Are you prone to doing too much?  Not having adequate boundaries in place?  Is ‘yes’ your favourite word, and does saying ‘no’ leave you feeling inadequate and fearful?

You’re not alone.

One of the keys to creating a healthy life, is to get the balance right between how much time you spend working, and how you behave when at work, and how much time you spend living.

Too much of one and not enough of the other can leave us feeling drained, anxious, and exhausted. 

I wanted to share 5 things to be aware of which will help put your life (and work) into a more healthy balance, thus avoiding burnout.

1. Values alignment.  Have you ever considered the extent to which your work aligns with your core values?  Have you even considered what your values are?  These are particularly important in the charity sector, where the vast majority of employees are motivated by the cause of the organisation they work for.  However, too much motivation can tip the scales out of balance.

• Intrinsic motivation.  Aligned to 1. above, intrinsic motivation is a drive which comes from within.  Money, fame, and power are all external motivators, wanting to make a difference and caring for others are internal.  They energise, but past a certain point they drain us of energy as we put the hours in above and beyond.   

• Performance focus.  What are the performance expectations of your role? Are speed and accuracy important?  How often does your manager have to speak to you about how you’re performing?  Are you stuck doing the ‘same old, same old’ – you know what you’re doing, but it’s become boring and repetitive, and there’s a high focus on performance.

• Growth focus – how long you spend on new, unfamiliar tasks which develop you, and where you have invest more energy to learn how to do them.  What’s the balance of your role in terms of being expected to take on board new tasks, ones which are interesting and exciting but where you have to invest time and energy in learning them.

• Burnout risk – this is expressed as the extent to which you are working in unsustainable ways.  Taking all the above into account.  Are you on the edge of burnout or is it a long way off?  Thinking about your risk now, before you get to that point, can save a lot of emotional and physical pain down the line.

Burnout creeps up on us, and if we don’t take steps to notice and monitor it will gradually drain and deplete your resources.

Thinking about the 5 areas above, and reflecting on what these mean to you, is a good step towards discovering and rebalancing your life and work.