Adobe 99U: Burnout, unfortunately, is everywhere. If you haven’t experienced it personally, you probably know someone who has self-diagnosed. Defined by the World Health Organization as a syndrome “conceptualized as resulted from chronic workplace stress,” it causes exhaustion, “feelings of negativism or cynicism,” and reduced efficacy. That’s a big umbrella, and the condition has become something of a catch-all for chronic, modern-day stress.
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Burnout is a very common thing that exists between workplace employees because more of than not, employees are over worked and have to deal with high stress levels, which is not always taken in in the best way by the human body.
Burnout can result in continuous physical tiredness and emotional and mental distress, which, if not helped with, might spiral out into bigger problems, which is not at all desirable.
This article mentions a few good ways to identify and help with a burnout in its early stages, which I personally feel, are a few good solutions. They aim at figuring out the cause of he burnout, and then try to understand ways to help to either eliminate those causes or to try and fix them in a way where they are bearable to the point that they are not physically and mentally detrimental to one's health, which is very important.
I thought this article brought up some good points to start thinking about in order to minimize feelings of burn-out. I found the idea of minimizing self-imposed expectations most helpful. It felt good to read someone saying that you don’t have to cut things completely out of your life, but rather you just need to be realistic about how much time and effort you can give to any given task in your life. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get accomplished everything we want to do and more, so it’s important to stop comparing yourself to people who seem like they have it all. I found this helpful because sometimes I feel like I expect myself to be able to do everything just about 90% of the time, but this is unrealistic because on any given day my priorities and needs to get done are different.
I’ve been feeling burnt out for a while. A lot of the things this article talks about are things that I have actively been trying to do to help myself, but the more I do, the more I realize how hard it is to keep up with. One of the tips that resonated with me was the one about asking yourself what you want to do, not what you think you should do. In recovering from burnout and also trying to cope with depression, I have come to realize that this is something I do not do enough. At CMU there is this culture of constantly trying to stay working, improving career-wise, and being super competitive about it. I think a lot of that made me feel like I needed to be keeping up with all my classmates, which truly would have resulted in dragging myself and my health through the mud. In taking a step back from this culture, I decided to give myself a summer to “cultivate rest,” as the article states. Taking the summer to go at a slower pace and giving myself the opportunity to continue learning skills that I really want to learn will hopefully be my way of dealing with burnout. I’m glad that there are articles out there like this to help guide those of us who feel lost in the whirlwind of burnout.
There are so many articles centered around maximizing your productivity and how to Do The Most All the Time that it’s refreshing to see an article like this. I experience burnout more often than I probably recognize, and there is no easy solution to overcoming or preventing it. Our modern culture (especially in America) demands that we be at least mentally on the job 24/7, and the recent fusion of work and life (employers putting cafes and ping pong tables into work spaces, etc.) gives us even less of a reason to separate these worlds. For me, burnout seems to come not in the middle of a stressful time, but as soon as I finish, step back, and take time to do nothing. And, like the article says, a day or a week off can certainly help burnout in the short run, but it is not a sustainable, preventative solution.
This is such an important article for us all to read. CMU works us so hard that I feel like we are all in a continuous phase of being burnt out. We do not have the time to step back and realize that we are burnt out and need a break. Breaks are not easy to find. I like how this article talks about acknowledging the fact that you are burnt out. We all tell ourselves that we need to be consistently doing something or we feel like we are not being productive. I feel nervous to spend a weekend on myself because I feel like I will fall immensely behind. I am currently dealing with prioritizing what is important to me. I know that my work needs to get done, but I also am realizing that if I only go hard on school, it will negatively reflect in the quality of work that I am doing. It is so important to take a step back and know when you need a break and I think this article does a really great job at illustrating that.
I liked how this article was very specific with advice-giving. I feel like so many other articles or self-help books talk about the same thing but are just so vague and unreachable. I resonated with the first two points about avoiding comparison and reframing your relationship with productivity and achievement. It took me 4 years of high school to start identifying the reasons I was burnt out so often were related to these two factors. I think the article’s essence boils down to treating yourself kinder. We are often so critical of ourselves that lead to us setting high expectations and comparing ourselves to others. In the culture that we are in today, we often forget to slow down and give ourselves some credit for what we are doing.
While I can’t wrap my head around it, I think the point about finding a hobby that isn’t attached to an outcome or purpose to be very important. Reflecting on my own past times, they are all some sort of purpose. Maybe that is something that I should change up. I want to add that simply recognizing a burnout when you are going through it deserves a clap on the back. I think people often tell themselves there’s no time to stop and avoid what they’re feeling. That’s just worsening the problem.
This article is very helpful and I have noticed things that are written in the body of the text that have been applicable to my life. One of the most important and impactful things that I have read in this article is the advice to cultivate rest. This is an issue that I think I have had the most difficult time with, but when I am able to achieve this advice given, I really do appreciate it and it has good effects. I like the conclusion of the article and how it talks about finding time in your day to think and meditate and contemplate. Allowing oneself to decompress like this sounds like a great way to get the most out of your day and cultivate a much healthier mental state as you progress throughout the day. It is really important for us to consider these mental health ideas as we progress through this demanding program.
