Are You Having A Burnout?

Burnout is a state of physical, mental and emotional (spiritual) exhaustion. Left untreated, it can lead to long term health problems. If you are experiencing the symptoms below, there is a high chance that you are having a burnout.

Specific symptoms of burnout include:

• Having a negative and critical attitude at work.
• Dreading going into work, and wanting to leave once you're there.
• Having low energy, and little interest at work.
• Having trouble sleeping.
• Being absent from work a lot.
• Having feelings of emptiness.
• Experiencing physical complaints such as headaches, illness, or backache.
• Being irritated easily by team members or clients.
• Having thoughts that your work doesn't have meaning or make a difference.
• Pulling away emotionally from your colleagues or clients.
• Feeling that your work and contribution goes unrecognized.
• Blaming others for your mistakes.
• Thinking of quitting work, or changing roles.

If you are experiencing several of these symptoms, you need to seek assistance immediately. Seek someone you trust, a mentor or coach and take actions to reduce your burnout before it gets worse.   

Managing Your Boss

One of the most important relationships that you need to manage in your career is with your boss. The benefits of good boss-subordinate relationship go both ways. For subordinates, it will help to secure resources and create an environment that helps them to perform their tasks better. For the bosses themselves, it helps to lighten the heavy burden on their shoulders in managing their departments, units or SBU (strategic business units).

You can foster better working relationship with your boss by applying the tips below;

Accept that he/she is your boss – Whether you like it or not, this is the reality that you need to accept. Your boss has the power and authority to direct your work. Failure to accept this will create tension between you and your boss. This is important especially in cases where your boss is younger than you or has less experience.

Allow him/her to make mistakes – Remember that bosses are not perfect, but neither are you. Keep things in perspective. Unrealistic expectation towards your boss will disappoint you and may affect your job performance.

Understand your boss's management style – There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to management. Different people and different situation require different management style. Adapt your needs and reactions to your boss's management style and at the same time, understand your own preferred style, strength and weaknesses.

Make your boss look good - Perform your job in ways that make your boss look good. Solving problems effectively, thinking creatively, meeting deadlines and producing outstanding results are some of the ways to make your boss look good in front of his/her boss. This will earn you the respect that helps to nourish your relationship with your boss

Keep your boss in the loop – Your boss needs reliable and valid information to do his/her job well. If you feed him/her this type of information, you will be highly valued. Remember that no one likes ‘negative surprises’ and that include your boss. Update your boss on relevant issues, projects, and changes. Tell him/her both the good and bad news so that he/she can evaluate, respond and take actions.

Compensate your boss’s weaknesses – Everybody has weaknesses, including your boss. Study and identify them. Take actions to compensate his weaknesses. For example, if your boss is poor in time management, you can constantly remind him/her of important datelines. If your boss looks good, you will look good too. This gives you a better chance of moving up the corporate ladder and be recognized for all your effort.      

Personal Productivity Tips : ABC Method To Prioritize Daily Tasks

Building Good Work Relationship

We spend most of our productive adult life in our career. Having good work relationships helps to create more conducive work environment and gives us deep satisfaction and meaning in our work. To have good working relationships, we need to invest our time and effort in people. Below are some suggestions that we can apply to build good work relationships;  

Build our people skills - Good relationships start with good people skills. Among areas that we need to build include communication, influencing skills, working in teams and conflict management. Read books, attend courses and seminars on these topics.

Identify Our Relationship Needs – Relationships are built and grow when mutual needs are satisfied. Look at our own relationship needs. Do we look for inclusion (doing things together), control (telling and be told what to do) or openness (expressing feelings)? At the same time, we need to know the needs of others from our relationship.

Invest Time to Build Relationships - Devote a portion of our daily time for relationship building.

Examples include going for lunch together, replying to postings on Twitter or Facebook or asking a colleague out for a quick cup of coffee. A little bit goes a long way.

Develop Emotional Intelligence (EI) - Spend time to develop our own emotional intelligence ie our ability to recognize our own emotions and actions. We can do this by reading books, attending courses and seminars. High EI also helps us to be more sensitive to the emotions and needs of others.

Appreciate Others - Show appreciation whenever someone helps us. Be generous with ‘Thank you’, ‘I appreciate it’ etc to show our appreciation. These simple but powerful words will open the door to great work relationships.

