Burnout Part 3

In part three of the burnout series on the Christian Career Coach podcast, the host discusses effective coping mechanisms for dealing with burnout. The four coping mechanisms mentioned are prioritizing self-care, seeking social support, embracing mindfulness, and setting realistic goals. The host emphasizes the importance of making time for activities that nourish the body, mind, and spirit, setting boundaries, and practicing self-compassion. Seeking social support and cultivating meaningful relationships is encouraged, along with engaging in open and honest conversations. Embracing mindfulness through practices like deep breathing exercises and body scans can help reduce stress and promote inner peace. Finally, setting realistic goals and breaking tasks into manageable steps can help reduce feelings of overwhelm and increase productivity. The host suggests aligning goals with current capabilities and circumstances, and celebrating small victories along the way. The episode concludes w Part three guys, this is part three of our burnout series. I hope you have enjoyed the first two episodes all about burnout. Today's episode is really going to be about how to implement some effective coping mechanisms. So what are some ways, some things that you can do to cope with the burnout that you are experiencing? So let's dive into today's episode. Hey there, you professional, ambitious, working mama. Welcome to the Christian Career Coach Podcast. Do you want to achieve remarkable success and experience unwavering faith in your professional journey? Do you find yourself up late at night searching for answers on how to make more money, maintain a positive work-life balance, and achieve exponential career growth? Do you wake up with big ambitious goals only to feel overwhelmed and uncertain when faced with setbacks, frustrations, and unexpected challenges? Well, you're in the right place. I'm Susan Edwards, and on this podcast, we tackle those exact concerns head on. We dive deep into strategies to propel your income, accelerate your career growth, and help you align your work with your faith. So if you're tired of feeling stuck and you're ready to embrace extraordinary success, unwavering faith, and a purposeful life, then join me on the Christian Career Coach Podcast. Together, we'll navigate the obstacles, find clarity amidst chaos, and unlock your true potential. Get ready for inspiration, actionable advice, and powerful insights that will empower you to conquer your fears and create the fulfilling career you've always dreamed of. Let's walk this transformative journey together. Welcome to the Christian Career Coach Podcast where ambition meets faith and your dreams find their wings. Hey, hey, friends. Welcome back. Welcome back. We've got part three today of our burnout series. It's the third part of a four-part series. And I am super excited that you are here with me and listening to today's episode because this is going to be a good one. We are diving into some effective coping mechanisms. So how do you deal with the burnout once you have recognized it and you have a good understanding of where it's coming from? So what can you do to be resilient and overcome this situation? So I've got another list for you. I've got four different coping mechanisms. The four mechanisms that I have for you today is prioritizing self-care, seeking social support, embracing mindfulness, and setting realistic goals. Now let's break each one of those down. Okay, number one being prioritizing self-care. This may seem simple to many, but let's really break it down and explain what it means. You've got to make time for activities that nourish your body, your mind, and spirit. That could be exercise. It could be meditation. It could be any hobbies that you're into. Another thing that you need to do is to set boundaries so that you can protect your physical and your emotional well-being. This is going to include sometimes having to say no to those excessive demands and carve out some time for those restorative activities that we just talked about, exercise, meditation, any kind of hobbies that you have. And then finally, practice some self-compassion and acknowledge that you have limitations and do that without judging. Don't judge yourself if you're not able to check every box. Be gentle to yourself because you are either your worst critic or your biggest cheerleader. And so it's important that if you find yourself in that routine of criticizing yourself, just know that everybody has their limitations. And if you're able to recognize and acknowledge what your limitations are, you're able to set up better boundaries. You're going to know better when to say no, when you've had enough, when that limit has been reached. So that's number one on our list of prioritizing self-care. The second thing on the list today is to seek social support. The Bible tells us that we are not meant to live this life alone. And so this is extremely important for our well-being. It's important that you connect with friends, family, support groups, anybody that can offer empathy, encouragement, and overall just a listening ear. It's also important that you cultivate meaningful relationships, not just knowing a lot of people and having a lot of friends. I say that in quotation marks, you know, air quotes, because are they friends or are they acquaintances? Meaningful friendships allow you to be vulnerable and give you the opportunity to share things and open up your life in a way that is trusting and safe in an environment, in a way that it's reciprocal, too. So, you know, when you have a best friend, you're able to share these stories. They know about your past, even though they may not have even known you in the past. But when you have those meaningful relationships, it is definitely beneficial. These friendships also provide comfort and perspective any time that you're going through big challenges. So if you get fired from a job, if your spouse loses their position, if they get demoted, if a family member passes away, you know, if you have those downtimes in life, you're supposed to have those downtimes, first of all. But having somebody that you can talk to about those downtimes allows for you to be able to cope with situations like burnout more easily. And then don't forget, engage in open and honest conversations. You know, this goes back to what I was saying about just the superficial, not real friendships. If you can open up about your struggles and allow others to be there for you, to offer support, to lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on, you will feel so much better after that conversation. Even though the conversation is usually pretty heavy, when you have a confidant, somebody that you can share that information with, you don't feel so alone in the problem anymore. And so whether that's being burned out or something even more serious, I would highly, highly recommend having that social support, that social network in your life, especially to help you get through burnout. So number three on my list is to embrace mindfulness. If you can incorporate mindfulness practices into your daily routine, such as deep breathing exercises, body scans, you know, where you start at your toes or you start at your fingers or you start at the tip of your head, and you just go and you feel every single relax your head, relax your eyes, relax your eyelids. What about the muscles in your face, the muscles in your cheeks? And then you work your way all the way down from every single body part. That's a body scan that allows you to internalize and bring everything in to you and get you centralized and almost a state of meditation, which is a practice. It's a practice of mindfulness. So I know it kind of sounds redundant to say that, but really anything dealing with meditation or just deep breathing, feeling the feelings that you're having, you know, whether they're good, they're bad, whatever they are, feel them, acknowledge feeling them, recognize them. All of that is mindfulness. If you can cultivate a present moment awareness, and then don't judge. It's got to be a nonjudgmental acceptance of your thoughts and feelings. It definitely will help you to reduce stress, and it's going to promote that inner peace, the same way that when you read scripture and you stop and you think that God has got this, God is going to handle this for you. It is such a peaceful feeling. So I encourage you to try some of these mindfulness practices. If you're not familiar with any of these, then just do a little Google search. Jump on YouTube and look up some videos. Jump on DuckDuckGo and see, you know, what you can find, you know, just searching for mindful meditation or what is a body scan in a mindful practice or short breathing exercises for peace. You know, that's some examples of things that you can search for in those search engines. And then the last thing on my list today is to set realistic goals. If you can break tasks into manageable steps and prioritize the most important responsibilities, this will tremendously reduce those feelings of overwhelm, and it's going to help increase your productivity. This is an old trick. You know, they say, like, if you put the big picture on a piece of paper and then you break that big picture down into a bunch of small pictures, that's what you do with your goals. You know, you've got, okay, my goal is I want to make $100,000 this year. Well, what does that mean on a monthly basis? Okay, what does that mean on a weekly basis? And on a daily basis, what do I need to do to achieve a certain number to get me to that $100,000 number per year? That's what it means to break down those tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks. And definitely don't forget to celebrate your small victories and your progress along the way, because all that does is reinforces a sense of accomplishment and motivation, and it helps you get to that bigger goal at the end. If you need to adjust the goals and the expectations, sometimes your plans change. Life's life, and things come up that prevent you from getting to a specific goal that you may have had in mind when things were different. And maybe that changes your priorities. Maybe that changes the way you feel about things. And so you always need to align your expectations and your goals with your current capabilities and circumstances. That's going to help you foster that sense of control and flexibility. So, again, these are the four things that I've got about the, you know, coping mechanisms. And how do we actually implement these coping mechanisms to help us deal with burnout and exhaustion? So, number one, again, was to prioritize self-care. Number two was to seek social support. Number three is to embrace mindfulness. And number four is to set realistic goals. A Bible verse that really stands out when you think about this is from Philippians chapter 4, verse 6, and it says, But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. This verse reminds us to lean on our faith and prayer during those times of stress and uncertainty. If we can surrender our worries and our burdens to God, to our higher power, we will find peace and strength to persevere through challenges, including burnout. So I just want to conclude today by saying that, you know, coping with burnout, it does require a holistic approach that addresses physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of our well-being. By prioritizing self-care, seeking social support, embracing mindfulness, and setting realistic goals, we can cultivate resilience and find renewal amidst exhaustion. So I hope you join me for the next episode as we get to part four of our four-part series. And that's where we're going to be exploring strategies for creating a sustainable work-life balance so that we're not just preventing burnout as we are now, but we can prevent burnout in the long term. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I will see you in the next one. Hey there, Ambitious Mama, I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Christian Career Coach Podcast. If it resonated with you and provided valuable insights, I'd love for you to take just 30 seconds and share this episode with a fellow Christian professional who may benefit from the career advice and inspiration. Together, we can uplift and empower more women on their professional journeys. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Oh, and one more thing that would mean the world to me. Could you leave a review? Your feedback and support light me up and let me know that this podcast is making a positive impact in your life. As we continue this journey together, remember that you're not alone. I understand the joys and challenges of being an ambitious mama, and I'm here to cheer you on every step of the way. So march your calendar, because I'll meet you back here next Tuesday for another episode filled with valuable insights and practical tips. Until then, keep chasing your dreams, balancing your roles with grace, and shining brightly in your career and family life. Oh,