7 Steps to Recover from Engineering Burnout - Advice from an Engineering Manager
Burnout isn't just a figure of speech, it's a real problem that affects your attitude, your energy, your quality of work, your personal relationships, and basically your overall quality of life.
The longer you ignore it, the harder it is to break out of the burnout cycle and recover. But don't worry, because in this video I'm gonna help you build your own burnout recovery plan. Stay tuned.
Before I begin, you're probably wondering, who is this guy and why should I listen to him? I'm Doug Howard. I'm a licensed structural engineer and engineering manager, and I started this YouTube channel to serve my biggest passion, is helping engineers like you develop all the non-engineering skills needed to elevate your life personally and professionally. I release a new episode every week, so if you're an engineer who wants to put your career on an accelerated path, then go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
What is Burnout?
By the end of today's episode, you're gonna build a simple burnout recovery plan that you can begin putting into action today. But I wanna start by explaining what burnout actually is and why it happens, so that you can understand the why's behind each step that we go over in the recovery plan.
The scary thing with burnout is that it's difficult to describe, but according to a Deloitte survey, three out of four people say that they've experienced burnout in their current job. a pretty alarming statistic when you consider that burnout technically isn't really considered to be a diagnosable medical condition.
The APA dictionary of psychology defines burnout as physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion, accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes towards oneself and others. In other words, you're basically too exhausted to function, which means your intelligence, your judgment, your decision making, and pretty much everything else that makes you, you is either compromised or impaired. Basically to sum it all up, you're not yourself, and because of this, you may not even realize that you're burning out until it's too late. But some of the key signs you can look for are fatigue, apathy, headaches, and just generally feeling dissatisfied with your work and kind of everything.
Now, if being burnt out means you're too exhausted to function, then that means the only way to recover is through rest, which means you have to quit your job, ignore all your responsibilities, and do nothing but veg out for a few months until you feel back to normal. Okay - that's probably not a realistic option for most people, which is why we're gonna go through building your burnout recovery plan with the rest of the time in this episode. Now, your burnout recovery plan has seven steps. But first, do you have any questions about what burnout is or what causes it? If you do, let me know in the comments.
Recover from burnout - Step 1
Step one of your burnout recovery plan is tightening up your routine. There's a good chance your current schedule and routine aren't giving you everything you need to recover from burnout.
The main purpose of schedules and routines is to create a framework for making things predictable and reducing the amount of decisions that you have to make every day. This is important because making a decision in the moment requires a lot more energy and discipline than making a decision in advance.
And this goes for all types of decisions, even little ones like choosing which clothes you're gonna wear in the morning. When your schedule falls out of whack, it can create decision fatigue. You can alleviate this by creating a schedule that pre-makes as many decisions as possible while giving you everything you need to recover.
I'm gonna make it easy for you to do this by building your Burnout Recovery Plan into your new schedule as we walk through steps two through seven.
Recover from burnout - Step 2
The second step of your Burnout recovery plan is cancel all non-essential activities. You know, you're most likely a very responsible and helpful person who finds it really hard to say no to things.
Sometimes you just need a break from it all. So take a look at your calendar and cancel anything that isn't essential or required from you. If there's a work meeting you don't need to be at, make an excuse to get out of it. If you have plans to meet up with a friend, push it out for a few weeks. If you said yes to too many little projects, try to find a way to offload as many of them as you can. You're doing this for two reasons. The first reason is to give yourself a little break from the things that are draining you. The second reason is to clear more space in your schedule for the things that you need to be doing to recover and heal from burnout.
Recover from burnout - Step 3
Step three is you need to get some alone time. If you're an introverted person, then you need alone time when you're stressed out. Overstimulation and being around people basically drains your energy, which means you need quiet and alone time to clear your mind. You can use this time to read, meditate, reflect, think sort out problems, organize stuff. Anything is fine as long as it's alone and it's quiet. A good exercise you could do in your alone time is mentally revisit places that you loved when you were a kid, or mentally revisit fond memories you have. Aim to visualize those experiences in as much detail as you can. What did it look like? What did it smell like? What were the feelings, the tastes, any other sensations? Try to mentally rep picture those things in as much detail as possible. Now, to make sure you give yourself the quiet time that you need, schedule it into your calendar every day. You know, consider it a commitment and hold this time sacred. If someone asks you to do something during this timeframe, respectfully say no.
Now on the other hand, if you're an extroverted person, then the opposite of what I just said is true, because extroverted people gain energy by being around other people and engaging with them. They want to hear other people's stories and learn from them.
So if you're an extroverted person, then carve out time on your calendar for more social engagements. Make it a goal to do at least one purely social activity every day for a few could be as small as calling a family member or meeting a friend for drinks, or it could be bigger, like going to a concert or a festival or a party.
