Triaging Burnout and maintaining emotional stability at work
Managing and harnessing your emotions before they get the best of you has always been a useful skill, but it’s never been more vital
Ben McCormick wrote a very short post that I thought was very good. He talks about using a simple question to triage whether or not you are headed towards burnout. The question is:
If you take the pace & quality of the last 2 months of your life and repeated it again and again, how long would you be able to sustain it?
This is a great question to ask. yourself and examine the answer. Our work lives are not always super steady in pace and effort. Quite often there are large time periods of uncertainty and extended work hours. This is unsustainable. Doing unsustainable things for short periods of time is fine. But you must examine the cost of that with everything else in your life. The time at work coming at the cost of time with family and friends, over an extended period of time, can have lasting consequences. It can also lead you to make decisions that are more a result of your frustration in the moment, rather than what is a good longer term outcome.
And the on-going global pandemic is definitely cause to put your emotions on a higher priority. Pausing to examine your emotions, and reflecting on them and carefully responding to them is key to a successful career, not just in software but in any field.
I thought this article on 6 Small Steps for Handling the Emotional Ups and Downs at Work provided great tactical advice on handling emotions at work. What are those 6 steps?
Use this checklist to process uncomfortable situations and build belief in your future self
Recognize when you’re in a spiral — and untangle yourself
Clear through the emotional fog with labels, intentions and scaling questions. Scaling questions can look like the one above from Ben McCormick
Give priority to your personal relationships outside of work
Prime yourself to see more than what triggers an emotional / negative response
Learn how to fight
I think the article is a must read. Your career is a marathon not a sprint. For success in your career marathon, long term emotional maturity is important. Knowing yourself, and learning about your emotional response and then bringing them under your control so that they work for you and not the other way round, is a sure shot way to excel!
Lastly, I thought this article by Damian Schenkelman was a good one to look at. The fundamental tenet that Damian talks about it:
The biggest decisions about your career are often made when you’re not in the room
When this happens, how do you ensure you have some influence on the opportunities that might come your way. Check out Damian’s article to learn more.