Be Positive – Strive to be positive. Being positive is attractive and contagious. No one wants to be around someone who is negative and complaining all the time. Say positive things and look for the positive in others. Shut up if we have nothing positive to say.

Avoid Gossiping - Don't gossip. Remember that office politics and ‘gossips’ are major relationship killers at work. Gossiping will only make the problems worse and create mistrust and animosity.

Listen Actively – Practice to be a good listener. Pay attention when others are talking. Avoid distractions (such as playing with hand phones), nod, asks questions are examples of active listening. Most people love to be around good listeners.

Bringing Happiness to Our Life

We all want to be happy. When we feel happy, we are more productive, we tend to have meaningful relationships and we feel great about ourselves and others. Positive psychologist, Martin Seligman in his 2011 book ‘Flourish’ proposed the PERMA Model to help us understand the five essential elements to be happy.

According to Martin Seligman, in order for us to achieve lasting happiness, we must possess or experience these five elements in our life;

Positive Emotion (P) - For us to experience well-being, we need positive emotion in our lives. Any positive emotion like peace, gratitude, satisfaction, pleasure, inspiration, hope, curiosity, or love falls into this category – and the message is that it's really important to enjoy yourself in the here and now, just as long as the other elements of PERMA are in place.

Engagement (E) - When we're truly engaged in a situation, task, or project, we experience a state of flow: time seems to stop, we lose our sense of self, and we concentrate intensely on the present. This feels really good! The more we experience this type of engagement, the more likely we are to experience well-being.

Positive Relationships (R) - As humans, we are "social beings," and good relationships are core to our well-being. Time-and-again, we see that people who have meaningful, positive relationships with others are happier than those who do not. Relationships really do matter!

Meaning (M) - Meaning comes from serving a cause bigger than ourselves. Whether this is a specific deity or religion, or a cause that helps humanity in some way, we all need meaning in our lives to have a sense of well-being.

Accomplishment/Achievement (A) - Many of us strive to better ourselves in some way, whether we're seeking to master a skill, achieve a valuable goal, or win in some competitive event. As such, accomplishment is another important thing that contributes to our ability to flourish.

Martin Seligman recommended that we reflect on the quality of our personal and professional life and look for the existence of these five elements. By constantly being aware and taking conscious effort to achieve them, we will live a more satisfying and fulfilling life, be in at home or in our workplace.

Personal Productivity Tips - How to Have the Growth Mindset

Managing Our Emotions

All of us have said things that we regretted later on in our moment of emotional outbursts. We say nasty things that we don’t really mean. Sometimes the damage is reversible. Other times, the bridge is burned and friendships are lost forever.

Renowned psychologist, Dr Rob Yeung in his book ‘Confidence – The Power to Take Control and Live the Life You Want’ suggested the FAÇADe technique to manage our emotions (such as anger, lack of confidence, shame) better. He suggested that when we are stuck in our emotional ‘hole’, pick up a pen and paper and go through the FACADe technique below;

Feelings – After we have calmed down, list the emotions that we are experiencing at the moment such as anger, anxiety, shame, despair, etc. Give each feeling a score from 0 to 10 depending on how strong we feel it.

Actions - Write down how our behavior changed because of the feelings that we feel. For example, when we feel angry, we may want to confront the person and give him a piece of our mind or when we feel despair, we want to go and finish that extra-large ice-cream in the refrigerator.

Circumstances – Describe the situations or circumstances that trigger our feelings. It could be something that we remember from the past, things that are happening now or our anticipation of the future. It could also be an event or someone. Write down anything that make us upset.

ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) – Next, write down the thoughts and beliefs that popped into our mind when we feel the emotions. What are the dialogues that we say to ourselves at that moment? Do we say, “I am hopeless”, “They must think that I am a loser”, “What an idiot!”, etc?

Defects – Lastly, search for the flaws or defects in our thoughts. Re-look at the ANTs above and rate how far we actually believe them to be true. Use the 0-10 scale. Think of constructive and compassionate thoughts to challenge the ANTs. If our ANTs says that we are not good in public speaking, we can challenge it by saying “All good public speakers start as bad public speakers first”.

I must admit that it took me a while to get used to this FACADe technique. However, after a few sessions, it becomes easier and has helped me to reframe and relook at my emotions from a different angle. So, the next time you are in your emotional ‘hole’, use this technique and you will be surprised at the results.