Recover from Burnout - Step 4
Step four is my favorite one. It's binge watch your favorite childhood movies and tv shows. Have you ever noticed how you randomly crave watching your favorite movies and TV shows from your childhood whenever you're stressed out? You may even crave some of your favorite foods and meals from your childhood too. What's really happening is that your brain is craving predictable outcomes, and it's craving things that it's familiar with. It's basically craving comfort. This is where the term comfort food actually comes from.
This happens because when you're burned out, your body is exhausted from chaos and problem solving and overstimulation. The only way to heal and recover is by reducing the amount of new information you take in for a while. Also, you need to give your brain more predictable outcomes to relieve the stress.
Favorite movies and TV shows from your childhood are extremely predictable to you. You know, you know exactly what's going to happen and it provides you with a sense of stability and structure and security, which is why you crave watching them when you're under stress.
Comfort is what your body and your brain needs when it's under stress. But after you've recovered from burnout, too much comfort is actually really bad for you because it prevents you from growing. Now, if you wanna learn more about this, then check out my episode called “Why You Need To Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone”.
Getting back to your burnout recovery plan, you know the key is to go with movies or TV shows that you know very well. So over the next few weeks, build at least three or four hours into your weekly schedule to watch your favorite movies and TV shows.
Recover from burnout - Step 5
Step five is journaling for 15 to 30 minutes a day. When you're burned out, your mind is all over the place. You know it's sorting through unresolved questions, problems, and emotions, but you can flesh this out through journaling. Every time you're feeling off, whether it's stress, anxiety, anger, or even if you're just feeling a little unsettled, grab a journal and explore what's bothering you.
Ask yourself probing questions like, what am I feeling right now? Why do I feel this way? Are these feelings based on facts or assumptions? Keep probing yourself until you get to the bottom of what's causing you to feel this way. Start journaling every day for at least 15 to 30 minutes, and I recommend doing it either first thing in the morning when your head's clear, or about an hour before you go to bed, so that you can clear your mind before you go to sleep.
Recover from burnout - Step 6
Step six is exercise at least four times per week. So exercise obviously has tons of health benefits, but I'm just gonna focus on how exercising helps with burnout in this episode. If you are burned out, odds are you probably don't feel like exercising because you're constantly feeling fatigued and exhausted.
The irony is that when you exercise. You actually gain more energy and motivation in every area of your life. I don't mean this figuratively, exercise is scientifically proven to reduce stress by releasing stress, reducing endorphins into your brain, which also reduces fatigue, and it improves your alertness, your concentration, and it basically enhances your overall cognitive function.
So carve out time in your schedule to exercise at least four times a week. If you're not someone who exercises regularly, start small, just go for a walk, a 30 minute walk or a one or two mile walk a couple times a week, four times a week. Start small and work your way up. Carve out time in your schedule to exercise at least four times a week.
Quick sidebar, a lot of engineers keep asking me about burnout lately. If you want me to create more episodes related to burnout, let me know, by hitting that like button.
Recover from burnout - Step 7
The seventh and last step in your burnout recovery plan is you need to invest in a new hobby, interest, or activity. You probably have an overwhelming sense of duty to your family, your friends, your community, and maybe even your work. And that makes it really easy for you to become overloaded, and it causes you to ignore your own personal needs, interests, and the issues in your life.
But if this goes on for too long, it can be damaging to your health, which is why you need to intentionally invest time in pursuing interests, hobbies, and leisure activities that push you outside of your comfort zone and stimulate your mind and foster growth. But it has to be something that you want to do, that piques your interest and gets you excited.
Something that doesn't feel difficult, something that doesn't feel like work. It has to be something that you actually want to do and not something that you have to do.
Spend some time brainstorming a new hobby, interest, or activity that piques your interest. Maybe it's a do-it-yourself project or an arts and craft project, or maybe there's a musical instrument you always wanted to learn how to play, or maybe you want to take up learning a new language. Once you've picked something, brainstorm a handful of actionable steps you can take to begin exploring your new interest. Then begin carving out at least an hour or two into your schedule each week so that you can dedicate time to this new hobby or interest or activity. If you're struggling with burnout, please put this burnout recovery plan into action soon. Get started today if possible, because the longer you wait, the harder it will be to break out of the burnout cycle. I know from experience. Speaking of my experience, I think this burnout plan is pretty complete.
I used this to recover from burnout a while ago, but I wanna know if you have any other suggestions for how you've recovered from burnout. Please share your thoughts in the comments. Your suggestion might be the exact solution someone needs. Thanks for reading.
