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

that no job is worth your mental and
physical health. While quitting should
not be your first choice—especially
because it isn’t wise to make big deci-
sions during seasons of severe emo-
tional stress—it should be considered
if it is impossible to do your job with-
out 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 choic-
es. 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 because of circum-
stances and choices. You can make differ-
ent 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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