gets heard, it takes extreme courage to be the voice of reason.  Perhaps George Herbert, a 17^th century poet, offered the best counsel when he wrote, “Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy.”