I knew what burnout was, but I enjoyed learning about how it actually affects people and what the term means. I don’t try to quote the text but “The sort of internal atmosphere of burnout is always, ‘I should be doing something but I’m not,’ really hit it on the nose!! There is always weird stress that comes with being unproductive (BUT WHY!) We do it to ourselves, its just a big part of the stress culture we live in. I do agree that everyone (past a certain age, which I will count as senior year in high school) has most likely experienced some form (big or small) of burnout (it happens!). I would like to stress an important topic in the article which is, you need to understand when you are feeling burnt out and you to take a break!!! If you continue to push yourself, and work yourself to the bone in the hope that that will help, you are most likely wrong (I haven’t met many people who lose stress by adding more to their lives) Rethinking what is going on, evaluating you mental and psychical state, and looking for an alternative is a great thing to do and it is a skill that takes time and practice!!! (Can’t stress the practice part enough, no one magically has the skill of solving internal problems)
Burnout seems to be one of those buzzwords that have been thrown around for a while now. However, the troubling sight is not the fact that burnout is taking place, it is that not enough people are trying to combat burnout and just accepting it as it is. As someone studying to be in the theatrical production industry, where burnout is ever so present, it is something that I think about in the back of my mind whenever I have to push myself one step further to get something done, Despite these pushes, I think this article does offer some helpful guides for avoiding burnout. Perhaps the most useful tip I read was “reframe your relationship with productivity and achievement.” I have struggled in the past with telling myself that I am doing enough even when I can't check everything off of my to-do list for the day. I think it is important to find happiness and fulfillment in each success as an individual and not pressure yourself to achieve every goal before you can feel fulfilled.
I have read quite a few articles on preventing burnout but never an article on recovering from burnout. I have always thought of burnout as this permanent state of wanting to quit and hating everything. I was very curious about what this article had to say. For one it frames burnout as a state that is possible to move in and out of. I really resonate with the avoiding comparison tip. I find when I am so focused on others I set a standard for myself. This standard can not only be higher than what I can realistically achieve in the given time, or it could be lower than what I could do if I focused on self motivations. I also had some thoughts about the rest tip. Personally, I know I need to leave unplanned time in my schedule to rest. This goes against many time management skills tips that say every minute must be planned. I don’t find that to be sustainable. In the future, I hope to find a balance between the two methods
I feel like being in such a rigorous program such as the Design & Production path, it won't be surprising if burnout happens to me and many of my classmates. A lot of times I feel like I am constantly working in circles. This can be from getting nowhere on projects that I need to restart due to them not working out and I am getting frustrated over, but its other meaning can be that after each project I finish I have a new one with a hard deadline which gives me no time to relax. When the pileup of assignments come every semester, it is difficult to focus on yourself and stay in your own mindset. During this time, it can become very overwhelming to compare yourself to others, something this article specifically recommends to avoid. The line between collaborating and getting help from others can even be difficult when project deadlines approach. One of the most difficult decisions is to understand when you may need a extension, this is something I have struggled with in the past just due to me wanting to keep up with everyone else. However, everyone works at different paces and it is much more beneficial to focus on yourself.
Burnout is something I’m pretty used to, like all of my classmates. CMU seems to have a pretty high rate of people trying to work themselves into the ground. I know I do; I tend to like pushing myself and overworking past the point of exhaustion, which I know isn’t physically or mentally healthy to do. I’m constantly on myself for not doing enough and setting alk of the expectations for what I can or should do much too high. The point the article bring up about “Ask yourself what you’d want to do - not what you feel you should do” really hits home and it’s something I need to do more. But sometimes I get mixed up between what I should do vs. what I want to do, because I often believe that I truly want to do what I think is expected of me. The hardest thing for me is avoiding comparison. Even when consciously telling myself that I’m going at my own pace with my own circumstances, my subconscious is nonstop telling me that nothing I do will ever be sufficient. It’s probably stemmed from a lifelong existence of being a perfectionist and anxiety of being rejected for not being good enough. And usually I cope with these feelings by working more to distract myself from them.
As soon as I saw this article I felt the need to read it because the idea of burning out is scary. In our industry that is so focused on the idea that the success of the end product outweighs the struggle of the participants burnout is rampant. We are told to complete what seems like endless tasks all due at the exact same time with the highest of expectations for the end product's quality. The idea that as overachievers we maximize our efficiency even in our relaxation is both crazy and not surprising given the environment we have accustomed ourselves to. Understanding that your ability to accomplish should be based on you rather than those around you is not commonly encouraged in our larger world of machines and structure. I'm sure the quantity of the comments on this post shows the importance and abundance of this problematic achievement and work-focused mindset.
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