Five Tips for Avoiding End-of-Year Burnout

By Asanka Gunasekara, Ph.D., and Melissa Wheeler, Ph.D.

We often feel exhausted towards the end of the year as we are working tirelessly to tick off all the items on the work-to-do list. On the other hand, the family and friend to-do list extends to Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, meal planning, holiday activities, and many other things. No wonder there’s nothing left in the tank.

Burnout is loosely described as a feeling of mental and physical exhaustion. More precisely, Christina Maslash defines burnout as a psychological state that emerges because of prolonged job stressors. Feelings of exhaustion, disengagement, ineffectiveness, cynicism, and a sense of moving with no motivation or meaning are what we experience with burnout.

Photo by Tara Winstead/Pexels

Even though end-of-year burnout results from chronic and unmanaged workplace stress, we cannot section it off and prevent it from treading on different domains in our lives (that is, work, family, community, or private self). We experience end-of-year burnout not just because of stress at work but also because of our other commitments, values, beliefs, goals, and attitudes. Burnout is devastating and has negative psychological (for example, getting angry easily), relational (for example, stressing out with loved ones), and physical consequences (for example, high blood pressure).

5 Tips to Avoid Burnout

It's time to be proactive. Here are some tips to cope with end-of-year burnout.

• Challenge self-victimizing: We encourage people to challenge the burnout one-upping that occurs on social media and in chats with friends and colleagues. Bragging about how burned out you are, how hard or late or long you are working perpetuates the need to always seem busy or be doing more and it puts pressure on others to compete with these norms and match these hyperbolic narratives. Instead, we should challenge this bragging or self-victimizing by encouraging our friends and colleagues to seek self-care opportunities and to role model healthy work-life balance or integration in our own lives.
• There are approaches that encourage us to value all the parts of our lives (not just work). As our research has shown, augmenting one aspect, such as self-care, creates a spillover effect to other domains like work. With this, employers should support self-care for the betterment of the employee as a whole person and what well person can contribute to work versus someone approaching burnout.
• Agency: We are the owners of our karma. Taking the reins of our well-being by aiming to start afresh in the new year (not from a point of deficit) is something we can do for ourselves. Take a break, use mindfulness practices, and focus on how you feel. Deep breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, spending time outdoors, and prioritizing sleep are some ways that we can manage the feeling of burnout. Find what makes you happy, the things that fill your cup, and prioritize them.
• Mindset: We all live in an imperfect world, and so, we cannot be perfect in everything we do. Be realistic with expectations. It’s okay to be good enough and not achieve perfection in everything we do. Accepting our limits will help readjust our goals and attitudes. Stop and celebrate wins instead of dwelling on what you did not complete.
• Sense of urgency: This has become a norm in the modern world; whether it's responding to a text message or completing a demanding task. The pervasive sense of urgency is overwhelming. Over the holidays, you might like to consider a digital detox by unplugging from technology and reconnecting with family, friends, our communities, and ourselves.

As we end the year, let's be more agentic, less self-victimizing, more mindful, more holistic, and less urgent. Only then will we enter the new year refreshed and re-energized.

Asanka Gunasekara, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the School of Management at RMIT University in Australia.