Collin County Living Well Magazine November/December 2017 | Page 37

and physical health. While quitting
should not be your first choice—es-
pecially because it isn’t wise to make
big decisions during seasons of se-
vere emotional stress—it should be
considered if it is impossible to do
your job without burnout continuing.
Connecting with a wise and experi-
enced counselor who can monitor your
health, connect you with a psycholo-
gist if medication is needed and be a
safe place to talk about what causes
you stress and how to move forward.
Do the hard work of looking at your-
self and your situation to figure out the
sources of stress and how they can be
alleviated. Because, if you don’t ad-
dress what’s ‘broken down’ in your
current situation, your problems will
follow you in the next job/role/career.
Take a break from the rat race.
The amount of time you can take off
from work will vary depending on
your job, benefits, etc., but you must
take some time off. If you can take an
extended vacation or sabbatical, even
a medical leave of absence, do it. The
hard part will be focusing on you, not
work, during this time. Simple rest and
nourishment can go a long way to
finding yourself after burnout.
How can to burnout from hap-
pening again? Learn how to deal
with stress healthily, and make lots of
room for good in your life. Once you
have done the hard work of beginning
to recover from burnout, the simplest
way to prevent it from happening is
to keep making these better choices.
You got into burnout in part because of
choices you made. You can get out of
burnout by learning to make different,
better choices. And you can stay out
of burnout by continuing to make those
choices, and growing in them.
You can shine and have joy once
again. Burnout is the result of ongoing,
increasing stress. It accumulated be-
cause of circumstances and choices.
You can make different choices that,
over time, will alleviate the stress and
make you whole again.
Rachele Slotman graduated from Hope College with a degree in psychology and received her M.A.
in Education in College Student Affairs Leadership from Grand Valley. She enjoys spending
time with her family, playing games, cooking and doing house projects.
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