Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash
A new year has come along. Many people are settling back into work in the midst of fog and ice.
It sounds very fantasy novel, but the realities are anything but. A backlog of emails and a return to the feelings of tiredness and stress. It’s like we never went away.
This was my experience last year. It’s what led to a burnout that passed through the whole of 2024. The unfortunate reality is that this will be the tale for many people around us in 2025.
I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions, mainly because they don’t work. Yet I can’t help but be alarmed at the fact that I’m seeing people be so resigned to fatigue that change isn’t coming that the enthusiasm for ‘new’ isn’t even there.
We are a product of the entourage we find ourselves in. And the entourage I am in are feeling an extra level of downtrodden and tired.
If this is how you’re feeling right now, this is your big, fat, blaring warning sign. You are potentially on the cusp of breaking down. In fact, you already might be.
And trust me, that experience is not fun. For several months of 2024, I essentially struggled to function. I would spend most of my time in bed. I remember the days where my main activity was simply to go to the supermarket. It was my big activity for the day, and by the time I came back home, I was completely exhausted.
It’s been nearly a year, and I still am not able to function at the same level as I did 18 months ago. I’m hopeful that in the next 6 or so months I’ll more or less be there. Nevertheless, I also am ready to accept that I may never get there.
But then, I also realise that I don’t want to. I don’t want to live a life where I’m constantly stressed and worried, surrounded by stressed and worried people. It’s not fun, and it’s certainly not productive either. If stress and worry were the fuel for positive change, we would have already reached utopia by now.
I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the last 12 months. My Autism assessment explained a whole heap of things that I never understood. One of those things was my hypersensitivity, which often serves as an ability to feel things a lot quicker than other people.
I am like the proverbial canary in the coal mine – one of the earlier people to feel these things with avengeance. But just because I felt it first, doesn’t mean it’s not coming for you.
My belief is that that around 30 to 50% of people that I’ve come across in my career will succumb to burnout. Yes, I am basically saying that you, the reader – I believe you’re quite likely to burn out in the next few years. It is really that bad.
Over the last year, I ended up befriending a whole bunch of people who also ended up on burnout. Not because I went to some special burnout, alcoholics-anonymous style meeting, but because it is so becoming so commonplace.
The problem is systemic. An increased pressure to deliver from a globalised capalistic system. This then being dealt with by unskilled managers within organisations that have forgotten about how to do the basics of treating people like human beings.
Far too much pressure is put on the individual to deal with these situations. I remember when I was working in Government during Brexit, we did a training on ‘VUCA’ – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It wasn’t bad training, but it essentially was focussed completely around the employeee and how they respond. There was zero work being done on how the systems and processes were practically designed to drive anyone insane.
And yet, I also acknowledge that the thing that we are most in control of is ourselves. And it’s in this space where I believe that the most change can be made. And so it’s also the area where I think the most powerful action can happen.
And so, this is where my current path leads me towards. My aim for the next few months is really focussing on this holistic, coaching work with individuals. There are ways that we can completely shift the way we experience our reality, without needing to actually change it. And it’s only from there that we can make meaningful change.
A dream of mine is to shift the world of politics to be one coming from innate love. A key part of that is revolutionising the way that the industry is run. If we were all simply happier in our jobs, that in of itself would create a revolutionary, positive impact for the world.
If this idea speaks to you, I’d love to connect. I’m currently in the midst of seeing how best this dream can become a reality.
P.S. if you’re worried about succumbing to burnout right now, feel free to drop me a message. I would love to help people who want to avoid the same fate that I did.