Preventing Burnout: 4 Strategies to Cultivate Your Energy and Engagement

A reported 52% of Americans state they experienced burnout at work in a 2021 study by Indeed (Threlkeld, 2021). The number is even higher for millennials, taking the burnout cake at 59%. The study’s authors recommend employers encourage the use of time off, cultivate work-life balance, and re-evaluate benefits.

But how can you, as an employee, mitigate your own levels of stress and burnout? Here are some tips to cultivate your energy and well-being at work and beyond, all year long.

1. Do an energy audit

Time management works when you have sufficient energy to get through your task list. However, what do you do when you don’t have the energy to complete these tasks? Tackling your personal energy "vampires," such as stress, anxiety, or poor lifestyle habits, can help you ensure that you get your tasks done in a reasonable timeframe.

Though our lives have real and tangible concerns and challenges, a disproportionate fear response can cause more harm than good. Practicing mindfulness and perspective-taking can help you find a more constructive use of fear to motivate action and performance with fewer downsides.

Also, some tasks just seem like they require more energy than they should. The tasks I dread, like doing my taxes, take an excessive amount of effort given the size of the task.

Which activities in your job and/or life feel draining versus invigorating? Strategize ways to do more invigorating tasks and fewer chores that sap your energy.

Conversations with your co-workers, friends, and family could help you to determine whether you can task-swap, or move into roles that are more energizing and inspiring. After all, the chore that you dread may be fun for someone else.

To go further: Employ resources such as the Navigating Anxiety, Consciously Creating Wellness, or Relationship Wellbeing module from the Foundation for Family and Community Healing to develop these, and other energy-building skills.

2. Assess and employ your strengths

According to the Gallup organization (Wigert, 2020), 76% of employees experience burnout at some point in their life, and 28% are often or always burned out. One way to combat burnout is to improve engagement in the workplace by focusing on your strengths. Focusing on your strengths invites you on a more authentic path to grow.

For example, if I struggle with detail-oriented tasks like doing my taxes, I can use my Gallup strengths called Strategic and Relator to set up the circumstances that would make doing my taxes more tolerable. With a loved one last year, we did our taxes together over Zoom. I didn’t force myself to act like a detail-loving person, but instead tapped into other strengths to motivate me to do this task.

To go further: You can discover your strengths via Gallup Strengthsfinder’s strengths assessment (gallup.com) or the Values In Action assessment at viainstitute.org. Once you’ve discovered them, FFCH’s Happiness 101 module can also help you optimize the use of your strengths.

3. Nurture your passion

We all have areas of passion, though we may not be able to leverage them at work or use them to make a living (yet). However, we can each cultivate our passions, bringing satisfaction, energy, and positive emotion into our lives. Investing in these activities through volunteering, for example, can energize your soul and may be a source of fuel elsewhere in your life. Ongoing investment in your passions also provides a pathway to grow your experience and ability until you can turn that avocation into a vocation.

“Follow your bliss” –Joseph Campbell

4. Avoid the martyr complex

People who have a martyr complex may self-sacrifice at their own expense (Belanger et al, 2014). Yes, prioritizing others is a virtue, until it causes harm to oneself. According to researcher Adam Grant (2013), people who give excessively and unwisely tend to be the least successful group, whereas wise givers are the most successful. Wise givers offer help that feels generative and rewarding to them, and abstain when the activity feels depleting. In this way, your generosity becomes a win-win-win, because you will also enjoy the emotional benefit of generosity.

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The common denominator of these strategies involves having self-knowledge and self-awareness, and aligning your life with your authentic self. Recognizing and caring for your unique self improves the odds that you can tap into the energy needed to fuel your dreams.