Burnout:
What exactly is it?
Burnout
is a term to help us understand a phenomenon that happens to people
who work with people. It is a state of being that results from
giving more of ourselves emotionally than we receive back. There
are three antecedents to burnout. First, in ministering to
people, we are often exposed to those in the midst of problems that
are highly emotional. Exposure to highly emotional situations
produces and emotional responsiveness in us. It's this repeated
kind of exposure that can be very draining and is what I would call an
occupational hazard for us in the helping professions.
Second,
there are personality characteristics in those of us who choose a
helping profession. We are usually idealistic, sensitive and
empathetic people who desire to help those who suffer. These
characteristics are assets in our ministries, but they can also make
us vulnerable to burnout.
Third,
our professional presence is justified by our serving. We are in
a complementary relationship. In a symmetrical relationship, the
emotional support goes two ways, we receive as well as give. In
a complementary relationship, we have to be on top of the situation
and give what is needed by the other person. These three
antecedents of burnout work together to make anybody vulnerable to
burnout under certain conditions.
What
are some of the symptoms of burnout: Major symptoms include a
general sense of mental ill-being, with a sense of of hopelessness and
helplessness. There are too many things that are out of
control. Physical, emotional and mental exhaustion are
characteristic of burnout. For more explicit signs of burnout
and for a rough test to determine if you are experiencing burnout,
complete the test section you can access at the end of this article.
Where
is the source of burnout? Where we perceive the source of
burnout has tremendous consequences on how we handle it. If we
perceive the source as being in ourselves, we may experience
self-condemnation and attempt to change ourselves. If we were
the source, this might work fine. However, with burnout, we are
not the source. The sources is our situation. The fact is,
just about anyone will burn out under certain conditions. It is
for this reason that burnout is different than depression or mid-life
crisis, which has its cause rooted more in our personal history.
Burnout is caused by environmental factors. Burnout also differs
from normal fatigue in that fatigue is a good kind of
"tired" with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
What
can be done about burnout? If we go back to the first antecedent
of burnout, being exposed to people in highly emotional states, we
will find environmental states, we will find environmental factors
that can be changed with little effort. These changes can reduce
our exposure to stress and give us time to recoup and regain our own
emotional equilibrium. Let's look at some of these potential
changes.
When
we spend time intimately involved in ministries to people, we need to
balance it with times of distance. Set aside blocks of time in
our schedule in which we will not see anybody. This time can be
used for study, sermon preparation, working out some problems in the
ministry we're facing or even just some down time to relax and
recoup. This time can also be used to keep ourselves on tract in
the ministry by establishing and maintaining clear, achieveable and
measureable goals. Having a plan to reach these goals and then
working your plan can give you a sense of accomplishment and
significance. Taking time to plan our day in the light of these
goals will help us live out our priorities and achieve our
goals. Taking time to prioritize out daily activities increases
our efficiency.
For the Conclusion
