HAVE YOU EVER HEARD a little voice in your head say, “I’m not sure how much longer I can go on like this?”
Have you ever been cynical or sarcastic as it relates to patient care delivery. Do you feel like you must vent before you see a patient. If you’re critical or sarcastic before you see a patient, you are experiencing depersonalization.
Have you ever said, “what’s the use” “my work isn’t making a difference.” This is known as lack of self-efficacy.
If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you are on the cliff edge of burnout.
Mental and physical exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of self-efficacy are the three cardinal signs of burnout.
For some the three cardinal signs of burnout aren’t well known.
And naming something such as burnout makes it real.
Claiming what you feel, how you feel, and acknowledging the signs of burnout helps you better understand your feelings and assists you in taking control of your emotions.
Burnout does not happen overnight in fact it has a slow onset brought on by daily stressors.
Below I’ve listed steps you can take on your own once you’ve named and claimed your burnout.
- Prioritize self-care. Start with good nutrition, good sleep hygiene, exercise, establish meaningful social connections, and consider journaling. If you are crunched for time, create a self-care calendar and block time for yourself. Blocking time will help you find opportunities to limit your exposure to tasks, people, and situations that aren’t essential and drain your energy. Blocking time will increase your investment in people that boost your energy and fill you up. (Don’t waste energy conserve energy.)
- Assess your mindset. Look for the good in everything and everyone including looking for the good in yourself. Don’t make assumptions or get stuck in the past or paralyzed by what future holds. Stay grounded in the moment. AND always calm your own storm. When you remain calm you react using intellect not emotions.
- Practice gratitude. Each night before you go to sleep make a gratitude vow. Say out loud three things that you are grateful for. Host a gratitude huddle and ask everyone in the huddle to state one thing they are grateful for.
- Create meaningful connections. Find a mentor or coach that inspires you and helps you grown personally and professionally.
I am grateful to be a nurse, I am grateful for all the great nurses that coached and mentored me, I am grateful to share a few tips with you.
Nurses, name, claim, and tame burnout. As superhumans we make the impossible, possible.
